Cultural Policy in the West II

October 6-8, 2000, 140 pages. Western States Arts Federation, 1543 Champa Street, Suite 220, Denver, CO 80202, 303-629-1166, krista.lewis@westaf.org.

This two-day symposium, convened by WESTAF at the Aspen Institute, was organized around four topics: technology, youth culture, demo- graphics, and politics. The topics were selected to acknowledge the larger socio-political environment within which culture exists. Experts in each field were invited to share their perspectives on important trends and discuss the relationship that their fields either have or do not have with culture.

Intentionally provocative, a summary by Erin M. Trapp pulled five themes from the discussion that pose challenges to the "current cultural policy system": "retrospective focus," "moribund leadership in cultural agencies," "refusal to embrace technology as central to culture," "failure to acknowledge complex environmental contexts," and "ambivalence toward multiculturalism."