residency projects

The Small Black Museum Residency Project exists to nurture and elevate artists of African descent whose voices and visions are too often absent from institutional spaces.

small black museum Residency Project (SBMRP)

Founded in 2021, the Small Black Museum Residency Project was created to address a persistent gap in the art world: the lack of access to financial, institutional, and professional resources for artists of African descent. Designed to support both emerging and established artists whose practices are progressive in form and content, the residency centers voices that engage critically with shifting paradigms of race, identity, nation, and place.

By providing dedicated time, space, and resources, the program enables artists to deepen their studio practice, produce new bodies of work, and reach wider audiences through survey, group, or solo exhibitions. Since its inception, the residency has supported a growing network of exceptional artists whose work spans multiple disciplines, from portraiture and installation to sound, film, ceramics, and interactive media.

Past residency artists include Adrian Armstrong, Temitope Olujobi, Hypatia Sorunke, Alexis Hunter, Elisha Luckett, Elizabeth Maria Hudson, Corey De’Juan Sherrard Jr., Nitashia Johnson, and Taylor Barnes. Collectively, their practices illuminate the depth and breadth of contemporary Black art, reflecting the resilience, innovation, and cultural leadership that define the African diaspora’s creative contributions.

By intentionally cultivating a space for experimentation and dialogue, the Small Black Museum Residency Project strengthens the presence of Black artists within a global cultural landscape. Each cohort builds on the vision that inspired the project’s founding: to expand representation, shift narratives, and ensure that the next generation of Black artists has the support necessary to transform both their fields and the communities they serve.

We provide time, support, and resources for artists—emerging or established—whose work reimagines the intersections of race, identity, nation, and place. This residency is for those with a steady studio practice and the drive to create new work that reflects our shifting cultural landscape.