GIA Reader (2000-present)

The arts sector struggles within an environment of scarcity of resources, and yet we know that untapped, unexplored resources exist. We live in an age of a sharing economy, where existing extra rooms, vacation homes, and apartments become the destination for travelers, and car owners provide a vehicle to those in need of transport. This makes so much sense.

September 2021. At the convocation address to every entering student at a US university/college/community college arts program, conservatory, and high school of the arts:

On March 2, 2016, Grantmakers in the Arts held the invitational Thought Leader Forum on Artists in Community Settings at the Regional Arts Commission, Saint Louis, Missouri. The gathering involved nineteen funders, seven presenters from the field, and GIA staff and board observers. Eric Booth of Everyday Arts, Inc., facilitated and presented at the forum.

The Initiative

Over the past five years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has taken an active and vocal position on the need for a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive theatre field. We have been approaching this challenge on multiple fronts, and our thinking has evolved dramatically over time as we learn more about equity, ourselves, our history, and the deeply embedded structures of racism and other forms of oppression in our theatre field and larger society.

During the 1960s, a progressive liberation of the spectator from observer to active participant occurred in the visual and performing arts, which were reciprocally informed by participatory forms of social protest and performance: marches, sit-ins, riots, and so on. Dancer and choreographer Anna Halprin (née Ann Schuman, 1920–), with her San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop, was directly involved in these developments, and their experiments soon infiltrated the creative endeavors of her husband, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin (1916–2009).

Understanding and embracing transformational change are ubiquitous in cultural policy circles. Research on dramatic demographic shifts, seismic alterations in technology and audience consumption, and postrecession political realities compel arts leaders to master not only their genre but the sticky notion of change itself. Grantmakers in the Arts' own equity work, EmcArts Community Innovation Labs, and ArtPlace’s placemaking practices are all attempts to recalibrate the arts funding ecosystem to respond and adapt to change.

Creative expression is a basic human right. It is, in fact, the trait that makes us human. This philosophy motivated everything Professor Robert E. Gard did. The concept is so profound and innately logical that when I came to work with him in 1963 I adopted it without question.