Mapping Our Assumptions

Sunday, October 29, 2:00pm – 3:15pm

Organized and facilitated by Moira Brennan, Executive Director, The MAP Fund, Inc; and Emilya Cachapero, Director of Artistic and International Programs, Theatre Communications Group.

Using the cultural mapping technique, this session will identify and examine the bias and assumptions grantmakers hold as leaders and facilitators of panel review processes. Cultural mapping is a physical conversation that makes differences and similarities visible so that they can be recognized, examined, and understood. Participants will share their responses to prompting questions by moving to a particular corner of the room or by arranging themselves on an imagined line on the ground. The spontaneous discoveries that take place after moving give people the chance to step out of assumptions. Why should meeting facilitators be neutral? Is using a panel the best way to determine grantees? Is equity guaranteed if a person of color is on the panel? Why should materials be written and in English only? This session will explore these questions and more.

Used for many years by arts practitioners around a variety of themes, TV 2 in Denmark successfully used Cultural Mapping to great effect and watching the video All That We Share may help to better understand the structure.