Grantmakers in the Arts

Post GIA Conference Thoughts from Barry Hessenius
by Steve

Barry Hessennius puts a wrap on his reports from the GIA 2015 Conference, held in Los Angeles last week:

Too often people only have complaints against funders. I would like to thank them. I admire their tenacity, their positive attitudes and their creativity. And now that I have thanked them, I would like to encourage them to push the envelope more; to have a sense of urgency about changing the dynamic and move us quicker in the area of equity. It’s frustrating not to move quicker where the need is great. There is so much that might get done if society had the right priorities and we had the necessary tools and resources. But things are getting a little bit better all the time.
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Lara Davis: Tuesday Conference Report
by Steve

GIA 2015 Conference blogger Lara Davis shares her notes from Tuesday at the Los Angeles Conference:

Tuesday morning’s Idea Lab of artists was on point, my people. I was particularly struck by Rosten Woo, who in a nutshell, produces communication art. Putting “interpretation” at the center of his work, he creates things like aesthetically-designed and clearly legible pamphlets on zoning so that street vendors know their rights, and glossies that highlight art and cultural occurrences in neighborhoods that, “due to racism, or the mere fact it takes place in someone’s backyard,” are not recognized as cultural staple within a community. I’m a fan. crystal am nelson’s visual and spoken artwork was stunning, and affirming. It invokes “historical trauma combined with pleasure as complicity”, naming society’s collective involvement in the violence and de-humanization of the Black body. This is a mirror we need right now.
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Barry Hessenius Reports on Tuesday at the GIA 2015 Conference
by Steve

The latest post from Barry Hessenius covers his notes from the second day of the Los Angeles Conference.

The major afternoon sessions were three hour offsite. I choose to attend the Digital Media for Arts Grantmakers session, focusing on the need for grantmakers to learn to deploy digital media to reach and engage audiences and to become fluent in digital capabilities and tools. Takeaways:
  • Have an articulated game plan, informed by the organization’s overall vision strategy
  • Build capabilities, don’t just do projects. Technology is not a project but a process
  • Shake up the organization chart with an integration of digital competency positions, including training
  • Put audiences first and be prepared for constant change.
  • This is, of course, a big, complex area where many arts leaders feel lost and / or incompetent and there are numerous obstacles to embracing full digital knowledge. But as the generational shifts become more urgent, so too is the necessity of overcoming reticence and fears to understand the basics of IT and appreciate the rapidity of change as a constant.

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Barry Hessenius: GIA Conference Monday Report
by Steve

Barry Hessenius checks in with his observations on the first day of the Los Angeles Conference:

The first day of any of our art conferences seem to always be the longest. Janet Brown opened the conference with the reminder that the three operating principles of GIA continue to be: Inclusiveness, Collaboration, and Curiosity. Recent GIA Conferences have featured Idea Lab — short Ted like presentations by a trio of different working artists. The first three were all excellent. The one that caught my attention was Yuval Sharon, founder and artistic director of The Industry, an L.A. based experimental opera company that produces performances that can only be categorized as way outside the box. He touted three
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Lara Davis: GIA 2015 Conference, Day 1
by Steve

GIA conference blogger Lara Davis checks in after her first day of the GIA 2015 Conference in Los Angeles:

Day 1 of the main conference has been pretty spectacular. The opening plenary inspired with three local artist presentations centering cultural organizing, innovation, and love. The sessions themselves were brilliant – a confluence of ideas and grappling with critical issues that the philanthropic community must consider, unpack and engage through action and accountability. In particular, the session on Cultural Equity and Public Funding framed the evolving work of funding agencies amidst changing demographics in the US. These changes reflect impacts on housing, law enforcement, education, and even electoral politics – all compounded by economic gaps impacting communities of color. This is an environment, which calls the field to task, to position arts and culture as a space of creativity and possibility through problem-solving, collaboration, and community leadership.
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Barry Hessenius Reports From the GIA 2015 Conference Beginnings
by Steve

GIA has a pair of bloggers reporting from the Los Angeles conference. Barry Hessenius has turned in his first post with some consideration of the themes that the conference is putting forth:

It will be interesting — to me — to try to get a handle on where the funding people’s thinking is at this juncture on the financial picture and the equity equation. Most of the other issues we face are arguably offshoots of these two elephants in the room. Every funder has different priorities and ranks differently the challenges out there. There are geographic territories where the equity issue isn’t as front burner as it is elsewhere; there are communities where survivability is still manageable, relatively speaking, and communities where the available resources are increasingly obviously inadequate to do much of anything about those organizations that are living still on borrowed time. No one segment of any field agrees on everything, including the nonprofit arts sector. But over the last five years, there has been remarkable consensus on what is critical, and even on some of the nuts and bolts of how to approach these issues. More over the next three days.
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Lara Davis on the Investing in Filmmakers Preconference
by Steve

The GIA 2015 Conference is underway in Los Angeles. We have a pair of bloggers reporting on the proceedings. The initial post from Lara Davis, Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, covers the Investing in Filmmakers: Arts and Media preconference on Sunday:

Documentary filmmakers pursue diverse support, pulling together resources from many supporters, as the level of funding needed to bring projects to fruition is greater than any one grant they may be able to garner (notwithstanding the already limited funding for film from the philanthropic field). Additionally, budgeting and timing for projects vary. Cori Shepherd Stern, producer of Bend the Arc – which centers on global health equity and was eleven years in the making (five just to secure the rights) – puts it this way, “Some stories can happen quickly. Some are about a deep personal relationship over time, which takes more time to develop and bring to fruition.” Cara Mertes (Ford Foundation, JustFilms) posed this response to the funders in the room, “What are the places where you can leverage effectiveness at various points across an endeavor vis a vis this process of storytelling, when it can take years to complete a project?”
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NEA Selects Jax Deluca as New Director of Media Arts
by SuJ'n

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced today that Jax Deluca will join the NEA as the director of media arts beginning on January 11, 2016. Deluca will manage NEA grantmaking in media arts and represent the agency to the media arts field. Deluca joins the NEA after her tenure as executive director of Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center in Buffalo, NY, a nonprofit serving western New York state which promotes innovation in media arts through access, education, and exhibition. At Squeaky Wheel, Deluca has overseen major expansion efforts, including fundraising, new jobs and media equipment, an updated youth media arts curriculum, and relocation into new, upgraded facilities.

Read the full announcement.

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