CREATIVITY & CULTURE
When creativity is treated as a shared resource rather than a gated institution, art becomes a living, renewable energy source shaped by the youth, artists, and communities.
Below is a snapshot of Maurice Leoni-Osion's work spanning over 10 years of practice as a director, curator, and facilitator. His work spans the U.S. and international borders and includes artist residencies, workshops, exhibitions, and public gatherings, while building a network of artists, cultural organizations, and nonprofits as partners committed to supporting the arts
ARTIST DEVELOPMENT
Here, spaces and conditions are cultivated to support artists' growth through resources such as stipends, studio spaces, and public visibility.
ATLAS ARTIST RESIDENCY
The Atlas Artist Residency was conceived in 2021, emerging from a moment of re-imagination in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As artists, youth, and communities faced isolation, disruption, and limited access to creative resources, Maurice worked with ART 180 to envision a response grounded in collective rebuilding for well-being, including an artist residency to provide stipends and creative spaces for artists.
From its inception, the residency was designed to be an environment for listening, experimentation, and intergenerational exchange. The program centered youth voices while inviting teaching artists to work as mentors, collaborators, and cultural translators. The program intentionally reduced barriers to participation by providing stipends, material budgets, studio access, career resources, and site visits to cultural and industry institutions, ensuring participants could fully engage regardless of economic circumstances or prior access to arts institutions.
As a result, artists built a body of work to bolster their portfolios/CVs and presented individual and collaborative projects in public exhibitions, which they leveraged to pursue opportunities in secondary education and early-career pathways. While simultaneously providing resources needed to support their long-term creative growth, confidence, and continued engagement in the arts.
OUTCOMES
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SUSTAINED FUNDED PROGRAMMING
Demonstrated long-term commitment, adaptability, and organizational capacity to support 5 years of artist development,
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ARTIST DEVELOPMENT
Successfully implemented an intergenerational residency that strengthened 10 teaching artists and 50 emerging youth artists in artistic skills, portfolios, and established pathways for continued artistic practice, education, and career development.
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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Produced five professionally curated public exhibitions as culminating moments for each residency cycle, offering artists opportunities to share their work publicly.
YEARS: 2021 - PRESENT
THE EASEL
LIVE PUBLIC ART SERIES
The Easel is a monthly live art series launched in 2022 in partnership with ART 180, created to support professional visual artists for the public. Presented every third Thursday from March through October, The Easel transforms ART 180's outdoor parklet into an open-air studio, inviting local and national artists to demonstrate their creative process in real-time to individuals and families who may not be able to attend Richmond's First Fridays Art Walk.
At its core, the public art series supports artist development by providing professional artists with space, visibility, and direct audience connection. Artists are encouraged to document their process, engage in dialogue, and sell their work. All events are free and open to the public, reinforcing ART 180's commitment to access and community inclusion.
Artworks created during live sessions are installed and featured in future exhibitions, extending their impact beyond each public event and ensuring that art as a process and production remains visible and valued within the community.
OUTCOMES
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ARTIST DEVELOPMENT
Provided 30 visual artists with opportunities to develop artistically and professionally by demonstrating process, engaging audiences, and selling artwork
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PUBLIC ACCESS
Broadened participation and art accessibility by creating free outside entry points to the visual arts for individuals and families in park-like neighborhoods.
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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Artwork produced during live sessions was showcased in 4 featured exhibitions, extending the impact of each activation beyond the event and attracting an average of 350 attendees per event.
YEAR: 2022-PRESENT
CULTURAL LEARNING &
COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS
These workshops use culturally responsive pedagogy to meet communities where they are and create entry points for sharing and collective storytelling. The intention is to expand opportunities for anyone to contribute to record-keeping with a focus on preserving and carrying forward the memory stories.
THE HOME REMIXTAPE ARTCHIVE
WORKSHOP SERIES
In partnership with Oyoun, The Home ReMixtape Artchive Vol. 1: Berlin marks the first chapter of a global community library that captures the essence of place and belonging.
Traveling across five locations in Berlin, Germany, as part of Oyoun’s Tiny House Oyounity Tour,
Participants were invited to share their personal narratives of home through a multidisciplinary approach: environmental recordings, interviews, songs, poems, and music production, all woven into the final archival mixtape.
The series culminated in a public exhibition at Oyoun Kultur NeuDenken on Thursday, November 16, 2023, where the mixtape was presented in both digital and analog cassette formats, alongside a converted old phone booth as a studio vocal booth, allowing attendees to add their voices to the archive as bonus tracks.
OUTCOMES
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LEARNED TECHNICAL SKILLS
Participants developed practical, transferable skills in field recording, sound editing, audio composition, music production, and foundational storytelling practices.
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PUBLIC ACCESS
Provided equitable access to arts education, overcoming barriers related to cost and geography through 5 free mobile workshops across Berlin, Germany.
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FINAL PROJECT
Launched the first edition of a community-produced, sound-based artchive featuring works centered on narratives of “home, alongside a public exhibition with 400+ attendees.
YEAR: 2023
KNOW YOUR HIPHOPSTORY
Delivered across libraries, schools, art organizations, nonprofits, and virtual spaces from 2015–2019, Know Your Hip-Hopstory was a workshop series that examined the artistic innovations of DJing, emceeing, graffiti writing, and breakdancing that gave birth to Hip-Hop.
Blending dialogue, historical context, and hands-on music production, the series used Hip-Hop as a call to action for change and a contemporary platform for self-expression. Youth unlock their own voices, document personal stories, and reexamine approaches to day-to-day challenges for problem-solving, resistance, and self-determination.
The program has been presented in partnership with organizations, including Richmond Public Library, Charterhouse School, Virginia Commonwealth University, and, in 2019, supported SPARC Live Art Family, culminating in a community-centered showcase at the Altria Theater in Richmond, Virginia, to help young people of all abilities through performance.
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OUTCOMES
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PARTICIPATION
More than 400 participants engaged across several program cycles at multiple schools and community organizations, demonstrating increased knowledge of hip-hop's historical origins and cultural significance.
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SKILL DEVELOPMENT
Students develop performance skills through hip-hop-based practices, including lyrical composition and improvisation as an alternative approach to conflict resolution and self-advocacy.
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FINAL PROJECT
Participants completed eight (8) final projects that integrated and applied the program's learned skills in public presentations and music recordings.
YEARS: 2015–2019
MUSIC CURATIONS
Osion's use of soundstages to curate and transform spaces, inviting communities to engage with music in ways that bridge place and stories while expanding how music can be experienced and interpreted.
PHOTOSYNTHESISERS'
APOLLOGY ALBUM, MICROBREW, AND
LIVE ART INSTALLATION
Apollogy (2019) by PhotoSynthesizers was conceived not as a traditional album release, but as an interdisciplinary work that treated music as a manifesto of sound, sight, and spirit.
Curated and directed by Leoni-Osion, the project unfolded as a living art installation of eleven monumental sculptural works, each corresponding to an album track, serving as a visual invocation of the album's lyrical and conceptual universe.
The collaborative exhibition invited audiences to experience live abstract painting from Khalid Thompson and a custom citrus and cloudy IPA by Väsen Brewing that echoes Apollogy's layered inspirations: the celestial ambition of Apollo 11, the mythic creative divinity of the Greek god Apollo, and the symbolic structure of PhotoSynthesizers' eleven-track debut; followed by a photoshoot, transforming the band into living statues.
Together, Apollogy served as a curation in which music, visual art, and tastemaking reflected a multidimensional creative vision of how music is released and experienced.
OUTCOMES
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ART INTEGRATION
The project successfully integrated and expanded traditional album-release formats into an art installation, demonstrating how sound-based work can function across disciplines.
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AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
The release strategically engaged 500 audience members by presenting the album through a variety of cultural interests, inviting them to enter the project through different points of connection.
Year: 2019
VÄSEN'S MUSIC
SERIES & FESTIVALS
From 2017 to 2019, Maurice Leoni-Osion served as curator of live music programming at Väsen Brewing Company, using live music to evolve the brewery’s cultural identity and community engagement. To launch this initiative, Live at Väsen, a bi-weekly Tuesday-night music series, pairs emerging local and regional artists across genres for two 60-minute sets, intentionally curating stylistic contrast to bring diverse audiences.
Complimenting the Live At Väsen music series were additional music curations for Väsen’s Anniversary Festivals, continuing to showcase a broad genre range of artists, including Black Alley, Illiterate Light, Bio Ritmo, Chance Fisher, Weekend Plans, and The Bush League, among others.
These festivals and live music series were a curatorial strategy that positioned the Väsen brand, primarily known for its involvement in the outdoors as a destination for arts, music, and culture in the reestablished Scotts Addition neighborhood of Richmond, Va.
OUTCOMES
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PUBLIC ACCESS
The programming offered a public venue for live music and provided residents with art experiences in a new, emerging neighborhood.
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ARTIST DEVELOPMENT
The programming supported artist development by placing emerging musicians in mixed-genre performance supporting over 40 musicians and bands.
YEARS: 2017 - 2019
IMPACT
YEARS
11
2015
2026
PARTNERSHIPS
15
ART 180 · Charterhouse · Common House RVA · Culture Works · Hardywood Brewery · Oyoun Kultur NeuDenken · Peace Post · Richmond Public Libraries · Richmond Night Market · Shenandoah National Park · SPARC · The Valentine Museum · The Well Collective · VCU · Väsen Brewing Company
10
PUBLIC ENGAGMENTS
Arts & Crafts · Atlas Artist Residency · Apollogy Release and Art Installation · Easel Public Art Series · Know Your HipHopstory · SPARC Live Art · LEAP Artist Residency · Listen Exhibition · Väsen Live Music Series · Väsen Anniversary Festival · The Home ReMixtape Workshop Series & Artchives ·
50+
ARTIST
Alice & The Reverie · Alliannah Hamilton · Alfonso Pérez Acosta · Alexis Rogers · Amiri Richardson-Keys · Andrea Revelle · Astroblack · Barry O’Keefe · Black Alley · Brianna Maurice · Cate Duckwall · Chance Fisher · Chloe Hagins · Chris Oliver · Chris Visions · Cristina Leoni-Osion · Dallas Roquemore ·David Marion · Deau Eyes · Dr.Data · Hamilton Glass · Isaiah “Nemo” Taylor · Jamela Bullock · Joshua Bryant · Julian Desta · Khalid Thompson · Keith Ramsey · Margaux Lesourd Eler · Mecca Harris · Myasia Goode · Nadd Harvin · Nastassja Swift · Nico Cathcart · Niyah McGee · Peter Aarango · PhotoSynthesizers ·
S. Ross Browne · Sam Reed · Silly Genius · Sionne Neely · Tameka Cook · The Cornell West Theory · The Bush League · The Microwaves · THE MEM · Therochelle · Ti’yana Anderson · Toxic Moxie · Vaunita Goodman · Weekend Plans · Xolani Sivunda ·