George Kaiser Family Foundation的动态

#strengtheningcommunities Art is at the heart of strengthening community bonds! Check out this recent case study on the intersection between arts, culture, community, and heath. View the article here: https://lnkd.in/gi8s87J3

What’s the relationship between public art and gentrification, and can the arts bridge the gap between past and present? It’s a question I consider a lot in my work in museum education and programming, and something I explored for the Free Times Identity Issue. This article was the product of so much generative and challenging dialogue about the balance between preservation and progress—and how art can work (and sometimes fail) to balance those two things. https://lnkd.in/eFajpwUY

Is it so radical to consider the arts as a vital part of our national infrastructure? Historical precedents exist… https://lnkd.in/erpGMVCH

???? The arts are an integral part of our culture and community, yet many arts programs are facing critical challenges. The recent article "What We Lose When We Lose UARTS" in The Philadelphia Citizen highlights the profound impact of losing arts education and programs. From stifling creativity and innovation to diminishing cultural awareness and social cohesion, the loss of UARTS leaves a void that affects us all. Arts education is not just about learning to paint or play an instrument—it's about fostering critical thinking, empathy, and resilience. When we lose UARTS, we lose the opportunity to nurture future leaders, creators, and problem-solvers who can drive positive change in our society. ?? The article calls on us to recognize the value of arts programs and to advocate for their preservation and support. Let's come together to support and advocate for the preservation of arts education. Our future depends on nurturing the creativity and talents of the next generation. Dive into this powerful commentary to understand what's at stake and how we can make a difference. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/g9x8vTrE #Artivism #SocialArtAndCulture #SaveTheArts #ArtsEducation #CreativeCommunities ?????

If you are considering getting your art into a community art center, here is how you can do it.

???? Here's a great idea: To save museums, treat them like highways. Did you know??“Culture in the United States employs about five million people and pumps about $1 trillion into the economy annually.” In their guest essay for The New York Times, co-authors Laura Raicovich (former director of the Queens Museum), and Laura Hanna (board chair for Powerhouse Arts), argue, “We need to treat culture as equal to other forms of national infrastructure, as important to our national well-being as safe roads, clean drinking water and accessible utilities…. New funding would boost local economies, cultivate a more equitable arts sector, and promote and protect arts organizations,” they say. Read more about their proposed federal funding strategy: https://bit.ly/3SB6sxU

Boston Ujima Project, 'How can art help us understand and address issues of racism and social justice in today's society?' Art has a unique capacity to confront and unpack issues of racism and social justice because it transcends language, speaking to people’s emotions and lived experiences. It serves as a mirror and a lens, reflecting societal inequalities while offering new perspectives on these struggles. By capturing the nuances of identity, injustice, and resilience, artists can stimulate critical dialogue, disrupt complacency, and foster empathy in ways that statistics or policy debates often cannot. For example, visual and performance arts that center on Black history or the experiences of marginalized communities create spaces where viewers can process systemic racism in a personal and visceral way. Such art informs and transforms the viewer, encouraging deeper understanding of how racism affects individuals and communities, past and present. Additionally, art amplifies the voices of those who are often silenced. It gives people the power to narrate their own stories, challenging dominant narratives and making visible the structural inequalities that perpetuate racism. Public art movements, such as murals or installations, can reclaim spaces and push for social change, acting as catalysts for community solidarity and activism. Art’s role creates historical memory, reminding society of past injustices while inspiring the imagination for a more equitable future. In this sense, art not only addresses the trauma caused by racism but also offers a vision of healing and progress. Ultimately, art has the power of presence to build bridges between communities, inspiring collective action and mobilization to address social justice issues. Artists like Tomashi Jackson exemplify this by using their work to investigate the intersections of race, politics, and history. Jackson's art layers abstraction, history, current events, and documentary elements to highlight issues like voter suppression, segregation, police brutality, and systemic racism to ignite a shared vision for justice and equity. Thank you for sharing.

Another tremendous nudge in the right direction from David Maggs, Metcalf Foundation. To which I can't help but respond with the same argument I've been making for years ... Just as Vicki Stroich brilliantly puts it: "Our collective imagination needs to work harder. We need to go beyond imagining new technologies, we need to imagine new ways to live and form community, and new ways to invite people into those stories and visions." YES. And she says, "Dramaturgy for me has always been about helping artists open up a pathway to the most potent expression they can possibly make ..." To which, again, I say YES. But I can't help but feel that we are not going far enough when she says that thinking beyond bias is thinking in story. Art-as-story is already our bias. And it is a beautiful and wonderful bias to have. But I think it's a continued failure of imagination for western dramaturgy to keep storytelling on a higher pedestal than audience experience. This is especially magnified by citing David's other essay(s) which implore the actual practical engagement of the audience. Western story structure is an argumentative structure. The tradition of multi-act dramatically active dialogue is intentionally rooted in spreading political bias. And, sometimes, that's fine. But if we want the arts to catalyze a cultural shift of thinking around our approaches to the climate crisis, then we could stand to demonstrate the possibility of such shifts. Story itself (if used at all), has to be one humble tool, not the whole shed.

Eight years ago, during my tenure as Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Roswell Museum, I started learning about federal community art centers, a remarkable New Deal initiative that remains one of the most expansive art-sharing programs in the history of the United States. Ever since I learned about this program, I've wanted to map its history digitally so that researchers could follow the movement of art exhibitions, observe the opening and closing of art centers, and trace the migrations of art center personnel as they were assigned to different sites. Today, I'm happy to share I've taken a first step toward this long-term goal by creating a StoryMap about federal community art centers. Here, I share all the information I've learned about them since 2016, from the addresses of specific sites to the contents of circulating exhibitions. This StoryMap, in short, represents eight years of ongoing research and analysis. More than a repository for my research though, this project is an invitation to other researchers interested in federal community art centers. I'm asking everyone interested in this initiative to share their data so we can compile all our research in one place. This program is too vast for one person to document, and I know there are others as passionate about it as I am. So let's get together and share our data. Together, we can document this significant but understudied initiative. #newdeal #digitalhumanities #federalcommunityartcenter https://lnkd.in/eenEHd_p

Now available for pre-order: "Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites," edited by Max van Balgooy and Ken Turnio, and published by Rowman & Littlefield for AASLH. I wrote a chapter for the book, "Not Everyone Celebrates Christmas: Expanding Your Holiday Horizons," which discusses not only Hanukkah, but other faith traditions as well as Christian faith traditions that do not celebrate Christmas as it has come to be observed in the U.S. and Canada. From the back of the book: "Interpreting Christmas at Museums and Historic Sites offers a wide range of perspectives on Christmas and practical guidance for planning, research, interpretation, and programming by board members, staff, and volunteers involved in the management, research, and interpretation at house museums, historic sites, history museums, and historical societies across the United States. Packed with fresh ideas and approaches by nearly two dozen scholars and leaders in this specialized topic, as well as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, they can easily be adapted for the unique needs of organizations of various budgets and capacities. An extensive bibliography of books and articles published in the last twenty years provides additional resources for research and exploration." https://lnkd.in/e7wHsDQY