Why Baltimore Needs a Global Art Strategy
Baltimore-Rotterdam Sister City & Joy Davis (Creative Alliance) 2025 “Walk on By”
Baltimore is full of world-class creative talent. MICA draws artists from across the globe. The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum anchor one of the East Coast's richest cultural landscapes. And every year, the city watches too many of those artists leave.
They move to New York or Los Angeles. They chase the residencies, international networks, and paid opportunities that other cities have built into their creative ecosystems. For Black artists in particular, sustaining a creative career in Baltimore has often meant building it somewhere else.
The talent has always been here. What's been missing is the cultural infrastructure to keep it: the residency programs, the exchange pipelines, and the institutional partnerships that cities like Rotterdam, Berlin, and London use to retain and grow their creative communities. Baltimore deserves the same.
Talent Without Investment
In 2022, only 1.3% of philanthropic giving in the United States went to Black communities. Two-thirds of Black-led nonprofits operate on budgets under $100,000. For emerging Black artists in Baltimore, the barriers stack high: scarce paid opportunities and limited exposure to the global art market. The talent exists, but the support system to sustain it does not.
An Architect’s Vision
Ariana Parrish sees this challenge through a unique lens. A trained architect who earned her degree from Temple University, Parrish wrote her thesis on community-based artist residences. She has traveled to more than 40 countries and witnessed firsthand how cities invest in creative ecosystems.
She grew up in Baltimore, watching talented artists leave. She's spent her career learning what other cities do to keep them.
Parrish founded Nosreme Baltimore (“Emerson” spelled backward, a nod to transcendentalist ideals of connection and self-reliance) to build the connective tissue the city needs. Nosreme is a Black-led arts nonprofit that commissions paid public artworks and activates neighborhoods through art. Since 2022, the organization has raised over $104,000 for community-led programming and supported more than 35 local artists.
Why Rotterdam, and Why Now
Rotterdam has been Baltimore’s sister city since 1985. Both are post-industrial port cities that rebuilt after devastating destruction. Both have strong creative scenes and deep ties to the African diaspora.
Nosreme is piloting a cross-cultural artist residency and exchange between the two cities for 2026–2027. This builds on existing momentum: the “Walk On By” exhibition, a collaboration between Baltimore’s Creative Alliance and Rotterdam’s TENT gallery, already sent artists across the Atlantic to exhibit and build lasting relationships. Nosreme’s exchange formalizes and expands that model into a repeatable framework for cultural diplomacy rooted in art.
Building It Here
By 2029, Nosreme plans to open a permanent artist residency hub in a repurposed Baltimore landmark, housing 10 to 12 local artists and hosting 2 to 3 international artists a year. The space will serve as a creative gathering place for neighbors, artists, and global partners. For funders and institutional partners, it represents a tangible, high-impact investment in Baltimore’s cultural future.
Connecting Baltimore to the World
Baltimore will always produce remarkable artists. The question is whether those artists can build sustainable careers here.
A global art strategy answers that question by creating the cultural infrastructure that connects homegrown talent to the wider world. Nosreme Baltimore is building that bridge.
To learn more about Nosreme Baltimore and how to get involved, visit our website.
