From the Co-Directors at the Close of 2009
Helen De Michiel
I just returned from Washington, DC where I spoke at a meeting of arts leaders called by Senior Deputy Chair Joan Shigekawa. It’s purpose was to hear from the national arts service organizations about the recently released report, 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.
Since film and digital media as art forms were not included in the survey report, I was asked to respond from a NAMAC perspective on the cultural role of film, digital, and social media, how each is transforming our communications landscape, and offer suggestions on how the next survey in 2012 can better reflect the realities of our current arts landscape.
The two-hour discussion included sixty invited guests: from NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman and his senior staff to executive directors from national arts organizations representing music, performing arts, architecture, film, visual arts, museums, literature, arts education and state arts agencies. You can find the webcast archived here.
On the Twitter backchannel, you can also scan the live tweeting going on while the meeting was being streamed that is super-fascinating. The next time the NEA does this, they will have to project the twitter feed and field comments and quesitons from the web watching participants!
There was consensus on one theme: there is no doubt that how the American public participates in art experiences is radically changing, and the digital revolution of the last decade is rewriting how culture is being made by artists and received by new participants. Everyone was sharing stories of overlapping categories, blurring disciplines, new definitions of audiences, and the loosening of institutional holds on cultural gateways.
I spoke about how NAMAC is working with and helping to nurture the next generation of arts leaders. I am especially excited by this because, in April 2010 we will be publishing a new edition of A CLOSER LOOK called “Leading Creatively." Dewey Schott, our senior manager of leadership services, is serving as editor of this collection of essays looking at all aspects of how people build, lead and sustain arts organizations now. The seven articles are looking at issues like succession, the career pathways of media curators, intergenerational mentoring, and a ten-year review of NAMAC's leadership development in the arts.
I also explained about how we are bridging the worlds of creativity—artists, arts organizations and cultural policy -- with the world of connectivity – public media, telecommunications and technology. In fact, just recently NAMAC was a signatory to the “comments” document prepared by Sascha Meinrath and New America Foundation for the NTIA on how to encourage new adoption policies and processes for the BTOP (Broadband Technology Opportunity Program’s) next funding cycle. Sascha and team welcomed my feedback, and included language to suggest that community media organizations be included as logical partners in BTOP funding consortia.
Since our 2009-2010 Digital Arts Service Corps member, Donna Choi came to NAMAC in July, we have been continuing to focus on our online community building. Donna regularly delivers fresh content to our website and is actively involved in our social networks.
She is currently focused on integrating our online spaces into interactive public forums. Her first initiative is to develop a series of NAMAC member-generated blogs where the community can gather, discuss and learn more about issues in the media arts: from policy to technology, from artmaking to distribution. Future projects include the development of a media arts wiki and a directory of online resources.
Because we are putting our own creativity and capacity into developing this online effort with social media, we have decided to suspend the publication of the tri-annual NAMAC hardcopy paper newsletter. We miss the newsletter, but in the later part of 2010, we’ll revisit our capacity and resources to put it out, most likely in a new and improved relationship to our online offerings.
We welcome ideas for blogs and articles, so please contact me helen@namac.org if you would like to post with us.
Jack Walsh
This year impacted us with the greatest economic challenge we’ve seen in decades. As we all cut corners to make our operating budget work, many of you reported to us when we surveyed you about the economic downturn that you increased partnerships. These partnerships included co-programming, 
sharing space, sharing staff, and consolidating redundancies like copiers and IT networks. Partnering is a unique tradition that characterizes and distinguishes the media arts as a field. In all likelihood, this is a result of our creative practice’s roots in collaboration. It takes many artists – cinematographers, sound designers, editors – to create motion media. Our distinct do-it-with-others ethos helps many of us guide our organizations, and as we witnessed at CommonWealth, our 2009 Conference, it framed many of our discussions about shifting audiences, emerging technologies and political opportunities.
During this year, NAMAC become more active in our role as advocates for the field. This began when Helen and I attended Arts Advocacy Day in March, where we visited elected officials offices to discuss the value and importance of the creative sectors work to both the economic well being of our communities and as the repositories of our communities’ stories and heritages. I continued this work as a member of the Cultural Advocacy Group (CAG), attending monthly meetings with our peer intermediary organizations from across the country learning about pending federal legislation and ensuring that media arts concerns are voiced and discussed within the context of the other art forms. With Nathan James on NAMAC’s board and living in DC, we now have an in-person NAMAC representative at these meetings. Furthering this advocacy work, we partnered with Americans for the Arts to provide all NAMAC members with membership in the Arts Action Fund. In the coming weeks, the Fund will be contacting you directly about your enrollment in the program.
In August, it was wonderful to see four hundred of you in Boston for CommonWealth. Headed by our stellar Conference Producer, Yolanda Hippensteele and partnering with a dynamite Boston staff headed by Susi Walsh from the Center for Independent Documentary and Deborah Obalil, our Conference Event and Sponsorship Manger, we convened for an intensive inquiry into the current state of our field and its future. Media, visual and performing artists, media and visual arts staff and board members, funders, programmers, distributors, educators, activists, communicators, administrators, youth producers, and policy-makers from 29 states gathered for the 4-day event. Attendance was up 33% from our 2007 Conference and two-thirds of attendees had never attended a prior NAMAC conference.
In assessing the range of post conference evaluations, including real-time commentary on social networks, evaluation forms, conference narrative reports, articles, thank you notes and informal conversations, the overall impression was of a conference that was energizing and thought provoking. You were hatching new ideas, creating alliances and making plans on how to thrive on change in order to sustain your organizations, better engage your communities, and strengthen the field. Overall, the Conference had a strong focus on field building, and in particular on policy advocacy for the arts and cultural sector reflecting a time of hope and opportunity on the political front. If you were unable to join us at CommonWealth, you can see our keynotes and hear all of the sessions at: http://www.namac.org/conference-buzz. Use the Conference Navigation to guide you to select speakers and sessions.
In the end of October, we launched Mapping the Field, our first comprehensive survey of our sector in over fifteen years. As we told our members in our introduction to the survey, Mapping the Fields will establish a baseline of activity in the field that both encompasses and details our cultural, economic, community and network indicators and assets.
Everyone who fills out the survey will have access to the results. This will be an invaluable tool for you in comparing your organization with others across the nation. By extension, the survey data will help you make your case stronger when seeking funding and educating elected officials. This quantitative data will arm you with the numbers to support the qualitative stories about our field so necessary in this challenging environment.
The survey is open to organizations, both members and non-members of NAMAC. If you are not a member and you would like to participate in the survey, or if you know of an organization I should contact about the survey please send me an email with contact information at jack@namac.org.
From both of us:
We wish you good cheer in the upcoming holiday season, and we look forward to being engaged and connected with all of you in 2010!
Happy Holidays!
Helen & Jack
