{"id":842,"date":"2006-01-30T08:50:50","date_gmt":"2006-01-30T16:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2006\/01\/mergers_and_inquisitions_1\/"},"modified":"2006-01-30T08:50:50","modified_gmt":"2006-01-30T16:50:50","slug":"mergers_and_inquisitions_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/mergers_and_inquisitions_1.php","title":{"rendered":"Mergers and inquisitions"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were some rich and juicy comments<\/a> to my post of last week on ”Ecological mission vs. insular alliance<\/a>.” Thanks to all who contributed (and can still contribute) to the conversation.<\/p>\n

From the comments, and from other e-mail I received, it seemed that many interpreted my suggestion for ”softer boundaries” between arts organizations within a community as a call for outright mergers. That’s certainly a radical softening of organizational boundaries — to the point that they vanish altogether — but it’s not exactly what I had in mind. There’s a world of nuance and possibility between completely separate and self-preserving organizations and a monolitic merger into ”culture R us.” I’m more interested in that middle earth than in either extreme.<\/p>\n

It just strikes me as odd that so many cultural nonprofits in a community have remarkably identical elements in their mission statements, and yet never speak to each other. Even if they have different missions, their individual success is a product of the ecology, not of some separate and insular activity.<\/p>\n

As proof of that point, just recall any powerful, personal moment you’ve had in an arts experience — where you lost sense of yourself, of your place, of time even, because the moment was so engrossing. Much of that meaning flowed from the moment you were in, to be sure. But it came to you only because of a full range of previous experiences and life events — school music lessons, perhaps, or family celebrations surrounding the arts; a personal struggle or victory that was somehow captured and reflected back to you in the performance; a bundle of random emotions and recollections that suddenly came into focus. As John Dewey put it so beautfully back in the 1930s:<\/p>\n

When a flash of lightening illumines a dark landscape, there is a momentary recognition of objects. But the recognition is not itself a mere point in time. It is the focal culmination of long, slow processes of maturation. It is the manifestation of the continuity of an ordered temporary experience in a sudden discrete instant of climax. It is as meaningless in isolation as would be the drama of Hamlet were it confined to a single line or word with no context.<\/i> — John Dewey, Art as Experience<\/a>, pp. 23-24.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Arts organizations are nothing without context, and that context includes the work of the organizations and individuals around us. Knowing this, we need not be as drastic as merging and consolidating (although, in some cases, perhaps we should). But we need to strive to be ever more connected and responsive to any ally we discover. Turf battles are contrary to that universe, as is insular thinking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were some rich and juicy comments to my post of last week on ”Ecological mission vs. insular alliance.” Thanks to all who contributed (and can still contribute) to the conversation. From the comments, and from other e-mail I received, it seemed that many interpreted my suggestion for ”softer boundaries” between arts organizations within a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}