Art Every Day’s 10×10 Exhibit connects young artists and rising arts leaders with collaborative exhibition opportunities, working alongside local curators and arts education advocates. Unity: Through History, Culture & Space sparks creative discourse in Baltimore City classrooms, encouraging students and teachers to share their own stories.  Multiple entry points allow for the exploration of concepts like harmony and wholeness, or a lack thereof, into discussions surrounding Social Studies, Mathematics, Science, English Language Arts Social Emotional Learning, Dance, Theatre, Music, and Visual Art.  

This year, we’ve partnered with the Black Arts District and their Historical Photography Project to help connect schools with resources on archiving their own histories and stories.  

The Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts and Entertainment District (“The Black Arts District” &/or “BAD”) Mission Statement:
The Black Arts District, through an anti-displacement framework, empowers Black creatives and continues the community-based revitalization efforts in West Baltimore through culture, arts, and entertainment.

The Black Arts District is Maryland’s only A&E district uniquely dedicated to the cultural production of African Americans. Pennsylvania Avenue was once a revered destination for Black art and entertainment, hence it is the perfect location for this effort. Moreover, redlining, blockbusting, and racial covenants have led to decades of impoverished Black communities across Baltimore City, which are still experiencing systemic disinvestment. Based on state-wide reports, in fiscal year 2018, events and new businesses in 25 Maryland A&E Districts collectively supported more than $1 billion in state GDP, approximately $72.1 million in state and local tax revenues, and 9,987 jobs that paid more than $320 million in wages. Thus, the creation of a new A&E district can spur economic development and small business growth, and expansion along the Pennsylvania Ave. corridor. This growth will have tangential effects on the overall health of the surrounding communities. Over time we hope to see a shift in the future trajectory of West Baltimore for the better.

The Historical Photography Project Overview:
The Historical Photography Project (“HPP”), an initiative of the Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts and Entertainment District (“Black Arts District”),  seeks to counter histories of disinvestment that have exacerbated the loss of cultural memory for communities in the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor of West Baltimore. HPP encourages photographers and residents living in West Baltimore to contribute photographs from their personal archives and to create new images that contextualize the history, present, and future of West Baltimore. HPP seeks to reimagine blighted historic sites along the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor in West Baltimore by designing and installing permanent photographic flagpole banners and encouraging community contributions to an innovative and accessible web-based archive and oral history tool: HPPArchive.org. The HPPArchive (Historical Photography Project Archive) is a repository of Black cultural memory in West Baltimore that features an interactive map of historic Black-owned businesses, social clubs, and organizations and showcases photographs of Black culture in West Baltimore.

The SnapShot: Preserving Cultural Memory through Photos Curriculum Overview:
SnapShot: Preserving Cultural Memory through Photos is an educational toolkit and arts enrichment tool for Baltimore City middle school and high school ELA, Arts, and Social Studies educators. The curriculum can also be utilized by nontraditional schools, educational nonprofits, and independent educators in the community.  SnapShot: Preserving Cultural Memory through Photos is a five-session arts-integration course designed to highlight gaps in Baltimore’s community history by asking the questions:
1. Who preserves history?
2. Who makes history?
3. What do I want to preserve?
4. How can I preserve history?
5. Where can these histories live?