About

Citizen Artist Baltimore (CAB) is an advocacy effort to build community among, and mobilize thousands of voices within Baltimore City’s creative communities. Founded on grassroots coalition building and community engagement, CAB is combining the strengths and addressing the needs of arts and cultural communities across the entire city. Through arts and cultural organizing we seek to build and connect communities to improve quality of life for all residents and exercise political change at the city level and beyond.

• Community building efforts among those who identify as artists or interested in the arts.
• Engage communities in civic actions including get-out-the-vote efforts and political advocacy by and for all residents who create and/or benefit from arts and culture.
• Position ourselves as a leading voice for the city to follow when it comes to arts and cultural issues.
• Issue and respond to calls-to-action in response to citizen artist needs and issues.

Baltimore is a city of powerd by people, working in community, who create our city’s collective culture. 64% of Baltimore’s residents are black and 6% are of other races and ethnicities. Our diverse cultures are expressed through art, music, dance, theater, film, poetry, design, and an endless array of other creative acts. These traditional and innovative cultures have helped create an image of the active port city and former manufacturing hub as a strong, vibrant place. Despite the city’s growing economy and continued reinvestment, not all are benefitting as development spreads outward from the harbor and center city. Baltimore has its share of challenges: segregated neighborhoods, unequal access to education and jobs, and an estimated 30,000 vacant buildings, to name a few. All the while, communities continue to take care of their own through forms of expression not always recognized and supported by traditional institutions and the city. Arts and culture is the lifeblood of Baltimore. Recognizing the critical role of arts and culture in Baltimore’s social, political, and economic health, Citizen Artist Baltimore seeks to connect and empower all residents to have a say in how our city thrives.

With access to and meaningful, sustained engagement in artistic expression, each person gains a better sense of her or himself; each community builds collective identity and mutual support; and the whole city of Baltimore is more united—more able to work together in the interest of all our residents. With this in mind, CAB seeks the following future with Baltimore’s residents:

• Cultural producers see their power and are inspired by the change they can create.
• Thousands of people identify with CAB and Baltimore’s cultural communities feel a sense of unity and kinship that allows them to enthusiastically and quickly mobilize in times of crisis and celebration.
• CAB supports robust communications platforms and technologies for communities to learn about issues, share their own calls, and take action.
• CAB is providing up-to-date resources and public awareness campaigns that unpack how politics work for regular people to learn about affecting change through creative tools and actions.
• CAB has several hubs operating across the city in partnership with community based organizations.
• The arts are helping to connect disparate communities, increase registration and voting, and organizing to achieve inspiring political wins.
• More artists are running for and winning elected office at the city and state levels.
• Creative communities are collectively recognized by local, regional, and state government as a powerful voting block.
• Our Mayor understands the role of the arts as connected to the vitality of communities and seeks consultation from CAB on relevant issues.
• Arts and cultural producers are represented at all decision making tables.
• An artist corps is working across government agencies launching creative interventions.
• Young people play an active and meaningful leadership role in success of city.
• All public schools offers substantive arts education led by fully supported art teachers.
• Public art is highly collaborative and visible in every neighborhood.
• All cultural producers supported for their work.

You don’t have to legally be a U.S. citizen or identify as an artist to be a Citizen Artist. Inspired by the work of USDAC, we embrace the following definitions:

• We recognize “citizen” as simply anyone who lives in a given community.
• Citizen Artists are artists, organizers, and allies advancing equity, access, and social justice through arts and culture.
• Culture is created by and thus should represent all. Culture includes diverse creative expressions and traditions that connect people within community. Such expressions include but are not limited to art, music, performance, creative writing, and design.
• Citizen Artist Baltimore works with communities in and around Baltimore City, Maryland. While we primarily focus on city-level organizing, we engage all levels of government and discourse to the benefit of local residents.

Motivated by the forthcoming election, a loose knit group of cultural organizers began talking in summer 2015 about ways to increase voter engagement and mobilizing the power of arts and cultural communities in Baltimore City. With major support from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance (GBCA), Maryland Citizens for the Arts (MCA), and the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, Citizen Artist Baltimore (CAB) was founded. In early 2016 Citizen Artist Baltimore engaged hundreds of participants in identifying their top arts priorities through a series of seven public listening sessions held across the City. Based on this feedback CAB published a set of top priorities and a mayoral questionnaire on our website.

On March 7, 2016, CAB, GBCA, and Maryland Institute College of Art held the Mayoral Forum on Arts and Culture in which over 500 arts voters listened to nine mayoral contenders as they spoke about important issues including increasing support for arts education, mandating equity in cultural funding, creating a cabinet level art position, and developing an inclusive cultural plan for Baltimore City. Leading up to the 2016 Primary and General Elections, CAB registered and educated voters on Baltimore’s mayoral candidates positions on arts and culture.

CAB continues to listen to, connect, and support Baltimore’s arts and cultural communities through events, calls-to-action, and get-out-the-vote operations.