Laurie A. Cumbo

Laurie A. Cumbo is the Executive Director and Founder of the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporian Arts (MoCADA). Ms. Cumbo holds a Master of Arts degree from New York University in Visual Arts Administration. She completed her undergraduate studies at Spelman College where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Art History. Ms. Cumbo’s educational career has been bolstered by her extensive work experience in arts education as well as her travels abroad. She has worked at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Grey Art Gallery. Moreover, her travels throughout Europe, Africa, South America and North America have given her a global perspective on arts education. She has studied at such universities as the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands and the Fuji Studios in Florence, Italy. As a native of Brooklyn, New York, Ms. Cumbo hopes to utilize her educational and professional experiences to bring about an increased presence of the arts in the Borough of Brooklyn.

Ms. Cumbo’s ultimate goal is to create the first multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art museum in the Borough of Brooklyn, dedicated towards giving contemporary artists of African descent the opportunity to exhibit their work in an academic setting. She has set her goal into motion in March 2000 by opening the Museum Planning Headquarters for the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporian Arts (MoCADA) in a
building owned by Bridge Street AWME. In less than three years, the success of the organization has been covered in the New York Times, The Daily News, Our Times Press, The Daily Challenge, Essence Magazine, Mademoiselle Magazine, WNBC This Weekend, New York 1 News, Fox5 Good
Day NY and WABC Eyewitness News.

Currently the organization offers several art related programs within the Bedford Stuyvesant community such as: the MoCADA Exhibition & Curatorial Program, Interactive Tours for School Groups and Families, The KidFlix Outdoor Film Festival of Bed Stuy, Saturday Art Classes @ MoCADA, High School Internships @ MoCADA, the Children’s Arts Festival of Bed Stuy and several art-related fundraisers throughout the year in order to create an awareness of the potential and importance of MoCADA’s existence. Ms. Cumbo projects that the organization will break ground in 2004 and will celebrate its ribbon cutting ceremony in 2005. Ms. Cumbo is an adjunct graduate professor in the School of Art & Design at Pratt Institute and teaches a course entitled Art in the Urban Environment.