Hammonds House Museum

Hammonds House Museum and Resource Center of African American Art is one of seven organizations featured in a national catalogue released December 10, 2007 by the National Performance Network (NPN). The catalogue documents visual arts organizations and artists who were awarded residency opportunities as a part of a unique pilot program.

Hammonds House Museum’s award supported the exhibition and two week residency of Philadelphia, PA collage artist Theodore A. Harris. Mr. Harris’ exhibit “Our Flesh of Flames” opened appropriately during Atlanta’s hosting of The US Social Forum in June, and ran through the National Black Arts Festival in July. During the two-week residency Mr. Harris conducted a weeklong collage workshop for youth and was a presenter for the National Black Arts Festival’s Summer Institute, which is held annually at Hammonds House Museum, primarily for educators. Aside from Theodore Harris, participating artists participating artists at other VAN locations included: Jaime Mendoza, Lady Pink, Arnold J. Kemp, Fay Ku, Manuel Acevedo, and Kowkie Durst.

Founded in 1985, NPN subsidizes 58 presenting (performance) organizations that support over 650 artists annually. This year using the same model of supporting touring performance artists, NPN established the Visual Artists Network (VAN) to make it possible for one-or two-week residencies to occur for visual artists within the context of community engagement. Along with Georgia’s Hammonds House Museum, the other visual arts organizations who received a VAN award included: Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco, CA; Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, MN; PICA/Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, OR; Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT SPACES, Cleveland, OH and Women & Their Work, Austin, TX.

The seven award visual arts organizations and the artists they exhibited convened at the annual NPN conference in New Orleans, LA December 5-12, 2007 to unveil the catalogue.