The opportunities to connect communities through culture and to use that cultural engagement to educate one another are simultaneously compelling and challenging to cultural foundations and philanthropists. Recent reports and research provide strong arguments and preliminary insights into ways that culture can advance engagement across boundaries, both geographic and societal. But the most challenging efforts may be those intended to connect the United States to Muslim populations abroad.
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This keynote speech was delivered by choreographer Margaret Jenkins at the Dance/USA Annual Conference in June 2009, in Houston, Texas in a session titled “Finding the Future: Creative Sustainability in Uncertain Times.”
Originally a nautical term, battening down was a procedure to safeguard ships against bad weather. The crew would prepare for an impending storm by fastening canvas over doorways and hatches. Now in the arts, it is a time to take a few deep breaths and batten down the hatches.
A working session to review the Coalition's draft publication, "A National Blueprint for Emergency Preparedness, Relief and Recovery for Artists," and other Coalition works in progress. Also, discussion of a draft plan to give grantmakers better resources for learning about emergency readiness, response, and recovery, and to improve and coordinate safety nets for artists during regional or national emergencies.
Cornelia Carey, Craft Emergency Relief Fund (moderator); Carolyn Somers, Joan Mitchell Foundation (interlocutor).
During the summer of 1996, the National Association of Artists' Organizations (NAAO) conducted a series of "regional think-tank sessions" with NAAO members and their constituencies in twelve cities across the country. A concern heard throughout "A Dozen Dialogues" was the need to develop, nurture, and support artists and arts professionals who are new to the field. As an initial response, NAAO brought together ten young people under the age of thirty who were identified by NAAO members as emerging leaders.
We live in a world of "widespread hostility toward the United States and its policies."1 This antipathy is not limited to the countries and peoples that are directly affected by the U.S. "war on terror" and its attendant pol-icies, but includes many of our former allies and fellow democracies. A friend who just returned from a year in Spain reports that she spent a significant amount of time and energy convincing people she met there that the U.S.