Last night in Worcester, a Gubernatorial Forum on Arts, Culture and Creativity was be hosted by Create the Vote, a coalition of artists from creative institutions throughout Massachusetts, driven by MassCreative - MASSCreative empowers creative organizations and the public with a powerful voice that brings the attention and resources necessary to build vibrant, creative communities. According to the advance literature The forum will engage each candidates vision for Massachusetts arts and culture as its primary discussion, and will be moderated by arts critic Joyce Kulhawik. Candidates vision? What it was instead was a transparent set up to corner candidates into promising to increase state spending for the arts. We’re looking at the whole organism. Nobody’s ever done a [cultural] plan for the whole state,” says Kathleen Bitetti, a Boston artist and co-founder and steering committee member of the group. Whole - say what??? Heres the problem. There was nothing whole, complete or broadly cultural about this. It is a naked power play for the arts. This is why it matters and why subordinating cultural policy as if the arts was the be all and end all is a problem.The C-word - CULTURE - is inclusive and signifies engagement with the performing arts, art museums, the work of living artists PLUS history, heritage, historic preservation and a larger vision for tourism - which MassCreative pretends to understand and want - but obviously cant creatively imagine life outside their own silo. Think Massachusetts. Were talking about one of the most storied and iconic heritage regions in the United States - home to Plymouth Rock (to celebrate its 400th in 2020), Paul Revere and the Freedom Trail, Bunker Hill & Concord Bridge, the great China traders of Salem, the literary genius of Thoreau, Emerson and the Alcotts in Concord, the birthplace of the American industrial revolution in Lowell and the Blackstone Valley corridor, the whaling industry in New Bedford and Nantucket, the birthplace of precision manufacturing in Springfield and the CT Valley, frontier freedom in Old Deerfield, Norman Rockwell, Daniel Chester French, the Shakers and Edith Wharton in the Berkshires and so much more. To talk about cultural policy - much less tourism - as if it is solely the province of the arts is muddled, self-serving and incomplete. Connecticut has it right. When Governor Rowland brought the arts, historic preservation and tourism together as the Office of Culture & Tourism (a division of the Department of Community and Economic Development) that was a bold stroke. Under the direction of current head Kip Bergstrom, Culture & Tourism is increasingly aligning under the banner of placemaking. What is placemaking? Its a holistic strategy for harnessing the power of art, heritage and preservation to create stronger communities, ramp up tourism and generally affect economic development. It embraces and facilitates the interdependence of arts, preservation, historic resources and tourism. It accepts that people - residents, friends and relatives, tourists - when we recreate, explore and venture out on vacation or for basic learning and enjoyment - we mostly dont go out with our arts hat or our nature hat or our historic sites hat on. People like cool stuff, fun stuff, interesting stuff, beautiful stuff. We dont categorize so much. So any policy that puts the arts in a silo divorced from the other cool stuff is sure to be a failed policy. Connecticut, with its more holistic agency and placemaking agenda - is way out front - on the vanguard of cultural policies that will drive quality of life, tourism, sense of place and the kind of buzz that generates civic attachment and economic development.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:51:31 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015