The Innovative Cultural Advocacy/Cultural Equity Coalition presented an open dialogue on the NYC Cultural plan on last Friday, October 28th.
"NYC's cultural policies should empower arts and cultural organizations working in communities
of color, not only because a diverse arts sector is an essential element for any global city, but
also because many culturally-specific organizations are already working, directly or indirectly, to
address inequality in the distribution of public services, enforcement of civil rights, and access to
professional and educational opportunities."
Panelists included:
The Cultural Equity Coalition
Nisha Baliga- Participatory Planning Director, Hester Street Collaborative
Caron Atlas- Consultant, Hester Street Collaborative AND Co-director of Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts New York
Edwin Torres- Deputy Commissioner NYC Department of Cultural Affairs
Moderated by Nathalie Tejada, Director of Development, Public and Government Relations, Astor Services for Children & Families, and ICA Alum-Cycle II.
ICF fellows of the CCCADI (Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute) made their reports to DCA and the two groups they hired to manage the process, Hester Street Collaborative and Caron Atlas.
DCA and co agreed to come to this to hear from CEG and all that Marta has been doing. Linda Walton spoke for CEG, giving a report:
I. Cultural
Equity Group History and Background
·
Emerging
from the Civil Rights Movement and founded in 2007, the Cultural Equity Group
(CEG) is a coalition of cultural arts organizations and artists in New York
City working for the equitable distribution of funds and resources to assure
that under-resourced and under-served emerging and mid-sized organizations
grounded in the culture and arts of their communities are fairly funded.
·
The
Cultural Equity Group speaks to the importance of artists and arts
organizations of color whose contributions often define the vibrancy and
vitality of neighborhoods throughout New York.
Many are landmark cultural institutions operating within most Council
district.
·
Concern
of CEG: Presently 33 organizations designated the Cultural Institutions Group
(CIG) receive approximately 3/4 of the New York City’s Department of Cultural
Affairs budget while approximately ¼ is divided among over 1000
organizations. The vast majority of
organizations funded in this category reflect historically marginalized racial,
ethnic and other cultural groups that do not represent the so-called
“mainstream.”
II. CEG
Informing the Cultural Plan
At
a meeting organized last year by the CEG at The Riverside Theater, The CEG
proposed the following
· Equity is
not a remedial endeavor for the disadvantaged but sees our communities from
their advantages, their positives, enabling their unique qualities to enrich us
all.
· Requested
a CEG appointment to the NYC Citizen’s Advisory Committee.
· A fully
transparent Cultural Planning effort that explores creative new funding
mechanisms such as the creation of a Cultural Re-investment Fund that
recognizes the important role played by community arts organizations and
artists in creating vital communities and offers a viable vehicle to address
concerns for cultural equity and access
· The Plan
should address structural changes as a priority
· The Plan
should bring about equity and a transparent funding distribution process
· The Plan
should consider a decentralized structure that empowers arts service organizations/intermediaries
that are reflective of the communities served to manage the process
· Establish
relationships with other city agencies to explore the integration of the arts
in their service deliverables. Small Business Services, Economic Development,
City Plan (land use/zoning), Housing (affordable housing), Work Force
Development, Health, etc.
III. explore/Research viable strategies
The Cultural Equity Re-Investment Fund
·
The
CEG proposes the creation of a Reinvestment Fund that reinvests the city’s
arts-generated tourism income in the communities of color served by local
artists, arts organizations and smaller cultural institutions and by doing so
addresses concerns for equity and access.
The Reinvestment Fund will:
·
Generate
new funding from new source
·
Create
a platform for equity within the diversity parameters NYC is seeking to develop
via the Cultural Plan;
·
Represent
the true diversity across the entire City, and infuse the plan with support for
the realities organizations face city-wide thus enriching NY districts, local
organizations and arts agencies as specific regional demographics evolve.
·
Spur
economic, cultural and community revitalization efforts;
·
Create
jobs, provide a living wage and benefits to cultural workers;
·
Build
Cultural Networks led by organizations of color and promote local arts activity
as key to the City’s economic health among NYC political leadership.
The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA)
·
CETA
was a federal program that created jobs across sectors including the arts (artists/arts
organizations) administered through various city and arts organizations.
·
The
development of the Cultural Plan should include a review and analysis of this
project framing the impact, number of artists employed, etc.
·
CEG
members Dianne Fraher, Bob Lee, Bill Aguado and Pat Cruz were all products of
this program which had an important impact on employment for artists and
provided employees for arts organizations.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Federal
Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) hired hundreds of
artists who collectively created more than 100,000 paintings and murals and
over 18,000 sculptures. The Federal Art Project (1935–43) was a New Deal
program to fund the visual arts in the United States. It was created not as a
cultural activity but as a relief measure to employ artists and artisans to
create murals, easel paintings, sculpture, graphic art, posters, photography,
theatre scenic design, and arts and crafts. The WPA Federal Art Project
established more than 100 community art centers throughout the country,
researched and documented American design, commissioned a significant body of
public art without restriction to content or subject matter, and sustained some
10,000 artists and craft workers
IV. Additional
Recommendations for the Plan
1. Funding
- Sustainable
funding as a designated line item in the City Budget independent of the
funds provided to the Cultural Institutions Group to landmark our cultures
and the cultural resources of communities of color. Funding would support:
§ Operations/Administration
§ Projects/Programs
§ Capacity Building
§ Monies earmarked to conduct research and to collect data that both [on the deficit side] demonstrate a system of de facto
cultural apartheid; funding imbalances in the City and [on the surplus end] the
enormous economic benefits; cultural pride and social mobility it brings to
communities of color.
2. Resources
§ Access to information, application and funding processes for capital dollars for equipment, capital improvements, and
real estate acquisitions.
§ Increased or provision of services and support for individual
artists that improve the quality of life so they may better serve our
communities such as health insurance, employment, subsidized studio space, and
affordable housing.
3. Technical Assistance
§ Assistance providing infrastructure development in the form of
capacity building, organizational preparedness, professional development, and
increased staff provided by intermediaries such as AHA, HAA, NoMAA, other
service organizations with a focus on communities of color is needed to
successfully endow a foundation of stability, growth, and sustainability to
organizations in need.
To make the distribution of assets more independent and equitable,
the recalibration of administrative processes within existing funding agencies
is imperative. CEG asks that monies allocated to the group be administered
through alternate agencies (i.e. Small Business Service or EDC). Alternatively,
the CEG proposes the creation of an independent CEG Administrative office in
each Borough.
In addition, the privatization of public projects and public
culture raises concern about the use of private dollars for major real estate
developments that impose and/or exclude certain cultural sensibilities. The CEG
encourages “socially conscious development” and seeks
to ensure that the City makes a concerted effort to
landmark cultural/ethnic-specific businesses
within the city’s development plans.
CEG must have a place at the table to make sure that we have input
in development projects that impact our livelihood. CEG
will review and use as a reference, the 197A plans of
Community Boards and Community Benefits Agreements to assess their impact on communities-of-color
and how communities-at-large can protect, preserve indigenous groups or its
historic residents.
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December 19, 2016
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