Gathering Art, Stories and Place

The City of Milwaukee was selected as a recipient of a grant of $150,000 from the National Endowment of the Art (NEA) to fund the Gathering Art, Stories and Place (GASP) at the Mitchell Street Branch (906 W. Historic Mitchell St.). Led by Milwaukee Public Library and Artists Working in Education, the project was supported by Ex Fabula as well as other nonprofits, schools and community centers. 

With this grant, the project team utilized the library's maker space and other indoor and outdoor gathering spaces to host a variety of storytelling-themed programs, including a visual storytelling festival featuring deaf storytellers, an artist lecture series, writing workshops, a new archive of collected neighborhood stories, and two artist-in-residence programs. A mobile art studio accessible to youth provided free art education and cultural enrichment activities.

The plans, developed in partnership with the Department of City Development and the Milwaukee Arts Board, created a unique hub for creative expression and cultural discourse that empowered neighbors to create, share, and celebrate cultural diversity through storytelling and art. 

This project was in collaboration with community partners, Milwaukee Public Library, Listening to Mitchell artists Sonja Thomsen and Adam Carr, Ex Fabula and Artists Working in Education, Inc. The project was supported in part by an award from the National Endowment of the Arts, with additional support from the Milwaukee Public Library Foundation.