Cohort 
2024

Brian Kennedy, BA, MA, PhD

Art Consultant

We need advocacy for arts organizations to address ageism, ableism, cognitive decline and dementia, by promoting creative arts practice, lifelong and long-life learning.

Current Work

Leadership consultant and adviser to philanthropists and arts organizations. Consultant adviser to E.A. Michelson Philanthropy on Vitality Arts, a major funding initiative to promote creative aging and address ageism in American art organizations.

Personal Hero

Family and friends

Words of Strength

Strategic leadership, team building, fundraising

Vision

We need advocacy for arts organizations to address ageism, ableism, cognitive decline and dementia, by promoting creative arts practice, lifelong and long-life learning, giving older people a sense of purpose and relieving social isolation.

Strategy

Brian advises a major philanthropic project enabling American art museums to address ageism and provide creative aging classes. Publications, colloquia, and data surveys have been funded about ageism in the arts, and the needs of older Americans.

Impact

Engaging the Atlantic Fellow network, Brian will work on how to best connect the arts sector successfully with health and social sectors to address ageism and ableism by promoting brain health and equity.

Motivation

Most American art museums provide programs for people living with dementia but make no provision for creative aging programs for older audiences to prevent, delay or address cognitive decline. Aging is both growth and senescence.