“Unequal Distribution of Cultural Resources is a Real Challenge to Social Justice”
Philanthropists and collectors Bridgitt Evans and Charlotte Wagner have joined forces to support small cultural organizations “beyond the art world’s power centers,” as Artsy recently reported.
Artsy explained,
Evans and Wagner offer a model for a new wave of art patrons looking to support communities outside of major urban areas with significant donor bases. They noted the scarcity of support mechanisms for the arts in the U.S. as one of the key factors as they thought about where their organizations’ support could be most impactful.
The first round of funding from their joint effort, according to Artsy, will award five organizations in five different states with $40,000 over the next two years. “We worked to truly understand who each entity served locally and how they also were part of a broader contemporary art discourse,” Evans said.
“We’re really trying to be very intentional about looking for organizations outside of New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco,” Wagner said.
Unequal distribution of cultural resources, Wagner added, is a challenge to social justice. “If you really truly believe, as we do, that access to culture is important to well-being and neighborhood health, then having unequal distribution creates a social injustice.”
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