Asante Salaam is a native New Orleanian, a multifaceted artist, and a seasoned cultural arts director dedicated to harnessing the power of art and culture as a cherished force in communities worldwide. With roots in Black cultural arts activism, Asante views art as a spiritual journey, transcending life’s limitations and embracing harmony between material and metaphysical realms. Her work, nourished by decades of personal development and holistic healing practices, includes visual chronicles of transformation, immersive installations, and imaginative portraits. Holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she has participated in residencies at A Studio in the Woods and the Joan Mitchell Center, and her art has been featured in numerous collections and exhibitions. Committed to liberating the human spirit and cultivating a life of richness, Asante believes in our potential to elevate one another through the practice of exquisiteness. While she travels the globe, New Orleans, with its spirited culture and profound humanity, remains her home.

Asante Salaam is a luminary mystic interdisciplinary artist whose vision is to conjure and develop Sweet Spot: A Cultural Arts Ecological Family Compound which is to be an imaginative, high-quality, New Orleans neighborhood-located, multigenerational family compound, incorporating artist live/work/demonstration space, sustainable energy and environmental conservation practices, all designed for self-sufficiency and built as a replicable, customizable, demonstration learning model and process. Asante intends to utilize A Studio in the Woods’ Self as Universe: Mending Our Collective Ecosystem artist residency as a Conjuring Studio for Sweet Spot: A Cultural Arts Ecological Family Compound by conducting an informal charette process through research, interviews, and collaborative contribution sessions, plus encouraging community members’ shared-journey visioning and conjuring, while creating original art inspired by and catalyzing realization of Sweet Spot: A Cultural Arts Ecological Family Compound.

Headshot by Urban504 Photography