On May 23 Americans for the Arts released its new Statement on Cultural Equity. Before going any further, let me acknowledge that I'm a white guy of a certain age and have no expertise to comment on it. Nevertheless, I'm vitally interested in this. My interest is based on 1) a deep personal conviction about the issue and 2) an awareness that without embracing substantive steps toward equity and making real changes as a result the nonprofit arts … [Read more...]
Diversity and Genuine Engagement
In February Malesha Taylor posted "Is Your Theatre Only 'Diverse and Inclusive' Twice a Year?", a meditation on diversity initiatives, outreach, and inclusiveness on HowlRound. There were so many spot on observations it's hard to know where to begin. She begins by describing a ten-week consultancy she had with a theatre company to foster diverse audience development. When she began she "was in a mindset of 'audience development' but soon … [Read more...]
Internships and Privilege
Stop me if you've heard this before. Someone says, "[X historically disenfranchised group] should stop complaining. They have way more privileges than I do." When thus confronted, I have had to resist the visceral impulse to leap across a table to strangle the speaker, knowing that would be counter-productive and, I guess, felonious. I do understand that on an individual level it's very difficult to see systemic privilege if you are the one … [Read more...]
Engagement Is a Means, Not an End
So much interesting stuff has been written recently about engagement and related topics, I barely know where to begin. The Irvine Foundation has published a series of mini-essays responding to questions about engagement. [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3] Diane Ragsdale posted an extended response to Irvine's question "Is there an issue in the arts field that is more urgent than engagement?" And Doug McLennan presented the results of an ArtsJournal survey … [Read more...]
Definitions, Again
Last November Matt Lehrman, author of Audience Wanted, ran a series of posts attempting to address the meaning of “audience engagement.” The need to do so will probably never end as we have so many different uses for those words and so many different factors to consider when we do so. Nevertheless, definitions are one of my abiding passions. I confess to great sympathy with everyone struggling with definitions. In the four plus years I have been … [Read more...]
AfAS Follow Up
“Art for art’s sake” is a concept that always generates discussion and passion. My last post (Art for Art’s Sake Revisited) was no exception. My good friend Andrew Taylor took me to task both for things I said and for some he assumed I did. (See his comments following the post.) He forced me to refine the intent of that post and in the process several things were clarified for me. There are two points I was trying to make. First and by far the … [Read more...]
Art for Art’s Sake Revisited
One of my most widely read (and/or infamous) posts is Art for Art's Sake: There's No Such Thing. The thrust of that essay was that art always does something and is always for someone and so the concept of art for art's sake, while it is an acknowledgement of the power of art is, taken at face value, a meaningless and perhaps unhelpful concept. Before I go on let me reiterate that I am wholly in sympathy with the phrase's intent of celebrating the … [Read more...]
Public Policy and Community Engagement
Over a two month period last year, TRG Arts and Engaging Matters partnered on a series of posts examining relationship building as the foundation of effective fundraising, marketing, and community engagement. (Relationships All the Way Down) Coincidentally, in the midst of that series, voters in Cuyahoga County overwhelmingly approved (by a 3:1 margin! Yes, you are reading that correctly.) the renewal of a tobacco tax specifically earmarked for … [Read more...]
Transformative Engagement
In Artcentric Engagement I discussed a kind of engagement in which an arts organization is attempting to bring people to it. As I said there, nothing is wrong with that; it's simply not the goal toward which I and many others in the arts who are deeply committed to community engagement are working. Upon a very little reflection, it becomes clear that the engagement about which I write and speak is intended to change the organization or at least … [Read more...]
Driving While . . . .
An October article in the New York Times presented research into the nature of the African-American experience of police traffic stops. Concentrating on Greensboro, NC and a small group of cities that have made a commitment to keep detailed records which can be reviewed (credit is due for that), the article presented a powerful assessment of the reality experienced by people of color in dealings with the police. The findings are not (or should … [Read more...]