Kansas City’s Charlotte Street Foundation to Open New Campus

Feb 8

Charlotte Street Foundation (CSF) in Kansas City, Missouri, will be centralizing their artistic

and administrative spaces into one 20,000 square foot campus, slated to open at the end of

2019.

CSF has embarked upon a capital campaign of ten million dollars, all of which is given

through private foundations and individual donors. CSF Executive Director Amy Kligman,

tells Informality, “this campus will stabilize and hold space for artists in Kansas City for

exhibitions, performance, residency programs, and house our grantmaking processes in one

integrated facility.”

Presently, CSF programming occurs in several rental locations throughout the city, where

functional limitations exist. This new campus, a former industrial building located at 3333

Wyoming Street, will be designed by Kansas City architects Hufft Project. Located in an

industrial zone, this new campus will be in an artist-friendly neighborhood. Addressing any

potential concerns about their presence, previous plotted data discovered that 46% of all

CSF applicants have lived within 3 miles of the campus.

Marketing and Communications Manager Mason Kilpatrick says, “putting it into one space for

a sustainable future” will expose the artists and their audience to multiple programs under

one roof. Cross disciplines will benefit from proximity to one another, with events occurring

simultaneously. Greater assembly space and the capability of playing host to more regional

and national artists will lead to greater audience development.

Charlotte Street Foundation was established in 1997 by advocate David Hughes as a

response to needs articulated by artists within the community for an organization that was a

valuable creative, social, and economic resource for artists living in Kansas City.

CSF provides annual cash awards, project-based grants, special commissions and specific

travel opportunities to visual and generative performing artists. Charlotte Street Foundation

provides free studios and performance and exhibition spaces to theater, dance, music,

film/video and visual artists for the creation and presentation of new work.

Editors Note: Informality was the recipient of a Modified Rocket Grant in 2016 in support of

Informality Radical Public Programming.

Blair Schulman

Volumes and Violent Joy