Charlotte Keniston |
Charlotte Keniston, DirectorCharlotte came to Baltimore in 2011 to participate in Peaceworker and pursue an MFA in Intermedia and Digital Arts at UMBC, where she completed a thesis on the intersection of art, food systems, and social justice. She remained in Baltimore as an Open Society Institute Fellow and later ran community food programs at Paul’s Place, a non-profit in Southwest Baltimore. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, Charlotte served in San Sebastián Huehuetenango, Guatemala from 2008-2010, helping to form women’s groups organized around gender equity and rural community development. Charlotte has taught classes at UMBC in Food Systems, Photography, and Public Art in the Visual Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies programs, as well as Digital Storytelling and Research Methods in the Community Leadership Masters and Certificate Programs. She completed her doctoral degree in Language, Literacy, and Culture, studying participatory visual research methods and social change in 2024. Charlotte helps to organize the UMBC campus Digital Storytelling initiatives and is active in the International Digital Storytelling community. She lives in NW Baltimore County with her partner and their two children, cat, and 5 lively hens.
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M’Balou Camara, Program CoordinatorM’Balou returned to Baltimore in 2025, driven by her passion for facilitating global-minded, community-oriented initiatives in creative learning spaces. Originally from Conakry, Guinea, M’Balou was born and raised in Montgomery County, MD, as the youngest of seven sisters. She first came to Baltimore in 2011 as an undergraduate at UMBC, where she majored in Economics, Political Science, and Global Studies. A McNair Scholar, France-Merrick Scholar, and service-learning intern at the Shriver Center, she graduated in 2015 before completing a post-baccalaureate fellowship in Economics at NYU Stern and an MA in Public Policy at Duke. Throughout her career, M’Balou has led projects with organizations including Benvenuti Arts, the African Development Bank, and the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. She currently supports artistic research at the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture at UMBC (CADVC) and plans to relocate from Washington, DC to Baltimore City in the summer of 2025.
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