1. Mercedes Cooper, Executive Vice President of Public Programming at ARRAY. (Courtesy ARRAY)

“We actually refer to ourselves as a social impact collective,” says Mercedes Cooper, executive vice president of Public Programming. That mission comes into focus this fall as ARRAY launches “Black Panther x3,” a program set for Oct. 18 as part of the annual ARRAY 360 series. For five weeks, from Oct. 4 through Nov. 8, Los Angeles’ ARRAY Creative Campus will become a hub for films and conversations that invite the public not only to watch but to gather, exchange ideas, and reflect on community.

This year, the programming arrives with the imprint of Cooper’s decade-long commitment to purposeful storytelling. When Ava DuVernay founded ARRAY in 2011, it was a grassroots answer to Hollywood’s inertia—one rooted in dismantling barriers for artists historically left out.