CABCoFA to Launch Artist Residency Through Transformational CulturalDC Endowment
By Chad Eric Smith, Director of Marketing & Communications, Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts
As was reported by The Washington Post, a new artist residency program will be launched at the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts (CABCoFA), made possible by a $500,000 endowment from CulturalDC. The nonprofit, which has supported historically-excluded artists across Washington, D.C. since 1998, has chosen Howard University as it sunsets its operations—ensuring its mission continues through a university deeply aligned with its values.
Beginning in Fall 2027, CABCoFA will welcome one artist per semester to live, work, and create on campus while receiving housing, studio or rehearsal space, a stipend, and opportunities to exhibit or present their work. The residency is designed to deepen student learning, expand artistic exposure, and empower creatives whose voices have often been excluded from mainstream institutional support.
Kristi Maiselman, CulturalDC’s executive director, told The Washington Post, “We could have conceived no better institution that’s closer to our hearts to continue this work than our neighbors at Howard.” The gift marks the first residency of its kind at CABCoFA and represents “the beginning of a broader vision” to bring additional working artists to campus in the years ahead.
CABCoFA will also partner with Hamiltonian Artists—another D.C.-based arts organization receiving $150,000 from CulturalDC—to ensure that each visiting artist is supported through community engagement, exhibition opportunities, and thought partnership.
As noted in the Post, CulturalDC’s decision comes amid a rapidly shrinking funding landscape for arts and DEI-centered initiatives, following federal cuts and pandemic-era challenges. Yet CABCoFA leaders see the endowment as a powerful affirmation of the University’s enduring mission and its role within the cultural life of the nation.
“This is who we are, and there’s no way we are going to change that or hide who we have long served,” said Dr. Raquel Monroe, dean of CABCoFA. “This gift helps us shine our light even brighter to attract the best and the brightest throughout the African diaspora.”
Dr. Raimi Gbadamosi, chair of the Department of Art, emphasized the impact the residency will have on student experience. “Howard has always been a place where people come to fulfill dreams they could not or were not allowed to pursue anywhere else,” he said. He hopes to attract artists who are wrestling with the cultural and political urgencies of our time and modeling the discipline of daily creative practice.
The residency builds on CulturalDC’s longtime model, which previously offered three-month placements for artists of color, including housing, studio space, and mobile gallery exhibitions. Now, the work continues at CABCoFA—aligned with the legacy of Chadwick Boseman, who as a student fought for a stand-alone fine arts college and whose name the College now proudly bears.
Through this endowment, CABCoFA students will have direct access to an evolving landscape of contemporary creativity—supported by a residency that honors the past, responds to the present, and invests in the future of the arts.
Source: The Washington Post