Kristina Newman-Scott named BRIC president
BRIC, a major incubator and supporter of Brooklyn artists and media-makers, and the leading presenter of free cultural programming in the borough, today announced Kristina Newman-Scott as the organization’s new President. The artist, curator, and arts administrator, who since 2015 has served as Director of Culture for the State of Connecticut, assumes leadership of BRIC in September, in the midst of the organization’s 40th anniversary season.
Newman-Scott’s appointment as President of BRIC is the latest chapter in a remarkable, multifaceted career in the arts. She became an acclaimed painter while still a BFA student at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts in her hometown of Kingston, Jamaica. When she moved to Connecticut in 2005, she took her first job as a curator and arts administrator—as Director of Visual Arts at Real Art Ways in Hartford. There she conceptualized, organized, and helped to secure funding for over 60 exhibitions and 50 publications, garnering attention from an array of national and international media. In 2010, she was appointed Director of Programs at the Boston Center for the Arts, where she led the management, design, implementation, and evaluation of numerous innovative programs in the fields of literature, dance, visual art, public art, theater, and education, including a small business program focused on creative businesses. She worked to ensure that all of these programs were responsive to Boston’s diverse communities.
From 2012 through 2015, Newman-Scott applied her experience as an artist, and as an organizer of artists and arts and culture programs—as well as her belief in the arts as an engine of social change and economic development—to her first job in government, as Director of Marketing, Events, and Cultural Affairs for the city of Hartford. In an inspiring TED Talk entitled “What is fi yu cyan un fi yu,” she described this role as “curating the city.” She managed $1.5 million in creative economy investments for the city; created and implemented citywide creative leadership initiatives with an emphasis on the arts, innovation, social entrepreneurship, and economic and community development; and designed and implemented new programs that highlighted and supported Hartford’s creative industries and economy while reflecting and involving the city’s many diverse communities.