{"id":1477,"date":"2012-04-14T09:06:05","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T13:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=1477"},"modified":"2012-04-14T09:06:05","modified_gmt":"2012-04-14T13:06:05","slug":"rustbelt-to-artsbelt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2012\/04\/rustbelt-to-artsbelt\/","title":{"rendered":"Rustbelt to Artsbelt"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am attending a conference in St Louis hosted by the Regional Art Commission of St. Louis and the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture of Cleveland. The conference\u2019s title is Rustbelt to Artsbelt<\/a>: At the Crossroads, Arts-Based Community Development Convening. I attended the initial At the Crossroads conference two years ago and found it a fascinating opportunity to connect with grassroots community engagement activity around the country.<\/p>\n

I will not attempt to present an overview of the whole conference here. (I\u2019m not sure I could.) This post is an outgrowth of a session I chaired here Friday afternoon. Titled, Transforming Arts Institutions: The Path to Sustainability, it featured Stephanie Moore talking about economic development work and cultural mapping (taking inventory of cultural assets in an area-neighborhood, city, or region) as means of fostering engagement; Lyz Crane talking about arts organizations as \u201cgood neighbors,\u201d utilizing organizational assets to build relationships with their communities; and Kiana Day from Houston Grand Opera\u2019s HGOco talking about that company\u2019s community engagement work.<\/p>\n

For a variety of reasons, we did not have time to address with session attendees the core questions it had been my intent to raise. I promised them an opportunity to respond via this blog. All readers are invited to weigh in.<\/p>\n

As background, many At the Crossroads attendees have grassroots organizing or social action backgrounds or orientations. Many have a deep and profound concern for social justice. One of the ways that concern sometimes gets played out is in questioning the legitimacy of a funding infrastructure that disproportionately supports mainline arts organizations that serve what might be considered to be \u201c1%\u201d cultural interests. Some conference attendees question whether such organizations are even capable of making change in the relationships they have with their communities.<\/p>\n

As I suggested in Bimodal Engagement<\/a>, I think there is evidence that it may be possible and even that some such change is underway. But given that, here are the questions I had hoped we could discuss:<\/strong><\/p>\n