Conference Proceedings: Break-out Sessions

New media? Computer art? New technologies? Digital media? GIA members have demonstrated their ongoing interest in learning more about what artists are doing in digital media with large numbers of members participating in the evening and preconference sessions focusing on this new technologies, first in San Francisco and last year in Minneapolis.

This session will delve into lessons learned from an eight-year effort to help communities build capacity through cooperative marketing that includes both large and small arts organizations. These arts marketing collaboratives “grew from the ground up,” with participating communities asking to become involved after learning of successes in the first community.

Most funders are only able to support worthy institutions over a limited time period. Though many of our strategies are intended to have long-term impact, we are often unable to develop systems and practices that sustain institutions over time. We often ask ourselves, what remains for grantees after our funding is gone? Can the project be sustained? Have the skills been passed on to other staff? Has our grant left an organization or group of organizations equipped to fulfill their mission or complete their project when we are no longer funding partners?

Universities and conservatories are, with greater frequency, developing course work and internships that encourage students to participate in residencies and internships so that they may strengthen their ties with community constituencies. A composer and classical musician dedicates much of his career to training a percussion ensemble consisting of adults with developmental disabilities. A university's Office of Community Connections places students in organizations where they work with local residents.

Community-based arts organizations often exist in environments that are inherently unstable. How have funders traditionally defined stabilization, and are those definitions appropriate to community-based institutions? This session will investigate management structures, skill sets, planning strategies, and technical assistance that enable these institutions to function as flexible, resilient entities that can respond appropriately to change.

Just as a cultural institution must periodically take stock of its strategic position within a community, so do cities need to examine the impact of growth, development, resource shifts, and change on the cultural community as a whole. This session will focus on the design and implementation of several cultural planning, mapping, or policy development processes; each responding to specific but varied community conditions. Presenters will identify the issues that led to their planning efforts, define the scope and purpose of their work, and, in some cases, share significant outcomes.

While “making the pie higher” may have been a Presidential mixed metaphor, the slippage in corporate funding for the arts is a matter for concern. Traditional sources disappear; business pressures drive the shift to strategic grantmaking that builds corporate brand identity; new or realigned corporate donors emerge. What does this mean for the balance of donor support within communities? Are arts and culture holding their own in the face of internal business pressures or have corporate staff and policy changes marginalized the case for the arts?

There are powerful lessons to be learned from considering the full ecology of art within the life of a community; lessons that derive from art as a human and community process, not simply as a product. This panel will share experiences derived from long-term community engagement in cultural life. What kind of art does the community value? What is the role of the amateur? Is the private grantmaking community missing the boat on potentially powerful investments that don't meet the traditional guidelines? Who are the natural but surprising community advocates for the arts and why do they care?

Media reports give the impression that religion is constantly at odds with the arts in American life. But recent case studies and interviews with arts and religious leaders have indicated that there is more cooperation and less antagonism between the two sectors than is commonly reported. This session will be based on a seven-year Luce Foundation project involving commissioned research, convening, community initiatives, and the recent book Crossroads: Art and Religion in American Life, co-published with the Center for Arts and Culture.

A discussion about the sources of inspiration, sense of purpose, and leadership of Generation X, led by Roberto Bedoya, executive director of the National Association of Artists' Organizations (NAAO).

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   Generation X and Beyond (545Kb)