Our vision is a thriving Durham arts ecosystem where artists and audiences connect, create, and grow together. At Boardinghouse, we center femme, queer, and BIPOC artists, providing the space, support, and pathways they need to sustain their work, shape the cultural future of our city, and build bridges that extend beyond the local.
A home for the arts. A hub for Durham’s creative future.
We’re Laura and Shirlette. Four years and 100+ days ago, in the middle of our first year of marriage and the second year of the pandemic, we bought a 100-year-old building at 703 W Trinity Avenue. It was pink-sided, rumor-filled, and falling apart, but we saw a future inside it.
We both come from Durham’s artist community. We’ve lost venues, lost momentum, and lost spaces that once held us. But endings make room for dreaming: What would happen if we built the thing our community had always asked for and deserved?
By way of love, luck, and generations of both privilege and activism, we – a queer white Southern arts organizer/curator and a queer Black Southern poet/musician/producer – have the chance to do it. Here, in Durham, for Durham.
Boardinghouse Arts is the result: a creative home where artists can work, connect, and thrive. A new kind of infrastructure built with care, for community.
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Boardinghouse Arts exists for the creators at the heart of Durham’s culture and for the community that grows around them.
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FOR ARTISTS
We center queer, BIPOC, and womxn artists, providing affordable studios, resources, and platforms to transform practice into sustainable careers. -
FOR SUPPORTERS
We connect patrons, partners, and cultural organizations with artists in authentic, transparent ways, strengthening Durham’s creative ecosystem through collaboration and investment. -
FOR COMMUNITY
Our doors are open to Durham’s wider community and cultural visitors. Through exhibitions, events, and programs, we invite everyone to experience the city’s creative pulse.
Our values guide everything we do, from the way we build community to the way we sustain artists.
BUILD THE DOORS
We don’t wait for opportunities to appear, we create them. Our studios and programs clear pathways for artists to grow, from first shows to lasting careers.
SHARE THE WEALTH
Generosity is our foundation. We believe resources, from skills to space, should flow freely and help our creative community thrive.
COLLECTIVE POWER
True transformation happens together. By sharing resources and supporting each other, we create equity and build cultural power.
PRACTICE WITH PURPOSE
Art is work, and work deserves respect. We honor artistic labor as valuable, worthy of investment, and essential to community.
PLEASURE IN THE PROCESS
We believe rigor and joy go hand in hand. Sustainable practice means finding pleasure in the journey, not just the destination.
Are you an artist seeking a welcoming and collaborative space?
