Monumental Moments
with artpartheid
ARTpartheid is a broad collective of Baltimore-based artists that formed in 2015 in response to racially inequitable funding practices in the arts community. What began as a panel conversation with 300 people, turned into a performance series and Facebook Group open to anyone to post opportunities by and for BIPOC artists.
Over the years, the members and structures have shifted to meet various needs, but a recurring thread has been a conversation series. In 2018, ARTpartheid coordinated a series of healing and processing conversations around the history of Baltimore’s Confederate monuments, and facilitated discussions around what could replace them, supported by a grant from Maryland Humanities. We invited local scholars from organizations like Baltimore Heritage, who published an in-depth resource on Baltimore’s Confederate Monuments, and local arts leaders like Womb Works Baltimore, MICA Place, Jubilee Baltimore, Baltimore Clayworks, Arch Social Club, and The Living Well Center to co-host. Most conversations were led by Baltimore based theater artist and educator Sheila Gaskins, and my role was in securing funding, design, documenting the conversations, and supporting outreach. Below is documentation of the series.
