MoCADA will share its new home with 651 ARTS, BAM Cinema theatres, a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn's second Apple store and New York City's first Whole Foods 365
With the recent announcement of the Brooklyn Arts Management Fellowship, the flourishing Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) is gearing up to move to its new space at 300 Ashland Place. The move, which is happening in partnership with 651 ARTS, will provide a more fitting hub for MoCADA's work, said Executive Director James Bartlett.
MoCADA's new home, a building at Lafayette and Flatbush Avenue in Fort Greene, will contain almost 400 rental units - 76 are designated as affordable apartments - and will house four BAM Cinema theatres, a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and 651 ARTS, a Brooklyn-based arts presenter of theater, dance and music grounded in the African diaspora. The building will also include Brooklyn's second Apple store and New York City's first Whole Foods 365.
MoCADA was founded in 1999 in a donated space on the fourth floor of a brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and from the beginning its mission has been to build community through art, both locally and globally.
"We try to connect people of African descent both here in Brooklyn and around the world, spark dialogue and education and personal growth through the medium of art and creativity," Bartlett said.
The physical space is just one part of MoCADA's presence, with community engagement happening through arts programming in public housing and parks, small businesses and art residencies, shared Bartlett.
The recently announced Brooklyn Arts Management Fellowship, a partnership between MoCADA, BRIC and the Mark Morris Dance Group and Theatre for a New Audience, is a natural extension of that mission; the program will allow seven fellows to complete an 11-month professional development training curriculum while receiving a full-time salary.
"Really we try to use art to connect people and we believe that can happen in so many different ways other than simply bringing people together in our physical space. The physical space still won't define what we are and what we do," said Bartlett. "We will continue to engage with the community here in Brooklyn, as well as nationally and internationally."
The move is planned for 2019 and the crew at MoCADA is super excited about the new space.
