Sipp Culture

PHOTO: Griff Griffin

The Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture) was founded in 2017 in Utica, Mississippi, to champion arts and culture as a foundational element in building community health and wellness in the rural South. At its core, the organization’s work is about restoring hope and possibility to the rural Black southern landscape through supporting creativity, imagination, remembrance, and the fostering of new relationships. These approaches are tactical; the goal is to transform communities and support the regeneration of rural spaces as spaces for cultural production.

Sipp Culture works at the intersection of food and story to support artists living in and sharing experiences of the rural south. Its work seeks to support artists in professional development and visioning, provide production support and a space for them to work on projects across all stages of development—from idea generation to tour preparation. Sipp Culture’s work utilizes food, personal and community narrative, and a generative collective history of place to advance a comprehensive community cultural development to reimagine a 21st century rural infrastructure based on principles of self-determination, production, and sustainability. Sipp Culture’s work begins with this community and focuses on challenging misconceptions about rural people here and across the deep south. For more information, visit sippculture.org.