People, Community, and Institutions
Extending work beyond the studio and into the community is an integral part of Eassa’s practice. He leverages the arts, education, and public programs to build inclusive and equitable relationships between institutions and communities in Baltimore City. His work seeks to disrupt existing social systems through the power of human connection and the arts. He was an Open Society Institute Baltimore Community Fellow from 2015 - 2017 which supported Free Space, a program Eassa founded bringing the arts to the Maryland Prison system, working in two men’s and one women’s correctional facility.
He currently is the Director of Philanthropy and Engagement at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in San Diego, CA. Previously he was the Director of Public Engagement at the Baltimore Museum of Art working on a range of initiatives that challenge and question what it means to be a museum in present day Baltimore. His portfolio includes various public programming, monthly visitation programs with organizations serving adults with physical and intellectual disabilities, and serving as the liaison for the Joshua Johnson Council, the nation’s oldest museum African American friends group. In addition, he established the BMA Lexington Market, a branch of the Baltimore Museum of Art in Lexington Market, the nation’s oldest continuously operating public market.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, he has worked to continue supporting artists, launching virtual platforms for Baltimore based artists such as BMA Violet Hour, and JJC Talks, and building a distribution effort that reimagined family programming to get over 2,000 art kits in the hands of Baltimore based families.
In addition to his engagements in the Museum world, he serves on the Board of Advisors for Baltimore Youth Arts, and on the Programs Committee for the Baltimore Museum of Industry and has led large community events for antiviolence movements in Baltimore, such as Skateboarders for Baltimore Ceasefire, an event that celebrated life through skateboarding while feeding our community, registering voters, registering households with the 2020 census, and raised over $3,000 for Baltimore Ceasefire.
This work is an critcal piece of his studio practice, as a means to examine, critique, and question the structures we exist in, and how one may envision a more just world.
