A residency built on exchange
Nosreme hosts artists in residence in Baltimore through a live/work model paired with international exchange. Each year, a Baltimore artist is paired with an artist from a partner city to co-create work rooted in both places.
FOUNDED
2022
CURRENT PARTNERS
Rotterdam, NL
MODEL
Live/ Work + exchange
PERMANENT HUB
Opening 2029
Integrity, creativity, and empathy shape the way we work. These aren't just words—they’re the foundation of everything we build. We believe in doing great work, building real relationships, and making it easy for you to get the results you’re looking for.
"Once you find yourself in another civilization, you're forced to examine your own."
— JAMES BALDWIN
Baldwin wrote that after leaving Harlem for Paris, and later for Istanbul. He was far from alone.
For most of the twentieth century, the artists who shaped American culture had to leave America to do it.
Josephine Baker left East St. Louis for Paris in 1925. James Baldwin left Harlem for Paris and then Istanbul. Romare Bearden went to Paris after the war. Lois Mailou Jones painted in Paris and Haiti because the American art world wouldn't take her seriously as a Black woman. Augusta Savage went to Paris on a fellowship, returned to Harlem, and built the Harlem Community Art Center.
The pattern is the through-line of twentieth-century Black American art. The country couldn't, or wouldn't, give these artists the creative and social conditions they needed — so they built those conditions somewhere else. Paris, Istanbul, Mexico City, Port-au-Prince. They wrote, painted, photographed, and sculpted in cities that allowed them to be artists first and a category second.
The work they made could not have existed otherwise. Baker's stage persona, Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, Bearden's collages, Jones's Les Fétiches — all required cross-cultural residency to come into being. The lineage is also unjust. For generations, Baltimore artists, like most American artists outside a few coastal capitals, have faced the same choice: stay home without international context, or leave home to find it.
Nosreme exists to reverse that choice.
THE ARTISTS WHO LEFT
Five lives that shaped the case for international residency.
Cross-cultural exchange was their infrastructure. We're building it here, so the next generation has it at home.
Josephine Baker
1906 – 1975
East St. Louis to Paris, 1925. Built a career — and a politics — that the American stage refused her.
James Baldwin
1924 – 1987
Harlem to Paris to Istanbul. Wrote most of his American books from outside America.
Romare Bearden
1911 – 1988
Charlotte to Paris, post-war. European modernism filtered through Black American experience
Lois Mailou Jones
1905 – 1998
Boston to Paris to Haiti. Two residencies that transformed her practice for decades.
Augusta Savage
1892 – 1962
Florida to Paris to Harlem. Came home and built one of the most important Black art institutions of its era.
THE REVERSALThey went abroad because they had to.
We're building so the next generation stays.
Nosreme is Emerson, reversed — and so is the residency model. Instead of sending Baltimore artists overseas to find international peers and creative context, we bring international artists to Baltimore as peers, and pair them with Baltimore artists in collaborations that belong to both cities.
The work produced is co-authored. The documentation belongs to both cities. The relationships outlast any single project. And our Baltimore artists do the work without having to leave home.
This is the lineage carried forward — and inverted.
Residency, today and tomorrow.
- Short-term in-person residency placement in Baltimore, 4–8 weeks
- Housing arranged through partner accommodations
- Studio access through partner institutions
- Full curatorial and production support
- Community engagement programming
- Public commission tied to the residency
- Documentation, press coverage, and exhibition opportunities
Current residencyBaltimore-Rotterdam Art Bridge
Baltimore artist kolpeace and Rotterdam artist Naomi King are co-creating a large-scale mural honoring the Baltimore Black Sox.
The Black Sox were a Negro Leagues team rooted in Baltimore's Black community. The mural draws on both artists' practices and a season of community story circles to connect the team's legacy to the neighborhood where the work will live.
Supported by Baltimore National Heritage Area in partnership with Baltimore Rotterdam Sister City Committee (BRCC).
exchange TIMELINEJULY 2026 - Community Story Telling
MARCH 2027 — Naomi King arrives in Baltimore; in-person residency begins
APRIL 8, 2027 — Community paint day
MAY X, 2026 — Mural unveiling
LATE MAY — Closing artist talk and DJ event
INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSA growing network of partner cities.
Each year, Nosreme partners with arts organizations, cultural institutes, and city cultural affairs offices abroad. Together, we pair their artist with one of ours, and we co-produce public work that belongs to both cities.
If your organization has a public art mandate and an artist to contribute, we'd like to talk.
Become a Residency Partner →
THE 2029 HUBA permanent home for the work.
In 1841, Emerson and the Transcendentalists helped shape Brook Farm — a live/work community in Massachusetts where artists, writers, and thinkers lived in common.
It lasted six years. The idea outlived the project: creative work is stronger when it happens in community. In 2027, we're building something in that spirit. For Baltimore. For a longer run.
A permanent live/work facility in Baltimore for residency artists and international partners. Studios, apartments, community space, gallery, and the infrastructure to host the world.
READ MORE ABOUT THE HUB →FOR ARTISTIf you are a Baltimore artist — or an artist from elsewhere — we want to know your work.
Selection happens through invitation and open application. Specifics vary by year and partner city. Join our artist registry to be considered.