KANSAS CITY, Mo, October 7, 2020: After a nationwide search throughout the summer of 2020, Charlotte Street Foundation is excited to announce new Jedel Family Foundation Curatorial Fellow, Kimi Kitada. Kitada, an independent curator previously based in Los Angeles at the Museum of Contemporary Art, begins her fellowship with the organization in early October 2020. With the ability to develop, refine, and execute exhibitions and programming intended to engage and support the Kansas City arts community, Kitada brings a wide range of skills and abilities to the fellowship.
Miria-Sabina Maciagiewicz
“We are so excited to work with Kimberly, as her experience and bright new perspective will be a great spark to catalyze what we hope is an upcoming time of renewal and growth for Kansas City’s artists. We know the energy and ideas she brings to the table will create inspiring new opportunities to highlight and create dialog within Kansas City’s amazing communities of makers and thinkers. We can’t wait to see how that comes to life at 3333 Wyoming, and throughout the metro,” says Amy Kligman, Executive/Artistic Director of Charlotte Street Foundation.
Charlotte Street Foundation’s newly-constructed headquarters in the Volker neighborhood remains temporarily quiet due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but with the additions of Kitada in a curatorial role, and a new Grants & Awards Program Manager, Charlotte Street Foundation is excited to present new and engaging arts programming in 2021.
“Many of Kansas City’s arts venues are reimagining programming to be socially-cautious next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and current recession, including Charlotte Street. Because of this, Charlotte Street’s staff is already thinking outside the box on how we can take collaborative risks with new programming ideas for artists and arts patrons in 2021 and beyond,” says Mason Andrew Kilpatrick, Marketing + Communications Manager at Charlotte Street. “The addition of Kimi Kitada as our new Curatorial Fellow shows just how serious and excited we are for this challenge. We believe our programs should be artist-driven, and Kimi is a great supporting presence in that mission.”
“I’m incredibly honored and thrilled to be joining the team at Charlotte Street,” says Kimi Kitada. “I’m excited about Charlotte Street’s forward-thinking program and its commitment to engage deeply with local artists. I am eager to meet a broad spectrum of artists, dancers, writers, and other cultural producers. The contemporary art scene in Kansas City is teeming with infinite possibilities and collaborating with artists will bring these possibilities to life in radical, unexpected ways.”
The Curatorial Residency Program was developed in 2012, successfully integrating emerging curators from around the nation within Kansas City. These connections with regional artists and communities have yielded great opportunities for Kansas City’s artist community, both during the residency and beyond, after the Curators move on to roles in other geographies and institutions. Charlotte Street has evolved the Curatorial Residency program into the new Curatorial Fellowship as a full time 2-year position, providing fellows more resources to succeed and more time to connect with and invest in Kansas City’s local artists.
ABOUT KIMI KITADA
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.
ABOUT CHARLOTTE STREET
Charlotte Street identifies the needs and fuels the evolution of an ever-changing multidisciplinary arts ecosystem, acting as its primary provocateur. Charlotte Street cultivates the contemporary, the exceptional, and the unexpected in the practice of artists working in and engaging with the Kansas City art community. Since 1997, Charlotte Street has distributed over $1.1 million in awards and grants to artists and their innovative projects, and connected individual artists to each other and to the greater Kansas City community. For more information about Charlotte Street, its awards, programs, and initiatives, visit www.charlottestreet.org.
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