GIA and the Future of Cultural Policy

Advancing Arts & Cultural Policy and Advocacy to Disrupt Unjust Systems

Huáscar Robles, 2023 GIA Conference Blog

Worrying about the future of cultural policy is inevitable. Politics, economy, and international conflicts often shape its course and all players – from federal, state, and local agencies to advocates, activists, and artists – wait patiently to see how the landscape shifts. At the Grantmakers in the Arts and The Future of Cultural Policy preconference, GIA members invited participants to envision a map of cultural policy and see where in that map they belonged. 

This crucial segment that kicked off Puerto Rico’s first-ever GIA conference was led by GIA members Randy Engstrom, Estrella Esquilín, and Jen Cole, who brought their individual expertise to the packed Salon del Mar conference room overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The hosts encouraged the audience to ponder what excited them about cultural policy, what their contribution to policy would be, and the support they required along the way. 

The conference continued with testimonies from impactful organizations that displayed their cultural policy prowess and, of course, their challenges. 

David Holland and Claire Rice, co-chairs at the Creative States Coalition (CSC), outlined a future in which all players are represented. A study by this federally sponsored national organization found that 39% of State Arts Advocacy Organizations (SAAOs) in 2017 had no BIPOC staff and that 95% of their executive leadership were white. Today, around 55% of the leadership at CSC is BIPOC. The field is expanding, with large organizations handling around $1 million and the average ranging from $150,000 to $250,000. A study also stated that 36% of SAAOs had no budget, and many of them had no staff. Today, the average staffing among them is three full-time staff members and one part-time member. “There is a need to better resource and strengthen this vital network of organizations across the country,” Holland concluded. 

For Theresa Sweetland, Executive Director of Forecast Public Art, cultural policy should disrupt the current systems in charge. Forecast Public Art, which supports artists working in public space and public practice, has funded fellowships for artists and developed public art policy for cities large and small, with planning and policy work at the local level. 

 Michelle Ramos, one of GIA’s newest board members, shared that BLAAC (BIPOC-Led Arts Advocacy Coalition) was created to fill the representation gap in the advocacy field nationwide. It’s a relatively new program that is seeing progress steadily. Althea Erickson demonstrated the importance of advocating for self-employed and independent workers who often fall off the network of traditional organizations, a particularly important asset since the shared economy is exponentially growing after the pandemic. 

Artist Jean Cook argued that the current models do not compensate artists adequately. As an example, Cook mapped the main players in the music industry, from Congress to the U.S. Copyright Office, among others, that affect policy. “Artists can’t always be served well by advocacy organizations whose agendas are controlled by corporate and organizational actors because when issues don’t align, the organizational perspective will win out,” Cook stated. 

The legendary Roberto Bedoya insisted that belonging needed to be operationalized. As a poet and a playwright, he advocates for the poetics of cultural policy. “I am aware that policy and imagination can dish at each other, and if we don’t spend some time thinking about imagination, we will be in this pickle.”

Imagination was the tool exercised at the later segment of the conference. Holland invited participants to find themselves on a map with x and y axes that measured the place between policy creation, advocacy, and activism and their influence. A few participants struggled to find their particular place, as they were unsure of the level of influence they exerted. 

The conference ended with groups sketching their own maps on distinct topics such as funding advocacy, organizational tactics, and the intersectionality of arts and public sectors. The collective maps began to grow with a variety of players, partners, organizations, and models that, while in their infancy, can evolve to create a clear road map to an effective and efficient policy whose benefits trickle down to artists. But for this, as Bedoya had pointed out, everyone from federal to local agencies and from advocates to activists has to work in tandem.

And that remains the sector’s biggest challenge.