The Roll Up

Founded in 2016 by Jessica Gaynelle Moss, The Roll Up CLT is a living artwork that provides sustained support for Black contemporary artists practicing across disciplines.

Each year, The Roll Up invites a Black artist from across the nation to participate in a transformative residency. Visiting artists receive furnished living spaces, stipends, and holistic support that empowers them to thrive creatively while engaging with the local community. The Roll Up also nurtures local talent through our Fellowship and Internship programs -- equipping emerging artists with the tools and resources necessary to establish themselves in the field.

By connecting national artists, local creatives, and neighborhood residents through pedagogical collaborations, participatory interventions, and collective artmaking, The Roll Up becomes a catalyst-- bridging artists across borders, transforming neighborhoods and people, and establishing itself as a platform that prioritizes care, community, and our own autonomy.

The project is guided by an advisory board and leadership team of accomplished Black artists, and is deeply shaped by founding director Jessica Gaynelle Moss’s experiences working with artists Mel Chin, Theaster Gates, and Alisha B Wormsley. Chin, Gates and Wormsley's socially-engaged practices center community care, cultural stewardship, and systemic change. Through Chin’s national advocacy, Gates’s values-driven urban strategies at Place Lab, and Wormsley’s networks of radical care for Black artists, Jessica has learned a practice rooted in ethical collaboration and place-based engagement. These lessons continue to guide how she designs projects, facilitates civic dialogue, and uses public art to elevate lived experience and local leadership.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT

THE 2025 ROLL UP: OPEN CALL

THE CLARISSA PROJECT HERE.

The Roll Up CLT is generously funded by individual donors and The Black Art Futures Fund Grant, The Arts & Science Council, McKnight Foundation, Artists Residencies Consortium, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., Life Membership Foundation, #CharlotteIsCreative HUG Grant program, Foundation For The Carolinas, The Reemprise Fund, Common Field, and The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

"Jessica embodies an ethic of kindness and service, and has created a mirroring residency program that was flexible enough to adapt in a way that encouraged my personal development, while also continuing to meet the shifting needs of the Charlotte community. During my residency, I was allowed the space to deepen my analysis of the city I've called home for ten years, and gained clarity on the role I wish to play here as a citizen artist. The suggestions and feedback provided through the program helped foster new community connections, and a personal ethic that I will carry with me for a lifetime."

- Ashley Nickens, 2020 Roll Up CLT resident artist

★★★★★