Items tagged with "collaboration"

In 1999 we spoke with Ruby Lerner, the Executive Director of the (then) recently-launched Creative Capital Foundation to tell us more about how the Fund will work for the national media arts community.

L.A. Freewaves is a bottom-feeding festival nibbling at wet crumbs that Hollywood, public TV, ads and industrials don't notice that they have dropped. So what I know pertains for an unknown distance--especially under water. Advocating uncensored independent media, we are a network of videomakers, new media makers, librarians, high school teachers, art administrators, cable TV watchers, students, programmers, and others who have three jobs.

Programming
Sporadic describes the L.A. marginal art screenings, for example, one Sunday or Monday night per month.

First of all, what makes a partnership work depends on the people involved. For the Community TV Network (CTVN) and the Community Film Workshop of Chicago (CFWC) collaborating on two new projects provides a lesson in what worked for us.

Here is an abbreviated history of both organizations: the Community Film Workshop of Chicago has a 27-year history of training over 800 emerging and mid-career film makers. CFWC has provided film history and aesthetic instruction, equipment/facility access, exhibition, and media literacy and training in schools.

Consortiums of organizations working together is a great idea - especially in the initial enthusiastic phases when funding is being secured, and the opportunity for projects are being dreamed up.

But in reality, it takes tremendous commitment on the part of the individuals and groups involved to forge long-lasting partnerships which actually make good on their promises.

Space. Think about your organization’s for a moment. Does it inspire you to achieve the lofty goals of your mission? Are you and your constituents incarcerated or liberated by it? Does it invite creativity and connection? In the summer of 2004, the late Dirk Koning of Grand Rapids Community Media Center wrote in the Community Media Review about the need to reconsider how media arts organizations think about space. He challenged his colleagues not to see their spaces as solutions to problems, but rather as expressions of missions rooted in deeply held beliefs and visions for the future. How well does your facility hold up against this litmus test?

What makes media arts unique among art forms is that it can capture and mesmerize and, at its best, change the minds of many people at once. It is a medium that is enormously powerful, terribly expensive, and almost new. Next to the other genres - theater, dance, painting and even publishing - media arts has just begun to emerge as a field. It carries great expectations. It is not for the faint of heart.