Thursday Keynote: Dismantling Racist Systems and Creating A Vision for Our Country's Future

View Session

Overview

---

Racism is the common denominator in our most vexing public problems, and its legacy and impact in the United States are deep and profound for everyone. Racist lenses have infiltrated and negatively impacted every system we rely on—including many of those inside the creative economy, philanthropy, and cultural enterprise—and ultimately, make all of these systems poorer. In this keynote conversation, thinker, commentator, and well-known public policy and economic justice scholar Heather McGhee breaks down the far-reaching and detrimental effects of racism in both public and private policy, and then lays out a vision for how we can collectively move towards something that is more equitable and just, and that serves all of us, including those of us carrying the most privilege, better.

Speakers

---

Heather McGhee, Demos
Ted Russell, Kenneth Rainin Foundation 

Getting and Keeping Artists at the Community Recovery Table

View Session

Overview

---

What does it take for agencies to educate, support, and advocate for artists at tables where the future of communities are being discussed? In a moment where every community is developing a taskforce to address recovery and reconstruction, learn how you can ensure that creative voices are at the table.

Speakers

---

Roseann Weiss, ART+
Pacia Elaine Anderson, Community Artist

A New World Again: Beyond Recovery in the Time of Covid and Black Lives Matter

View Session

Overview

---

We began our planning for this workshop on May 26, 2020 the day after George Floyd’s murder. Our world had already completely been remade and we were yet to experience how it would transform again… and again and again. Many in the arts have finally realized that the work some have been doing as anti-racist artists and organizers for racial justice and cultural equity is no longer just about the survival of our arts sector, but the survival of our country and humanity. How do we not just lean in? What are our actions beyond witnessing? How do we become more strategic in connecting our lifted voices to dismantling the inequitable arts sector as we know it? This session will focus on pragmatic and strategic ways to move forward.

Speakers

---

Kemi Ilsanemi, The Laundromat Project
Roberta Uno, Arts in a Changing America 

Partnering with Community Foundations to Strengthen Arts Recovery

View Session

Overview

---

Community foundations help a community thrive in many ways and can be perfect collaborators for arts agencies and organizations, as they all work together to address broader social goals. In this session, explore what a 10-year initiative from the Barr Foundation can tell us about how arts organizations, agencies, and community foundations can work together to catalyze new leadership, energy, and resources in their communities during recovery and reconstruction.

Speakers

---

San San Wong, Barr Foundation
Katie Allan Zobel, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts
John Vasconcellos, Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts 

Understanding Your Full Creative Economy to Look to Recovery

View Session

Overview

---

Local Arts Agencies and arts services organizations have focused on the creative economy for years—bringing artists and creative workers into the fold more inclusively as well as facilitating more partnership development between commercial and nonprofit arts organizations. With radical social and economic changes upon us, what is the future of this creative economy movement and how is it being affected by the pandemic environment? Join this session to explore how we balance the stories, research, policy to navigate through this crisis and look to build a truly inclusive creative economy.

Speakers

---

Jessica Stern, Americans for the Arts
Cezanne Charles, roofoftwo
Maryann Lombardi, Creative Affairs Office, Government of the District of Columbia

Collective Movement through Digital Collaborative Dancemaking

View Session

Overview

---

The only way we’re going to get through this is if we get through this together. This time calls for a collective, coordinated effort—one that can occur in your own community, in your state, or throughout the nation, or even in your next Zoom meeting. In this artistic session, dancer and movers (and Americans for the Arts staffers) Danielle Iwata and Ami Scherson explore the concept, challenges, and opportunities of collective movement by working with those assembled to create, culminating in a one-performance-only, Zoom-based collective digital dance performance with participants. Be a part of something special and inspiring, work those creative muscles, and create some art without leaving your chair! 

Speakers

---

Danielle Iwata,  Americans for the Arts
Ami Scherson,  Americans for the Arts

Equity and Job Mobility in a Pandemic

View Session

Overview

---

What does a pandemic mean for the growth and career advancement of mid-career leaders of color in the arts field? Local, regional and national learning programs have identified a stellar roster of mid-career candidates who are successfully completing rigorous leadership development programs yet continue to be relegated to marginalizing roles.  So, where do these mid-career leaders of color go when their talents are over looked because of the sector’s unwillingness to confront and dismantle biases—particularly now, when mobility has become hard and job searches have temporarily frozen? 

Speakers

---

J. Gilbran Villalobos, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Kavita Mahoney, City of Indianapolis
Aseelah Shareef, Karamu House

Positioning Creatives to Drive Innovation in Reconstruction

View Session

Overview

---

In a crisis, systems that seemed rigid can suddenly bend--and if creative people are in the right place at the right time, they can transform those systems into better versions of themselves before they re-harden. In this session, hear how you can work to integrate artists and creatives in places where innovation is going to be necessary to survive, and where systems can benefit from a creative mind.

Speakers

---

Kara Elliott-Ortega, City of Boston
Renee Chatelain, Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge

The Importance of Evaluating Creative Efforts in Community Now

View Session

Overview

---

We’re in the midst of a pandemic, and you want me to evaluate my impact? YES! In a moment when everyone will be questioning the value and worth of what you’re doing for your community through the arts, creating and following-through on simple ways of gathering feedback and evaluating the impact your efforts are having is crucial. In this session, demystify evaluation and focus specifically on manageable evaluation efforts right now—and leave with know-how to get going.

Speakers

---

Susannah Larmee Kidd, Independent Evaluation Consultant

Using the Arts to Weave Communities Back Together

View Session

Overview

---

Join New York Times columnist and author David Brooks in exploring what it means to connect in this moment, and how the arts can be part of weaving us all back together. He’ll do this through the lens of Weave, a “cultural movement renewing America’s social fabric” that he has launched with the Aspen Institute which sets out to repair a social fabric that is badly frayed by distrust, division, and exclusion—and using arts and culture as a central strategy to doing just that. Following his speech, he will be joined on stage by Jessica Solomon, Vice President of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, for a closing dialogue and Q&A.

Speakers

---

David Brooks, New York Times
Jessica Solomon, Robert W. Deutsch Foundation

Sing OUT: A Concert with the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington DC

View Session

Overview

---

Celebrate the power of music with a selection of pre-recorded performances from the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, DC. With context from the artistic director and members of the Chorus to carry you through, enjoy a mini-concert from your own desk.

Speakers

---

Concert by The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, D.C.

Deana Haggag on Adding Creatives to a Workers Movement

View Session

Overview

---

The COVID crisis has laid bare the challenging circumstances of most creative workers in the United States in a way that is undeniable and calls for action. In this talk, Deana Haggag calls for the integration of creative workers into a broader “workers movement” working to ensure access to unemployment benefits, affordable and portable insurance, and other basic necessities in a moment when the economy is changing drastically and independent or gig work is becoming the norm, not the exception.

Speakers

---

Deana Haggag, United States Artists

Margy Waller on Framing the Arts as Essential to Recovery

View Session

Overview

---

The arts and artists are getting us through this once-in-a-lifetime crisis—they’re addressing trauma, they’re driving innovation, they’re keeping us busy and interested and sane. In this talk, Margy Waller explores how we can best make sure that people understand the essentiality of the artist—and are there to celebrate and defend creative workers when they need it most.

Speakers

---

Margy Waller, Topos Partnership

Yoko Sen on Sounds of Caring and How to Listen Generously

View Session

Overview

---

Join Sound artist Yoko Sen as she shares how she transforms the sound environment in healthcare through her artistic practice, and experience a short new piece of music, "Sounds of Caring," featuring the voices of 21 healthcare workers sharing how they are feeling during the pandemic. 

Speakers

---

Yoko Sen, Sen Sound

Arts, Culture, and Voter Engagement

View Session

Overview

---

Arts organizations and artists have a crucial role to play in energizing people in their communities around registering to vote and getting to the polls--particularly this year! In this session, learn about innovative arts- and creativity-based campaigns designed to encourage civic engagement, drive community dialogue, and get out the vote.

Speakers

---

Gustavo Herrera, Arts for LA
Nina Ozlu Tunceli, Americans for the Arts

Reimagining How We Support Gig Workers

View Session

Overview

---

The majority of the workforce in the creative economy is made up of gig workers and independent contractors who are, in various ways, less advantaged and less protected by both governmental policy and, in many cases, the internal policies of the organizations agencies with whom they work. In this facilitated dialogue, let’s talk about how we can do better for this backbone of the creative sector—some of the most impacted by the pandemic and likely to have one of the longest and most painful roads to recovery. Our sector can’t exist without them—so how can we ensure they thrive on the other side of this crisis?

Speakers

---

Kristy Edmunds, Center for Art & Performance, UCLA 

Self-Care in a Pandemic and Its Aftermath

View Session

Overview

---

Most in the arts are terrible at self-care even in more ideal times. What does it mean to practice self-care in the midst of a pandemic? In this session, learn from a wellness coach about how to carve out time to manage your mental and physical well-being.

Speakers

---

Shelly Tygielski, Yuru Meditation

Virtual Happy Hour and Networking Event

View Session

Overview

---

Social distancing has allowed us to connect and collaborate in new and innovative ways. Join colleagues from across the arts and culture field to network with Americans for the Arts advisory council members and staff with your favorite post-work beverage. We will create virtual breakout rooms for informal discussions about how we are adapting to our new normal and preparing for the future. The event will also provide an opportunity to learn more about what it means to be members of Americans for the Arts.