ARTSPEAK RADIO + CSF and Nik D Douglas

ARTSPEAK RADIO, Wednesday January 27, 2021, noon – 1pm CST, 90.1fm KKFI Kansas City Community Radio streaming live www.kkfi.org

Producer/host Maria Vasquez Boyd welcomes Christine Boutros; Grants and Awards Programs Manager for Charlotte Street Foundation, Kimi Kitada the Jedel Familly Foundation Curatorial Fellow at Charlotte Street Foundation.

Joining us in the second half of the hour, Nik D Douglas drummer/producer/lyricist/singer shares his list of favorite percussionists, recordings, and his latest projects.

CHRISTINE BOUTROS Grants and Awards Programs Manager Charlotte Street Foundation- Christine Boutros returns to the Kansas City art community after serving as Associate Curator of Education at Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design in Honolulu, Hawaii. Before that, Boutros spent six years in the education department at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. As Grants and Awards Programs Manager, Christine will manage all aspects of Charlotte Street’s prestigious award programs including the Visual Artist Award, Generative Performing Artist Award, Byron Cohen Award, and the Art OMI Scholarship. Christine will also work closely with the Spencer Museum of Art to administer the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts-funded Rocket Grants program when the program resumes in 2021.
As Grants and Awards manager, Boutros will oversee the important position of identifying, recruiting, and securing jurors for all grants and awards to ensure that jury process continues to promote Charlotte Street Foundation’s core values of risk-taking, openness, collaboration, and excellence, and work to ensure equity and accessibility in Charlotte Street’s selection processes for Kansas City’s artists. To increase awareness and accessibility of Charlotte Street’s awards and grants, Boutros will work with staff and community partners to plan and manage outreach sessions and strategies for all grants and awards.
As an educator and arts advocate, Christine works to create inclusive environments to ensure all people in the community have equitable access to the arts and cultural programming. Christine’s career trajectory has taken some unexpected turns. Beginning as a Quantity Surveyor in Melbourne Australia, Christine moved into Project Management and spent a decade working in the construction industry. Her last year in construction was spent consulting for the Victorian Department of Education and Training. Had it not been for this experience she may not have considered swapping her drafting table, hard hat, and management software for a career in education. Christine taught in elementary education for several years. She developed an interest in social and emotional learning and practiced a holistic, interdisciplinary pedagogy to encourage and promote autonomy and lifelong learning. It was not until 2013, when Christine immigrated from Melbourne, Australia, that she discovered museum education.
Her foray into museums began at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art as the Educator for Community Programs and expanded into the role of Manager of Community and Access Programs. At the Nelson-Atkins, Christine approached museum arts education and programming in consideration of Inclusive Design and Universal Design for Learning to create and implement accessible programming with artists and communities in Kansas City. Following the Nelson-Atkins, Christine took the position of Associate Curator of Education at the Doris Duke Foundation’s Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture and Design in Honolulu to promote the understanding and research of Islamic art, history and culture for all ages through educational programming and artist residencies. Christine has a double degree in Planning and Design and Construction and Property from the University of Melbourne as well as a Post Graduate Diploma in Education from La Trobe University.

KIMI KITADA is an independent curator and arts educator. She is currently the Jedel Family Foundation Curatorial Fellow at Charlotte Street Foundation. Previously, she was Curatorial Assistant at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 2019-2020, where she assisted on Xu Zhen: In Just a Blink of an Eye. From 2014 to 2018, she served as Public Programs & Research Coordinator at Independent Curators International (ICI) in New York. In this role she managed Curatorial Hub public programs, coordinated Curatorial Intensive programs, and assisted with curatorial research fellowships.
As an independent curator, her recent curatorial projects include: where we came from & where we are going at Transformer, Washington, DC (2019); reset at Garis & Hahn, New York, NY (2016); For All the Vanished Things: Jee Hee Kang at Centre for Social Innovation, New York, NY (2016). She co-curated Postscript: Correspondent Works at artQ13, Rome (2015); 7×8 Curatorial Conversations at Budapest Art Market, Hungary (2013); and (in)complete at TEMP Art Space, New York, NY (2013). She is a co-founder of alt_break, which provides free and accessible contemporary art programming through partnerships with local, community-based nonprofits in New York. Kitada received a BA in Art History and Classics from Bucknell University and an MA in Museum Studies from NYU.
If you are a local Kansas City visual artist and you are interested in organizing a virtual studio visit with Kimi, you can reach out and schedule a visit via email through [email protected].
www.charlottestreet.org

NIK D DOUGLAS-“A musician hailing from Ferguson, Missouri with a heart of talent and a creative mind. Nik Douglas brings an electric element to the collective song of humanity. Working as a professional musician for many years, he’s performed with several Kansas City artist, both seasoned and up-and-coming alike, fulfilling his ambitions to be and see diversity in the world. With an active community presence on local stages, Nik also maintains service in academia, providing the inner city with music instruction. Connect with Nik @nikdouglas.art.”

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