States of Becoming

On Thursday, October 26 at 5 p.m., the CADVC presents a conversation with the curator, Fitsum Shebeshe, and Jessica Bell Brown, curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The discussion, moderated by Rhea Beckett, founding director at Black Artist Research Space, will focus on curatorial approaches to African diasporic experience and migration.

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Fitsum Shebeshe is a curator and painter based in Baltimore and Washington D.C., and curator of States of Becoming, touring with Independent Curators International. Before moving to the United States in 2016, he was Assistant Curator at the National Museum of Ethiopia. In 2012, Shebeshe co-founded the 1957 Initiative to annually celebrate the liberation of African countries from colonialism through the arts.

Jessica Bell Brown is the Curator and Department Head for Contemporary Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Prior to the BMA she was the Consulting Curator at Gracie Mansion Conservancy in New York, and also held roles at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Creative Time. She is curator of the touring exhibition A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, co-organized with the Mississippi Museum of Art.

Rhea Beckett is an artist, curator, and arts administrator with an extensive performing and visual arts background. She co-founded the Black Artist Research Space (BARS), a Baltimore-based creative collective and incubator. Beckett has served as a Legislative Affairs and Grants Specialist at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, where she played an integral role in supporting the creative community of Washington, D.C., through policy and grant-making. She has served as Registrar of the Howard University art collection and gallery manager of C. Grimaldis Gallery (Baltimore, MD). Rhea earned her BS in Art from Fisk University, where she sang soprano in the Grammy Award-winning Fisk Jubilee Singers. Rhea received her MFA in Curatorial Practice from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Rhea Beckett is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.

Header detail: Gabriel C. Amadi-Emina, Fade Catcher, 2021, Diptych photographic print on museo silver rag adhered flat on wooden panel. Courtesy of the artist. Pink and orange flowers on the left is separated by a yellow void from a floral textile with pink flowers in the center. On the right, handwritten text says, "Who will survive."

Logo: "Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture" in white text inside black rectangle