Asmaa Walton

Asmaa Walton is a Detroit native, arts educator, and ardent developer of the Black cultural archive. Walton completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Education from Michigan State University in and a Master of Arts in Art Politics from New York University. Walton spent time working at the Toledo Museum of Art and the Saint Louis Art Museum. Walton began Black Art Library in February of 2020 while working at the Saint Louis Art Museum with just 7 books, now the collection holds over 700 books.

What drew you to the MA in Arts Politics?

I was looking for a program that could suit my many interests in the arts and relating that through community work. APP was perfect for me!

How do you describe or identify your practice/ work?

Everything that I do is influenced from my interest in Art Eduacation.

How did your experience in the program shape your work? Is there a particular moment or project that you can remember as having an impact?

In Dr. Vega’s course we were required to create a mock up of an organization we would want to create and that gave me my idea for an arts organization in Detroit that I plan to start working on very soon. 

What are some of the challenges and/or rewards of this program?

One of the challenges is the amount of time we have to complete the program. We have a lot of knowledge and experiences that have to get stuffed into two semesters. One of the rewards is the connections that are made. Working with people from so many different backgrounds is amazing. You are constantly learning new things.