Literary arts

Background
The cultural sector does not exist in a vacuum. It is being challenged by major demographic, economic, technological, and social factors outside its immediate control. While the commercial arts and individual artists are also struggling to adapt to these changes, for a variety of reasons the nonprofit arts sector has been particularly slow to respond effectively.

"I believe that if we can keep our values close, our imaginations open, and our stories fierce, we can and will win." - Thenmozhi Soundararajan

Introduction

Download pdf: http://artspolicy.colum.edu/DVProfiles.html

This unusual literary series of profiles about artists and art leaders explores how their work exists at the "interstices of the arts and democratic life." Featured in the series so far are T. Allan Comp, Umberto Crenca, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Franco Dragone, and Jay Allison. Coming soon is "Nonconforming Uses: Architect Teddy Cruz on the Border of Tomorrow" by Rebecca Solnit.

September2005, 17 pages. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Malcolm Weiner Center for Social Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 617-495-1480

PDF available at The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development

1998, 183 pages. The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, 830 North Tejon Street, Suite 120, Colorado Springs, CO 80903, 719-635-3220, sharpeartfdn@qwest.net

2005, 65 pages. McKnight Foundation, 710 Second Street South, Suite 400, Minneapolis, MN 55401, 612-333-4220

Carolyn Bye, executive director of the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, writes in the introduction that You Are Here reports on the "small steps" taken by communities in the Twin Cities suburbs since the publication of A New Angle: Arts Development in the Suburbs in 2002. The report features profiles of twelve suburban art projects and a detailed pull-out map showing where to find them and many others.

Beginning in 1999, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched a global initiative to strengthen arts education. In 2003, Portuguese delegates to the United Nations called for a global conference to address this aim, resulting in the first-ever World Conference on Arts Education. The World Conference brought together 1,200 artists, educators, policy makers, and researchers from over ninety-seven countries in Lisbon, Portugal from March 6-9, 2006.

These thoughts were sparked by attending the Council on Foundations 57th Annual Conference, "Philanthropy: Investing in the Vision of Progress." I was especially engaged by the plenary remarks of George Soros and Newt Gingrich.

While in Toronto recently, I discovered an abandoned paperback book in a public lobby — Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October. It turned out to be a liberated book, set there on purpose to be taken by some random stranger to read and then to re-release into the wild. It was a Bookcrossing book, set free by one of that site's 460,000-plus members.

A growing number of scholars and writers have been tracing the multiple connections between the arts and economic vitality during the past decade. A recent book by anthropologist Maribel Alvarez, There's Nothing Informal about It: Participatory Arts within the Cultural Ecology of Silicon Valley (2005) has drawn a new set of connections for me and raised the possibility that informal, or participatory, cultural practices may have greater meaning in an economic context than I previously recognized.