Mobile Arts Program
Presenting innovative and multidisciplinary work in our Mobile Art Gallery and in vacant spaces across the District.
CulturalDC’s Mobile Arts Program breaks down the barriers to art often found in traditional presenting venues. We offer the ideal space for nationally and regionally prominent artists to engage with audiences in new, exciting ways.
Mobile Art Gallery
The District’s first moveable gallery. In 2017, we converted a 40ft. shipping container into an immersive artspace for multidisciplinary artists. Since October 2017, we have hosted 15 installations with local and national artists across Wards 1,3,5,6,7, and 8.
Vacant Spaces
We regularly partner with commercial real estate developers to activate vacant retail spaces with exciting visual and performance art. In addition, we also find innovative ways to use outdoor spaces.
Upcoming Artists
ROSE BY JOHN JARBOE
Vacant Space: Apr. 1—2, 2022
A shrine of music, image, objects, and text, Rose brings together a team of queer artists, including composers and musicians Emily Bate, Daniel de Jesús, Pax Ressler, and Be Steadwell with director Mary Tuomanen, to tell the legend of John and Rose. Jarboe, known as the founding artistic director of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, explores this tale through musical styles ranging from art song to 1980s pop ballad, elaborate floral-inspired costumes made by Rebecca Kanach, intimate storytelling, and a feast of wordplay. This evening will feature a concert of original songs performed by a live band and set alongside a garden of images made with filmmaker Christopher Ash.
More information coming soon!
desdemona feat. maya freelon
Mobile Art Gallery: Apr. 15—May 15, 2022; Vacant Space: June 2022
CulturalDC is collaborating with IN Series on a two part engagement with visual artist Maya Freelon. In Spring, her work will be featured in the Mobile Art Gallery. There will be opportunities for participants to help create her signature tissue paper quilts. In Summer, her work becomes the backdrop for Toni Morrison’s shattering and meditative play, Desdemona told with the music of the immortal Nina Simone, featuring world renowned crossover soprano Claron McFadden.
More information coming soon!
foga by david-jeremiah
Vacant Space: July 2022
A commercial home exercise program featuring a progressive series of yoga sessions, created and taught by felons, using a variety of firearms as resistance, flexibility and balance equipment.
More information coming soon!
amber robles-gordon
Mobile Art Gallery: Fall 2022
Amber Robles-Gordon is a mixed media visual artist of Puerto Rican and West Indian heritage. She is known for her commissioned temporary and permanent public art installations for numerous government agencies, institutions, universities, and art fairs.
More information coming soon!
Past Artists
Culinarialism by Inaugural Capital Artist Resident Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers)
Mobile Art Gallery: Sept. 25—Nov. 21, 2021 at Sandlot Southeast
Culinarialism, specifically focuses on class dynamics of food while poignantly acknowledging the DC area’s problematic history as an epicenter of inhumane international trade practices. The show utilizes the narrative framework of a ritzy dinner party attended by colonizers and visiting global dignitaries—the ultimate embodiment of how food that’s available exclusively to a privileged class has always reached their plates at immense human and environmental cost.
INSIDE/OUT BY Dylan uremovich in collaboration with Jonathan Hsu and sarah j. ewing
Vacant Space: Oct. 14—17, 2021 at 1829 14th St NW, Washington, DC
A dual media and movement experience, simultaneously occurring inside the Mobile Art Gallery and projected in massive scale onto the exterior of a nationally prominent DC arts institution. Inside/Out is a new collaboration between CulturalDC, Dylan Uremovich, Jonathan Hsu and Sarah J. Ewing.
when we gather… by M. FLORINE DÉMOSTHÈNE and atsu numadzi
Mobile Art Gallery: Jul. 9—Sept. 5, 2021 at Sandlot Southeast
A collaboration highlighting the cultural significance of flag making in military campaigns, clan identity, spirituality, and storytelling. Démosthène and Numadzi examine this mode of expression and cultural links between Haïti and the Eѵeawó people of Ghana, Togo, and Bènin.
OVERBOARD BY ANDY YODER
Mobile Art Gallery: Apr. 22—Jun. 27, 2021 at Sandlot Southeast
The show was inspired by “The Great Shoe Spill of 1990” – 5 shipping containers containing 80,000 Nike sneakers were lost at sea. Combining this incident with sneakerhead culture brings attention to the impact of consumer culture on the planet’s environment.
RENDITION BY ZOË CHARLTON
Mobile Art Gallery: Feb. 8—Mar. 13, 2020 at Union Market
DC and Baltimore-based Charlton’s expanded practice includes drawing, collage, animation, sculpture, and installation. Rendition engages cultural identity, race, commodity, and cultural tokenism, with a critical, yet humorous approach.
Time capsule by wickerham & lomax
Vacant Space: Nov. 2019—Jan. 2020 in Union Market District
A pop-up event focused on the changing body in the digital landscape and a published poetry collection examining what it means to be loved. Collaborative name of Baltimore-based artists Daniel Wickerham and Malcolm Lomax.
Mighty Mighty by Devan Shimoyama
Mobile Art Gallery: May 4—Aug. 25, 2019 at THEARC
Artist Devan Shimoyama, Barber of Hell’s Bottom owner Kelly Gorsuch and furniture maker Caleb Woodard transformed CulturalDC’s Mobile Art Gallery into an immersive art installation and fully-functioning barbershop which offered free haircuts to the community.
Stay Fly by Jamea Richmond-Edwards
Mobile Art Gallery: Feb. 8— Apr. 21, 2019 at CityCenterDC
Stay Fly engages viewers around the concepts of haute couture and status symbols. Like her paintings, the exhibit draws attention to the historical and often complex relationship between Black consumers and luxury goods.
Ivanka Vacuuming by Jennifer Rubell
Vacant Space: February 1-17, 2019 at former Flashpoint
Inspired by a figure whose public persona incorporates an almost comically wide range of feminine identities, Ivanka Vacuuming is simultaneously a visual celebration of a contemporary feminine icon and a questioning of our complicity in her role-playing.
fLASHPOINT
gALLERY: 2003-2017 AND MEAD THEATRE LAB PROGRAM: 2005-2017
For 15 years, CulturalDC operated Flashpoint Gallery in downtown Washington, DC. The visual arts programming at Flashpoint nurtured talented emerging and mid-career artists by providing exhibition space and opportunities for peer learning and mentorship. Flashpoint provided artists and curators a unique opportunity to take creative risks.
For 13 years, CulturalDC ran the Mead Theatre Lab Program in the Flashpoint space. The performing arts program offered intensive production and development assistance for performing artists, writers, directors, producers, and independent theatre companies.