New South Arts CEO, former Atlanta City Council president shares vision

ATLANTA — Dr. Fahamu Pecou is the executive director of the African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta. He first started the museum in 2018 as a way to share the different experiences of Africans spanning the globe. Pecou said one can learn and understand art by seeing themselves and others in it.

“Art allows us to see our humanity reflected in other people throughout engagements with art,” Pecou said. “You’ll see a painting or photograph, see a sculpture or work from some other part of the African diaspora and see themselves reflected in that, be able to have more of an expanded view of who they can be. Here, we want to expand the narrative around Black identity beyond the limitations we’re commonly shown.”

Pecou is working with the new South Arts CEO and former Atlanta City Council president Doug Shipman to expand his reach. South Arts is a 50-year-old organization that funds artists and arts organizations across the Southeast.

“We see the pullback of the federal government, so we see new ways of working,” Shipman said. “We’re going to have to find new funding mechanisms and frankly new partnerships.”

Shipman said he would work to promote literature, film, food and other artforms in nine states across the Southeast, connecting artists along the way. He said the FIFA World Cup and other international efforts would draw more people to the South, with tourism, film, and other cultural attractions serving as economic engines for the region.

“I felt right now was a good time, because there’s a lot of momentum around arts and culture,” Shipman said. “For me personally, it was a better fit going forward, so I felt like returning to the nonprofit sector and being a leader in that sector was really where I wanted to be. I hope that ten years from now what we’ll fundamentally see is that arts and culture in the Southeast is more independent and has its own robust funding mechanisms exclusive to itself.”

Shipman brings experience in the arts as the former president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center. He said his background there and in the city council can help shape his leadership and strategy to raise awareness in fields already seeing explosive growth.

Despite an expected drawdown in future federal government funding, Fahamu Pecou is hopeful of a brighter future not just in Pittsburgh Yards, where his museum is, or in Atlanta or Georgia – but around the world.

“The opportunity is greater the more they try and silence particular narratives, the more hunger there is for those narratives,” Pecou said. “The more they try to erase or deprive us of histories and possibilities, the more we seek it out. As we grow into a global city, we should be able to reflect that culturally as well. Even through our differences, we’re able to find commonalities.”