Fisk University is getting a $500,000 grant to make its art galleries more accessible to students and community members.
The funds are being provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a national arts and humanities group.
The two-year grant will allow the college to hire a registrar, a collection manager and gallery coordinators to help maintain and educate the community about what its art spaces have to offer.
“It’s about storytelling. It’s about motivating. It’s about shifting one’s perspective,” says Jamaal Sheats, the director of Fisk’s art galleries. “I hope that we inspire a generation, and that generation inspires another one.”
Sheats says the new support will also help the university break barriers that make people of color feel unwelcome in art spaces.
The goal, he says, is to get local residents and students community in the door and expose them to new and relatable experiences. The Fisk art galleries have scaled down their operations because of the pandemic, but Sheats says he hopes to return to normal in the fall.
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