Elder-in-Residence & Artist-in-Residence

This residency program supports local Baltimore artists in the creation of public art installations, artist talks, and archival research. One Elder in Residence and one Artist in Residence is chosen each year to engage in joint-teaching experiments with non-arts faculty, investigating the synergies between arts practice, justice, public health and social sciences.

Community Archives Fellowship

This fellowship supports collection processing and implementing restorative engagement activities with community stakeholders that rectify past practices of silencing community voices and contribute to the national effort to address historical racial injustice in the library profession. Restorative activities include community archives workshops, consultative meetings, digitization training, focus groups, and decentralized curation.

Curatorial Fellowship for Baltimore Africana Collections

This fellowship funds the creation of physical and virtual exhibitions that are accessible to broad audiences. One such exhibition is the Ethel’s Place: Celebrating Ethel Ennis, Baltimore’s First Lady of Jazz. Devoted to jazz vocalist Ethel Ennis, this exhibition explored each era of the singer’s life and featured over 130 items from the Sheridan Libraries’ Ethel Ennis and Earl Arnett Collection, including photographs, posters, unpublished written arrangements, and audiovisual recordings. In relationship with Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries, we also acquired the aforementioned Billie Holiday collection through which a modular, traveling exhibition titled “The Birth of Jazz, Baltimore’s Billie Holiday” has since been created and showcased across the state of Maryland and beyond. The 2023 Donald Bentley Memorial Lecture located at the Baltimore Museum of Art was devoted to Billie Holiday and featured a lecture, a showcase of archival images, and a cabaret-style concert of Billie Holiday’s songbook.