The Politics of Public Support for the Arts/Putting the Culture Wars Behind Us

Monday, October 7, 9:50am – 10:50am

Organized and presented by Nathan Birnbaum, Cultural Affairs Administrator, City of Santa Monica, and Randy Engstrom, Director, Office of Arts and Culture, City of Seattle.

What more can we do to cultivate the forces of political support for the arts? How can support for individual artists become a regular feature of government grants again? How can city councils be moved more confidently towards support for the arts in your community? A true roundtable discussion is offered, which will use as a starting point the experiences of Seattle, where The Creative Advantage, a significant City-funded arts education program, has just been approved, and Santa Monica, which recently established one of the largest municipal artist fellowships in the U.S. Participants will be encouraged to contribute their own experiences on the topic, sharing concerns and stories, with a view to having a practical learning session on how political support is generated.