After more than four years on hiatus, Baltimore's Artscape is slated to return in September 2023. The neighborhood festival transforms vacant lots into a temporary art district for hundreds of artists near the Maryland Institute College of Art, known as MICA. The long-time summer festival, a tradition for more than three decades, will expand next year to the Station North neighborhood, officials said on Thursday.
The festival was previously postponed during the coronavirus pandemic to curb the spread of the virus. While typically held during the summer months, officials decided to push it into the fall to avoid hot and humid weather.
The event is usually held in Mount Vernon and Bolton Hill neighborhoods but will now include the Station North Arts District. The fall festival is scheduled to start on Sept. 20 and end on Sept. 24. There’s an art market, artist talks, children's activities and live performances expected.
The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts is a nonprofit supported by both private donors and public funds with an annual budget of $2.6 million, which was cut over the summer. Some the nonprofit employees were laid off during the pandemic.
Organizers previously scheduled the festival during mid-September which would have overlapped with the Jewish Rosh Hashanah holiday and faced public pushback. Now the last day of the festival coincides with the start of Yom Kippur, a Jewish holy day.
For Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, it was about making the festival happen again.
“I made a promise that Artscape would return, and today we’re fulfilling that promise,” Scott said at the press conference.
Layoffs hit the Maryland Institute College of Art during the pandemic due to low enrollment. MICA is still involved as a partner in the festival and Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts CEO Donna Drew Sawyer said organizers are still finalizing the art school’s participation in the festival next year.
Sawyer said the goal of the festival is to become more inclusive.
“Without the living breathing essence of Baltimore, Artscape isn’t Artscape it’s just a festival,” she said during a press conference at the Parkway Theater. “The focus is on our creatives. We want them to live here, work here, and stay here.”
