Black Arts Consortium logo

Leveraging the long history of black arts and letters at Northwestern, as well as bringing together faculty working in the black arts from several units – The Bienen School of Music, The School of Communication, and the Weinberg College for Arts and Science – Professor E. Patrick Johnson founded the Black Arts Initiative (BAI) in 2012 to serve as a clearinghouse for an interdisciplinary community of art scholars and art makers throughout the university with an expertise in African, African-American, and diasporic arts. Since its founding, the organization has developed a notable presence in Chicago through collaborative programming across the city, emerging as a much-needed site for engagement with black arts.

In light of these ties, which have grown to include partners across the country and the globe, in 2020 BAI, with University support, evolved to become the Black Arts Consortium (BAC). Continuing from and building on its earlier incarnation, the BAC organizes symposia, speaker series, and work-in-progress sessions, and presents artists across the disciplines.