MISSION
“Let me call your attention to those who serve as our examples! Those who daily give their all, yet their reserves are still ample those who battle friend and foe, yet their hope is never trampled they make music, never sample, and the world’s ugly could never cancel the fullness and sweetness of their mission…”
- from Chasms by Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes
CEO, Ashé Cultural Arts Center
The mission of Ashé Cultural Arts Center is to use art and culture to support human, community, and economic development.
Ashé Mural (photo by Eric Waters)
Our charge as issued by Mama Carol, is to “to fly in leaps and gusts of provocation, instigation, inspiration and aspiration...to call for and exhibit the higher standards of justice, integrity, and kindness for all...to be brilliant concoctors of opportunity, creators of vision, navigators of bs, advocates of culture, and defenders of children...to make real the majesty of dreams, to make plain the magic of being, to manifest the difference between perceiving and seeing!”
WHO WE ARE
Ashé Cultural Art Center’s innovative programming is designed to utilize culture in fostering human development and civic engagement. We maintain 10,000 square feet of gallery space and 20,000 square feet of performance space to create and preserve opportunities for the curation, exhibition, and commission of fine, folk, and fine-folk art. Producing over 350 music, theater, dance, spoken word, drum circles, and multi-disciplinary events a year, Ashé believes in art as a paradigm-shifting call to action. As ecosystem builders, we deliver programming and direct services that support, leverage, and celebrate the people, places, and philosophies of the African Diaspora.
WHAT WE DO
Ashé maintains a high value, high profile real estate portfolio in Central City, a neighborhood where historic residents are being aggressively displaced. In understanding the impact and importance of Ashé’s ability to guide equitable development in our surroundings, we have engaged in strategic planning that allowed us to create a vision for leveraging and expanding our own real estate portfolio in order to increase our capacity to make place and to keep place on behalf of a community facing growing displacement, working on asserting our collective Right to Stay!
WHERE WE ARE
Ashé Front Room (Photo by Eric Waters)