The Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts has appointed Elana Casey associate director of the Augusta Savage Gallery. Her role will entail curating exhibitions furthering diversity and inclusivity, creating relationships with rising and established artists from marginalized communities and adding present-day trends in art to programs.
Coming from Washington D.C., Casey has been a multidisciplinary artist, curator, writer and arts administrator, holding positions in education, filmmaking, administration and as an arts advisor. She has reflected a profound commitment to cultivating innovative networks and conserving cultural history.
“We are incredibly excited to welcome Elana Casey to the visual arts team,” said Visual Arts Director Kristina Durocher. “As an artist and educator, Elana has a wealth of experience developing creative learning experiences and mentoring students in their own intellectual, artistic and educational growth. Augusta Savage Gallery will flourish as a center for artistic inquiry, community and student success under her inspired leadership.”
Before joining the Fine Arts Center, Casey was a chair of the visual arts department at the Duke Ellington School of the Art in Washington, D.C., the same school she attended during high school. She guided with an aspiration to teach and empower young artists as scholars or entrepreneurs.
“I’m excited to learn more about my local art community and the surrounding regions while creating a new launching pad for emerging and early-career Black American and diasporic artists to center their work through scholarship, exhibitions and programming,” said Casey. “I’m honored to uplift the name of Augusta Savage by building compelling narratives and exhibitions that reflect our living contemporary art world.”
Throughout her seven-year position, she has helped digitize portfolios of her students for college and professional avenues, co-developed an overarching curriculum that included ceramics, advertising design, Advanced Placement studio art, Advanced Placement art history and professional work knowledge. She has also scaled up programming through partnerships with institutions like The Studio Museum in Harlem, NXTHVN in New Haven, Conn., Transformer Gallery in Washington and the Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum in Annapolis, Md.
Casey is a graduate of the Corcoran School of Art and Design at George Washington University with a bachelor of fine arts as well as a master’s in teaching. She also holds an Elevate Your Career Through Education Certificate for gallery management from Pace Gallery. Casey centers her work around Black diasporic history, cultural memory and mythologies, based on the literature, folklore and backgrounds from both Africans and African Americans.
