Origin Story
I grew up searching for my mother’s creative expression in family files and old wardrobes. My mother died when I was two years old. She suffered an illness that lasted two long painful years before the final bow.
My mother was a gifted woman with astounding creative talents, but despite her talent, she left like she never once existed. There were no handwritten or published writings, paintings, or drawings in familiar and unfamiliar spaces to demonstrate an emblem of her individuality.
Despite talent, without opportunity, there is minimal to zero visibility and economic mobility for minority creative visual artists and writers. My mother was a black woman, an African woman, and in the creative industry, a minority by gender, a minority by racial identity, and a minority by ethnicity.
My mother’s name was Nsa and for marginalized creative writers and artists, Nsa’s story is a familiar one.
-Inyene Adiaha Nsa.
Historically marginalized creative writers and visual artists are confronted with multiple intersecting inequalities including but not limited to institutional, structural, interpersonal, and internalized racism, gender inequity, intergenerational poverty, racial profiling, social discrimination, microaggressions, stereotypical profiling, and language barriers. Nsa Arts Foundation was designed to offer marginalized early to mid-career visual artists and writers a pathway to economic mobility through fully funded professional development opportunities and access to the market.
Vision
Prosperity in Arts for all.
Mission
Nsa Arts Foundation employs a multidisciplinary holistic approach to empowering and equipping marginalized arts and narratives with a mission to improve the representation of women, minorities, black, indigenous and people of color in the creative industry.
