Barbara Chirinos is the artistic director of the Mary Schmidt Campbell Center for Innovation and the Arts (CI&A) and the LaTanya Richardson Jackson and Samuel L. Jackson Center for the Performing Arts.
With a career spanning over three decades, Chirinos has made her mark through groundbreaking programs, cultural preservation, and advocacy for underrepresented voices. From stage managing U.S. national theatrical tours of iconic Black plays by James Baldwin, George C. Wolfe and August Wilson, etc., working with New York City’s New Federal Theatre, to founding and curating Vancouver’s longest-running Black History Month film series to curating films for the "Drum is Calling," a vibrant, interactive festival of traditional and contemporary Indigenous and cross-cultural films and performances, celebrating Indigenous artists, to producing and managing one of Canada’s largest international music festivals to managing four theatres consecutively, she has championed authentic storytelling across North America.