Americans for the Arts

Hannah Jacobson

Quick -- point to Dublin, OH on a map.

How about Clinton County, MI; Douglasville, GA; or Missoula, MT? (Zero points if one of those cities is your hometown).

For those of us with a few years between elementary school geography and the present, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise if these seemingly arbitrary locations elude us.

Some residents of Taiwan, however, might find Dublin as easily as they would their own hometowns. It’s a similar story for students in Shiga, Japan with Clinton County; Denmark with Douglasville; and Neckargemün, Germany with Missoula.

In Americans for the Arts’ December webinar, produced in tandem with the special report entitled Backyard Diplomacy, we found out that cultural exchange—taking various forms of art that are from, inspired by, or headed to a distinctly foreign locale—is happening every day, in cities small and large, through local arts agencies (LAAs).

The major lesson? LAAs of any size and shape can and should feel empowered to take a field trip around the world.

Hannah Jacobson

Delight or die; this is the new paradigm set forth by Steve Denning to adapt to the new creative economy.

In a particularly fickle consumer-centric universe, the increased focus on services as opposed to goods, he says, creates a need for “continuous innovation” and what he terms “radical management.”

This new economy will be David versus the Goliath of the outgoing manufacturing economy, and we all know who ultimately wins that battle---but it will require smarts, innovation, flexibility, a great survival instinct, and a lot of new energy.

Yet for the arts, how “radical” is it really to be focused on services, to continuously innovate to survive, and, perhaps most importantly, to delight audiences? If nothing else, the arts community provides a masterful example of survival in any economy---creative or otherwise.

So the idea of the “creative economy,” a concept that has more disparate definitions than can realistically be explored here---think about the spectrum of understandings that would arise from places as distinct as the United States, Norway, England, Australia, and far beyond---might be relatively new, but creativity in the economy and even creativity as a driver of the economy are functions that the arts have long recognized.

Dilek ALP PERCIN

This year, the world is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the founding of UNESCO. At that time, the U.S. adopted the UNESCO Convention for the “Safeguarding of World Cultural and Natural Heritage,” so that places like the Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall, and the Grand Canyon could be recognized globally as unique cultural heritage sites in this country.

However, the United States has never adopted the UNESCO Convention for the “Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage” that many nations did when it was first presented in 2003.  As a result of our absence in this world convention, unique American art forms and cultural practices, ranging from jazz and blues to baseball and Thanksgiving traditions are not formally being recognized as this country’s unique intangible cultural heritage.

Other participating nations have prepared national inventories, established the list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding, and are busy submitting applications to secure valuable UNESCO recognition.

According to UNESCO, cultural heritage is the complex of monuments, buildings, and archeological sites of outstanding universal value from the point of view of history, art, or science. From the other point of view, cultural heritage is quite broadly defined as containing all the signs that document the activities and achievements of human beings over time.

Roseann Weiss

In the second week of April, when St. Louis was blooming with an early spring, 292 people came for Rustbelt to Artist Belt: At the Crossroads—an arts-based community development convening—to be part of the discussion about the arts and social change.

This conference combined the three Rustbelt to Artist Belt meetings that took place in Cleveland and Detroit with the At the Crossroads convening that took place in St. Louis in 2010.

I proposed this combination when attending the conference in Detroit and the idea stuck with Seth Beattie from Cleveland’s Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC), the organizer of Rustbelt. With phone calls and emails back and forth and with a grant from the Kresge Foundation, we did it!

I wondered whether our gamble—combining the people who talk about creative regeneration of neighborhoods in the Rustbelt with people who practice community arts and social engagement—would pay off.

Would we all be able to significantly connect these threads that make up the fabric of positive social change?

Shannon Litzenberger

 

A new generation of arts development calls for new conversations about how to engage stakeholders and cultivate resources to support artistic activity. It’s clear that as public investment dwindles relative to industry growth, the future success of arts enterprises will include seeking new creative partners in the private sector by building relationships based on shared values and mutual goals. Exploring national and international models of partnership, collaboration, and investment across the arts and business sectors formed the basis of a day-long symposium held late last year in Toronto. Creative Partnerships: Connecting Business and the Arts brought together 100 leaders from across the arts, business, and public sectors to consider how we can build new capacities within our respective industries through creative collaboration. Hosted jointly by the Metcalf Foundation, Business for the Arts, the ASO Learning Network, the Manulife Centre, and the Canada Council for the Arts, Creative Partnership brought into focus a host of examples and opportunities aimed at increasing private sector engagement in the arts. One of the day’s early highlights was a report on the performance of Canada’s new and quickly expanding program artsVest™. A flagship initiative at Business for the Arts, artsVest aims to help broker new relationships between arts organizations and business sponsors. With invested funds from the federal government, as well as participating provincial and city partners, the national initiative provides matching grants, free sponsorship training workshops, as well as community building and networking events that catalyze cross-sector partnerships.

Eric Fiss

It was late 2008, and I had recently taken up the position as Public Art Planner for the City of Richmond, British Columbia, when I was invited to two meetings in early 2009, discussing regional collaborative projects. These discussions took place during the run up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games when international media attention would be focussed on our region.

The first meeting was for the Necklace Project, ten communities surrounding the City of Vancouver, working together to develop best practices and creating a series of public art projects on a unified theme. The ten participating communities were Burnaby, Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, New Westminster, North Vancouver City, North Vancouver District, Port Moody, Port Coquitlam, Richmond, and Surrey.

The goal of the Necklace Project was to commission public art installations in all ten host municipalities and connect them through the theme of Illuminations, as well as encourage visitors to visit and experience each of the project sites.

For several of the communities this was their first public art project, and the support of more experienced communities, including administrative support from the Alliance for Arts and Culture and cultural planner, Oksana Dexter, were vital in realization of the projects.

As mutual support and best practices were crucial to the success of the Necklace Project (be sure to check out the Necklace Project website for a final report and critical essay coming soon!), one of the more experienced public art coordinators, Lori Phillips, serving both the City and District of North Vancouver, suggested we might want to formalize our collaboration to extend after the Necklace projects were complete and to and welcome other municipalities into our public art networking group.