PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
The Small Black Museum Residency Program
GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER MUSEUM AND CULTURAL CENTER
The Small Black Museum Residency Project (SBMRP) was launched in 2021 to further align the Carver Museum’s work with its mission to preserve and exhibit African-American material culture, history, and aesthetic expression.
This residency supports an ever-evolving ecosystem of Black artists living and working in Central Texas. SBMRP cultivates three early career artists by engaging them in critical conversations about their work, providing mentorship around the business of art and preparing them to engage with a broad spectrum of institutions.
The residency culminates in a group exhibition and is ideal for artists with a progressive approach to both content and form with work that reflects shifting paradigms of race, identity, nation and place.
Through the preservation and exhibition of African American material culture, history, and aesthetic expression, the Carver Museum works to create a space where the global contributions of all Black people are celebrated.
This is accomplished by telling stories about the Carver’s local community and connecting those histories to larger narratives about Blackness.
The George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center is housed in a 36,000 square-foot facility that includes four exhibit galleries, a conference room, classroom, darkroom, dance studio, 134-seat theatre, and archival space.
The exhibit galleries feature a core exhibit: The African American Presence in 19th Century Texas, a permanent exhibition on Austin African-American families, an Artists’ Gallery, and a Children’s Gallery featuring African-American scientists and inventors.
