 Amelia, what number am I in the sequence? Let's see, we go Rashid, Nayantara, Claudie, you, Roberto, and then Massoon. Thank you. Yes, so second to the last. Am I in the sequence? Let's see, we go Rashid, Nayantara, Claudie, you, Roberto. Are we ready to start, Karen? Yes, we are. Okay, well, welcome everyone who is joining us today. It's an incredible group. It looks like we almost have a hundred people and I can already see people I recognize. So this is going to be a great conversation on behalf of the arts and democracy project and naturally occurring cultural districts, New York. I want to welcome you to tonight's conversation in a moment you're going to see longer descriptions about both of these projects. You likely know them already but we want to make sure you get some more information. In just a moment we're going to do a land acknowledgement but before we get to that, I just want to make sure we cover a couple housekeeping pieces. One, just a reminder that we're recording as you can see, we're recording this event to share with those who are unable to make it tonight. If you would prefer to not be seen or have your image captured, we invite you to turn off your video for the next hour or so. Also, closed captioning is available and to activate this option, you just click on the CC, the closed caption button in the zoom toolbar at the bottom of the window. And then you'll click live transcription. All right. So, whether we gather virtually or in person. We acknowledge that we are settlers on the homelands of the many who have come before us. We are beneficiaries of the white colonial state and the violent and violently that violently forced the displacement relocation and erasure of indigenous peoples. So, historically, and it continues today. With this acknowledgement we commit to dismantling the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism, while also naming that as beneficiaries we have a responsibility to support the movements of indigenous peoples, and their continued fight for self determination. Thank you so much again for joining us. I'm incredibly excited to be with you tonight. For those of you who don't know me my name is Amalia, and I'm on the board of arts and democracy and I get to be your mc slash facilitator for this evening's conversation. And a note before we even get into the program. You know we were really blessed with an abundance of experience. You can see with all the people turning out tonight and probably equal recognition of many of the names that dozens of people could have been speakers tonight there's just so much talent in the room, and such a wealth of expertise and experience with us. I want to invite you into this space tonight embracing the concepts of what it means to be both a teacher and a learner. And by that we mean, we hope over the course of the next hour and a half. You really find a place where you can share something unique with your colleagues and comrades on the call, but you can also equally find something that you can learn. And we encourage everyone to step into that duality and balance. Our very best was such a large number of people to make tonight's conversation dynamic and provide different opportunities for multiple voices to be with us. Some of that will be in small group conversations. Others will be in other opportunities will emerge through breakout groups, question and answer discussion and using the chat. We encourage you to embrace all of the tools that are available, however imperfect they may be, they may be. But now to just sort of give a sense of everyone who's with us tonight, and the breath of voices and experiences in the room in the room. We're going to ask people to introduce themselves by region. We know the regions are a little bit imperfect but you'll see in the chat that these are the ones I'm going to call out. When I call out your region if you would share your name, your pronouns, your affiliation, and we also have a link if you want to share the native lands that you're on if you don't know those names already. So let's start in the southeast and see in the chat who is with us tonight from the southeast. All right, how about Midwest. Oh, Judy Jennings. Oh, great. Here they come. We'll keep the southeast coming. Who's with us from the Midwest. Hello and welcome. Let's keep going and try the West Coast, and now to the Southwest, and finally, the Northeast. Excellent. I already see questions about what about, we know the regions are a little clumsy so please just feel free to introduce yourself if you don't feel like you fit into any of the ones we used. All right, so tonight we're going to be talking a lot about narrative and change which of course we know story plays such an important part. And so to just get us warmed up and kind of separate ourselves from our work day. So we can share time here together we're going to do just a quick participatory activity in chat. In a moment I'm going to invite you each to help us create a one word story. Simply, I'm going to read out a prompt and ask you to type one word into the chat, but don't hit send don't hit return, just let the word linger in the chat. And then I will count backwards from five, five, four, three, two, one. And when I say send will all send them together and just get a sense of kind of who's here and how we define the same, how we can define and redefine the prompts. So the prompt tonight is really an invitation to redefine what power looks like and feels like for those of us who are gathered here tonight. And the prompt is when I am my most powerful self. I am and finish that prompt with one word when I am my most powerful self I am. You can enter it into the chat, don't hit send yet. I'm going to start counting backwards from five to five, four, three, two, one, send. Excellent. Take a minute to just look and see what people shared, you know and begin this process that we're going to be in tonight where we're where we're sharing and we're harvesting what we can learn from one another. I invite you all to take a second to scroll through the chat, just being mindful of all of the different ways that we can define and redefine power when we're working together. Okay, and now to our program. I'm super excited to be joined by five fantastic speakers tonight again there's so many people on this call who could have been with us, and we're hopeful that you'll share in the breakouts and other opportunities tonight because we all want to learn from one another. Our first speaker for the night will be Rashid Shavas who's currently the executive director of critical minded. After that will have nine Tara son, who's the director of programs and cultural strategies for real real food real stories, and the senior fellow at pop culture collaborative. And the third will be cloudy mobbery program consultant from naturally occurring cultural districts New York. She'll be joined in spirit by Miss Gwendolyn Wilson the director of senior services at the Jacob Reese neighborhood settlement. The fourth for this evening will be Roberto Badoia cultural fairs manager for the city of Oakland, and then finally we'll have Masoom Moitra director of green light district El Puente. I'm giving you their names now so you sort of know the flow of the conversation. And I'll be asking each one to introduce themselves within the context of their work. Rashid, I want to turn to you. Culture has been our culture and story have really been part of your work since the very beginning, whether a culture. Sorry. But all the different organizations you worked at color of change and now with your new project. Talk to us a little bit about narrative power racial justice and what shifting culture and narrative means to you. Thank you, Amalia for for the introduction. I'm so happy to be in community with with all of you. Thank you Karen for the introduction invitation as well to be part of this. As I mentioned my name is Rashid Shabazz. I sit on the not a land native land. I am he is. And I, as mentioned I am the new executive director of initiative called critical minded. I want to just briefly use my time just just to talk through some ideas that have been emerging my mind is always constantly evolving. And I think that a large part of that is that culture itself is constantly evolving. So things that are always consistent as we think about values and systems, but we also know that culture is is ever, you know, contested and always evolving both in in ways that we can control in ways that we can't narratives help us to make the world as we know they help us to process and translate and transmit values. And we do this through story and stories that we think about can be in the media and film and books and newspapers, and all communicate the ideas. In fact, I say contested ideas of society community, and what it means to be a nation. The story of the past five years, for example, one may describe as a resurgence and organizing by white supremacist arise and hate crimes or resurgence of populism. One is anti immigrant anti black anti Asian anti Semitic, one that is anti LGBTQ and a story that is less compassionate and less humane. As we think about the stories of migrants children at the border. It would also be a story of hard fought with victories gain like the story about a fair fight and Stacy Abrams and black women and progress is advancing voter rights in Georgia does now, as we see being contested again. And as we've said saved our democracy once again. But one of the lessons I've learned to the point about I've been doing this over two decades. One that I've always come back to is this idea that I've always tried to share is that the idea of narrative has to always be rooted in historical reference. The story of the past five years, not simply the resurges arise in white supremacy or resurges of hate crimes or however we're defining it, but rather it never ceased to exist but rather as part of a historical continuum. And if we continue to think about narratives as something new or emergence. We're not ever going to really get to the point of how we articulate it within a larger continuum of historical reference points, and also think about it from a reference point of violence. So I always start with, in order to get to narrative power to narrative infrastructure as my dear friend, and the president of color change describes it, we must first have a historical reference point to know where we have come and where we are going. I always reference in my work Marlon rigs and the work of ethnic notions, and I while I am still watching and processing I just even right now and think about the work of Raul becks, exterminate all the groups, while challenging at times to process the level of violence that it explains it to gives us historical markers for the narratives that have led to the violence and attacks that we continue to witness today, due to the history and legacy and present reality of white supremacy, which is also grounding in my work and how I move work forward, thinking about the ways and white supremacy impacts us every day. How does the narratives in the past five years help us to process the trial George Floyd, the attacks on Asian Americans, the killing of Dante right last night by another Minneapolis police officer. These things we cannot ignore. So Richard Robinson as I mentioned he argues in his piece changing our narrative about narrative which I believe has been shared in the documents that are within the collective resource argues in order to shift the narrative conversation we need to build narrative power, which means simply taking talking about change not simply talking about change, but leveraging our power to change the rules and norms that shape our society and behaviors is he says we've simply beyond being present, but being powerful, but to leverage the idea of power we know power requires resources and people resources we can define by all things from money to people to ideas or simply infrastructure. This means by which we can begin to consistently drive ideas and approaching as Richard describes a narrative infrastructure way in which we can start to immerse people and disperse disperse our cultural impact in a consistent way that we skill over time. It also means that we engage everyday people people who are the ones who can move forward in the ways in which we think about this work. But in the work that I've done I also thought about narrative building narrative power from the perspective of understanding how we shift culture and how we change and build cultural power. And that for me means that we also have to think about authenticity, we have to be true to who we are, even if that truth may not be the truth others tell us and so I'm not speaking only by truth making because truth making is an act in itself we've seen with the last president that truth can be ignored and formed in however we see it. But it also means that we have to think about accountability matters, the audience matters who we're speaking to how we're speaking to people how we're thinking about people. These all things build into how we think about narrative power and how we build power. Thank you. Artists and entertainers are at the forefront, I would argue at this moment of an urgent conversation about racial justice in this country and they are demanding. I would say we need to demand a more diverse pool of with the work that I'm now leading critics to respond to this work of art and the culture in which we're in. I'm a director of critical minded. These are things that I'm starting to to think about how do we control the debate and public discourse about culture dictate the politics and ideas that shape the values and policies that impact our lives. These things are essential parts of narrative power. And then we intersect that with the ideas of racial justice, the middle of a pandemic, the protest of the last year, and then now we've merged that with health equity. And these things help us to understand, not only the importance of seeing these things from a holistic perspective, but also historical one as well, and then understanding the role of not only critics for artists and cultural makers, and trying to make meaning of the world in which we're in. Thank you. Thank you so much Rashid, we're going to turn next now to my entire but you'll notice Rashid in the chat there were already some questions from folks about some of the resources you mentioned and so maybe you could drop those in as well. Now entire obviously you are no, you're not new to this either being a storyteller someone who's steeped in media production, art and culture and cultural strategies, you know talk to us a little bit about your work but also the way that you're thinking about culture and culture shifts when it comes to the intersection of cultural strategy. Thank you and Rashid thanks for all you shared as well. I will chime right in. But first before I start I actually want to give gratitude and thanks to many, many folks who are on the line. Several of you I'm noticing not just familiar names but folks who I have had the benefit and the privilege of learning from in the past and so actually just want to share before I go into a little bit about story narrative and culture. At this point in my life I can identify as a woman of color who works professionally as a narrative and cultural strategist and it's a really interesting thing to be able to say how I got here. It's a bit of a convoluted journey there wasn't really a clear path I really was an arts administrator and somehow was now recovering from being an arts administrator and have found myself in narrative and cultural strategy work, particularly on racial equity and gender equity issues but I do actually want to give some overdue credit to NOCD NY and arts and democracy specifically for the cultural organizing workshops and spaces that you all have hosted over the years. A decade ago I was in New York and I was attending and so for those of you that have the chance to now attend and over zoom virtually please do their read these peer learning exchanges and those workshops in particular have been just really instrumental for especially for folks like us who are women of color wanting to actually make meaningful contributions in the cultural strategy space it's good to be in relationship and it's good to learn together so thank you for that. And I'm so grateful to see so many folks that I have learned from over the years. So I wanted to actually make a couple of contributions here to the conversation we're spending the bulk of the time today talking about narrative power and cultural strategies and I will say that. In the last several years I have moved away from language about narrative shift or culture shift to talking more specifically about building cultural power and building narrative power so I don't in my own practice use the language of narrative shift anymore. Partially because narratives are constantly in flux and they're constantly in opposition, and they're doing battle in the in the landscape for culture. So narrative shift in a way or culture change in a way is more of a descriptor of what is already happening as opposed to a goal for what we are trying to achieve which is strategy that gets us to increase power for both narrative and culture to actually be able to contest for in the narrative realm and the cultural realm. So Amalia to the question that you posed in terms of how I think about culture change work and relationship to story and narrative and cultural strategies. I actually want to share many of you will have heard this before but I find it to be an incredibly useful metaphor or analogy it comes from a couple of places, primarily from the Center for story based strategy, also from the narrative initiative. This is the simple metaphor of the relationship between story narrative and culture in in the format of a star in a constellation and a galaxy so the linkage here is like a star. A story is a bright singular and shiny. Excuse me someone's clearly at the door. Perhaps our attention because it is identifiable and it helps us with navigation and constellation is important in relationship to the star because it is a meaning making and pattern making mechanism so when you look at the star you know where you are because it's its position in a constellation so a narrative is a constellation because stories taken together they aggregate into narratives, and then by extrapolation culture is like the galaxy which is far bigger than narratives and encompasses the galaxy. In fact, our particular home the Milky Way is not just a galaxy made up of constellations but for those of you that follow NASA's weekly or monthly news reports the galaxy is actually expanding at an absurd rate our Milky Way is growing so fast we don't even know much of what's in it, including black holes and meteors and planets and more so that the realm of culture. In this particular analogy is is important to think about because culture is epistemic, in other words, it is the mechanism that allows us to know why and what and how we are it is the, the home for how we actually navigate in the world and in reality it defines reality so to the point about strategy, you know a lot of times we talk about narrative strategy or cultural strategy. The truth is at the level of intervention that kind of change we want to see we actually have to have a trifold strategy that is for building power in three realms. We need story based strategy narrative strategy and cultural strategy. I actually would love to do, and I deliberately didn't have slides because that's, you know, lots of zoom meetings and lots of slides but there is a link I dropped in the chat here. I wanted to share this concept of the overtone window. And some of you might know it already. I don't often quote, or reference Joseph over 10. But in this context I wanted to because there's a particular usefulness to this framework when it comes to understanding the relationship between story narrative and and culture. The overtone window shows you is that they're the overtone window is essentially the frame or the window that determines what is politically and culturally and socially feasible. So you see how ideas go from unthinkable to radical to somewhat accessible acceptable sorry, then sensible popular and then eventually by the time they get to the realm of policy. So this is recognizable and familiar enough that you can actually implement it into policy or legislation so you have one minute left. Thanks so much Emily. The idea of cultural strategy is that we engage all aspects of culture, all of its myriad forms and media and genres and fields included in everything that actually constitutes cultural production in order to shrink what is considered or actually to expand what is possible and feasible for us in the context of the overtone window the one example I would want to share just from the news cycle recently. All this talk recently about Biden's infrastructure plan and the two three trillion dollars that will go into making massive infrastructure possible in the country and how it's connected to a particular strategy for corporate tax hikes and for quote unquote taxing the elite or taxing millionaires. I believe that policy actually take root in 2021. And to the point that Rashid was making about historical legacy and context that that strategy today is not possible unless Occupy Wall Street happened in the early in the mid 2000s that most Occupy Wall Street a social movement that popularized the idea of the 99% and the 1% and the income inequality and the wage gap. That's what allows us today to have policy that could potentially tax the rich so I think I will leave it at that I'll put a few more links in the chat and I know we'll keep talking as well so thanks. Thank you so much. So, Claudia, we're going to turn to you now and you know our last two speakers were incredible and provided such rich scaffolding for how we think about the terminology, the theory, the strategy, the history. You are sort of doing double duty today talking about the work that NOCD New York has been doing, but also kind of carrying the story of Miss Gwen, who isn't able to join us but will be on a short clip. Could you explain to us how you're using the power of story in a place based way in New York and what are the projects that have actually emerged from the process. Thank you so much, Amalia. And so, as she, as she just introduced me my name is Claudie Maybury I am with NOCD NY. I've been with NOCD NY for the last seven years actually with many folks on this call thinking around, particularly public housing communities, which is a constituency that's immersed in arts and culture and legacy there. And so I'm here to give you a glimpse into what kind of what narrative change work through the method of story circles has been looking like in a particular community in New York City that we're working with. And so at NOCD we have an opportunity this year to participate on a project called What Creates Health at Queensbridge. This project allows us to work with community partners and public housing residents in the Queensbridge houses, which for folks not in New York City, is a housing development in Long Island City Queens was right in the catchment area of the Queensbridge is on debacle a year and a half ago, and is actually the largest public housing footprint in North America. So, systematically speaking, there's a lot of layers and different narratives that are brought up across this one particular project alone. And our process is to work with residents in collaboration to identify different cultural strategies that are really working to shift those narratives specifically narratives around safety and health and well being and what it means to be a public housing resident today. And so this work has allowed us to work in collaboration with the Department of Health. Steffi Kings late Sunday's call she is our partner with the city. And together we're working with local partners, including Jacob Reese neighborhood settlement house which is the local cornerstone in this development to use story circles as a tool for really allowing residents to bring up lived experiences and perspectives and learn from one another and what it means to have a strong quality of life in Queensbridge. And so the reason we've done story circles is in collaboration with Gwendolyn Wilson who is our partner at Jacob Reese and her resident team. Story circles really was kind of a pilot opportunity that has really flourished into what we are seeing as a program in this community. We took our story circle methodology from June drug productions, which I would like to just give a shout out for. And they have really presented us with an inspirational and robust six step process that allows us to build stories share them and reflect upon them in a story circle process. And so, with the residents in Queensbridge with Gwendolyn Wilson support as well as with Amalia, who has actually been facilitating these story circles with us as well. So they've become a powerful tool for folks to come together and build empathy and identify commonalities in the neighborhood, and just kind of identify meanings of coexisting and identifying how their stories and narratives can really shift against a lot of systemic powers that are impacting public housing in New York. And I can you know a test to the power of what this really looks like in real time, which you'll get to see a glimpse of in a moment and Amalia and I actually facilitated one this past Thursday, which invited some youth voices to the conversation and so it's an honor to see this work carry out. And so what I would like to share with you in a moment is a clip from a story circle we facilitated in September with Jacob Reese residents around unity and belonging and what it means to be in community at Queensbridge. And so I'm going to turn it over to Emily who will be my tech support. And I invite you to listen to Gwen story. But it was just so different back then because people look out for you. You didn't do respected people who's back in the day, you would not do something in front of somebody else's parent, because you knew that they was going to tell your story. And it's just the respect that you had for people back in the day. And it's, it's like, I just, I just so sad because that's not what's happening now. And I know it's because we're a little older so we learn differently than what the kids are and it has to be some kind of way where we connect to them, because I know a lot of them are probably hurting. I know a lot of them are probably scared and don't know what to do. And it's like, how can we connect to them to get them to understand that you need to be respectful. We need to work together in order to have a community. Because it's, I tell you, it just brings back a lot of stuff. And as I'm reading this stuff, I do feel sad. But as I sit here, I am right by my window so I look out the window and I see all these young people just hanging out, really not doing anything, and not knowing that there is so much in this world for you. And it's like, when I was bringing up my children, I made sure every year we went outside of Queensbridge to see something different. To let them know that you, this is not who you are or where you have to be. You can go outside. And so that was just a glimpse of what a circle can look like when we facilitate them and we've adapted them to the Zoom space quite successfully as well. And so I just want to close and really, I really mean it to a testament to Gwen who couldn't make it tonight as she's with her residents as we speak. But just how much it means to me to be in the space with this fabulous group of people and to see how actually the work from the story circles is also connecting to a lot of other community based priority and kind of narrative shift initiatives in their community. So one example is this story circle and what was shared then inspired the designs for murals that will now be fabricated across the community this spring. And so Gwen stepped aside with me after this circle to just say to me how much this really means to her not only as someone who works at Jacob Reese in the community based sector, but as a resident and kind of born and raised resident of Queensbridge herself. And what this really means to get people together and shine a good light and bring people up through the stories to hear with their neighbors, and have that be an intergenerational and cross cultural one at that as well. And I think, lastly, my biggest takeaway from narrative change work that's rooted in the community is understanding the longevity of what you're doing and understanding that this is a long term commitment and a community led one at that and really honing in on the most grassroots level and effort to carry this work and strategy for it to distill throughout the community. And with that I'm going to turn it back to Malia. Thank you cloudy and always always so good to hear Miss Glenn's voice it really was a powerful process and so healing for so many people in lots of different ways. We're going to turn to you now. Obviously you you've been in your position now at the city of Oakland for a little bit it's not brand new, always excited to hear what you're sharing but I know you're doing a lot of thinking and conceptualizing and work around kind of the intersection of of cities, civic infrastructure and narratives and we'd love to hear from you about that or anything else you'd like to share. Thank you. Well, first of all, thank you, fellow panelists. It's very exciting to hear the trouble that you guys are making. I applaud you. I'm a bureaucrat. It's so weird to in a way to be inside government, trying to move the dial and I'll talk a little bit about what I've been up to. Let me tell you this story about government. Once I did a cultural plan called belonging in Oakland. And it becomes sort of like the North Star, which I sort of work to manifest belonging and justice in a just city. I'm proud to be part of Oakland who has this deep radical history of striving for a better civic life. So we did a whole lot of community meetings as part of the process of developing the plan and everybody complains about government rightfully so. And our our bureaucracy and a colleague of mine was talking to me about government bureaucracy and he I was talking about it and he corrected me. It's not bureaucracy. It's brutal occupancy. It does not move. You hit it. It was become even firmer. You pull on it. So the strategy then becomes where do you put the feed. It will move when it's time to eat and whether it's so that brings up this whole thing about taxes and how that nonsense works. But I share that story to talk about how when you're working in community with cultural activists. Who are really start to think about how to deal with and work on creating a just city, their frustration when they they enter in the terrain of government and I'll talk a little bit more about a project that that I seated called our cultural advocacy government program but at the essence of the cultural plan where the taglines equity is a driving force culture is a frame and belonging is the goal. So when we look at equity is a driving force we think about how do we acknowledge disparities. I have a department of race and equity in government that helps me sort of with kind of doing the analysis to figure out how as a funder public funder, we address questions through equity. Culture is a frame. I want, we were deliberate about saying culture not so much art, being mindful of the ways people live their lives and not sort of always think about the art object and belonging is the goal. It's about social connections and engagement. Now the funny thing about belonging is it is a wonderful sticky word. It's always very clear that when I talk about belonging. I'm not talking about the psychology of belonging. I'm talking about the sociology, what our government policies that create belonging and dis belonging. We all know zoning as a great example and an easy example of how belonging is manifest in public policies that say you don't belong. So how do you, how do you, how do I do that. So I have done that through a variety of initiatives that the plan came out three years ago, a variety of initiatives that I call my, you know, belonging in Oakland initiatives. Neighborhood voice, which is really community based projects where an artist in an NGO come together to work on a project that is really dealing with the community concern. I think that's part of our neighbor concern. The Just City initiative, which is a collaboration between myself and the Akhenati Foundation, which is in Oakland and East Bay Community Foundation to really be deliberate about looking at and imagining what a Just City could look like for people of color. It's really weird in California. It's really weird. I cannot create an initiative that is earmarked specifically for BIPOC folks, because it's against the law, but I could so I end up in work creating this partnership with the East Bay Community Foundation to be intentional about sort of looking at the dis-belonging that has happened and among communities of color and figure out what to do. And finally, the thing that I want to talk a little bit about more is our cultural strategists in government. We did in the first round, we did, how many did we, I had, I had, I worked for five departments, Human Services Department, the Mayor's Office of Housing and Security, Planning and Building, Transportation, the Department of Rests and Equities. So these were fellowships in which the artists were our cultural workers, our community members, activists would come in and work with the departments to do policy shifts, narratives related to imagining something else. And let me read a short little description. Roberto, you have one minute remaining. Oh, my God. I wouldn't, then I'm not going to read that. They were just, they were wonderful. They were really about doing the kind of shift that we would try to imagine that government, how do you build trust. And, but I will end with this quote, which has nothing to do with cultural strategists, but has to do with poetry. There's a poet I love. He's been gone for a while named Robin Blazer. He was Canadian. And he, he's in the Canadian context, he, you know, was part of cultural policymaking. So he said, cultural conditions always approach what we mean by the word world, or the process of posing one. And it's never separately by simplicity strict social political artistic or sacred, but rather it is made about the entanglements of discourses, having to do with men, women, earth, and heaven. And what I love about this is the work of composing the world. And how do, how do you do it in city hall I try incredible thank you so much. So one quick announcement before we go to our last person. We learned that we were not able or we didn't successfully raise the limit for the number of people joining our zoom so apologies for people who couldn't get on. But just know that there's another hundred or so watching this live so hello and thank you for joining with us. So we're going to go to Masoom Moitra. Masoom is with Greenlight District Masoom we're so excited to hear what you have to say I know that you have been doing a lot of work, really around self determination and values, powerful values like that that come out of your cultural Thank you Amalia, and thanks for reminding us how many more people are watching we already have this amazing room of people, and I'm going after an incredible lineup of panelists so no pressure at all right. But thank you everyone who's spoken so far. It's such an honor to build on whatever you said and I will be building on that. So as Amalia introduced me my name is Masoom Moitra. I'm the director of L-Quentil's Greenlight District I'm a community urban planner and an artist. I also teach part time at Parsons. The way I came to know N-O-C-D-N-Y and work together and with Gonzalo and with many others on this call is through New York's cultural plan. And that's how we got to working together and we continued after that on many projects. And I'm glad we have these peer exchanges to keep those conversations going and keep organizing together. So I wanted to talk to a little bit today about the Libertory potential and concept of flipping the narrative and why this is so important for cultural movements and institutions, especially those representing historically marginalized people in communities. And I think the best way to talk about it is really by rooting it into a deep understanding of the Greenlight District which illustrates this concept and has been for a long time. The Greenlight District is an initiative of El Puente which itself is a community human rights organization for those who aren't familiar that has been around for almost 40 years now. And the Greenlight District itself was started around 10 years back by Luis Garanacosta who was also the founder and leader of El Puente and was started as a holistic community development initiative and self-determination. So just to give you a little context about the background in which the Greenlight District came up. It came up in a very, very rapidly gentrifying Williamsburg and Bushwick. It was at the peak of gentrification at that time. And what El Puente leaders refer to as the cultural genocide which is still ongoing. And even though many people think that these poverty corridors do not exist in Williamsburg and Bushwick they very much do. And on top of everything else they're also environmental justice communities. So in Luis's words the narrative that was imposed on this disappearing community at that time 10 years back was very much that of helplessness and paralysis as though that this massive tide of gentrification this naturally occurring tide had the capacity to wipe everything out on its way and everyone on its path had to just helplessly accept what this tide had to offer and that tide was so powerful that there was nothing to do but to get swept away by it. Now the GLD did not accept that and El Puente did not accept that for its community. And the Greenlight District was initiated with the hope of flipping and countering this narrative with one that is actually about bringing community members and leaders together to put powerful forces within the community together and to celebrate and preserve the existing culture to recognize what actually existed. And to see that we are still here and we are going to continue staying here. And along with that the second part was to actually study and connect this cultural preservation and cultural organizing efforts. El Puente was on the cultural organizing scene a very long back a long time back and to connect that to citizen science projects which actually help you understand the issue to the core through community led and youth led efforts. And the third part was to actually develop a collective and produce collectively a set of solutions and platforms and plans upon which the community can stand and tackle these issues. So together really this form the narrative of self-determination. But something I want to talk about is that the idea of self-determination as we study in the classroom and as I have taught in the classroom myself is of course very different from the messiness of self-determination on the ground. And I have come to learn many different things about it from our leaders and I want to talk about that a little bit today. And the fact that self-determination is not a black and white concept it is a very great concept and in fact it's not even an end goal but it's a you know it's a very long messy journey a process that needs to be that needs to unfold and that you need to dabble through over decades. Not a short term project as Claudie had mentioned before. So one of the things I've found is that self-determination as inspiring and idealistic as a concept it is on the ground it involves negotiating around principles you know there's a lot of there's a lot of times where you're negotiating and really going back and forth around what what the community principles are what you're rooted in as community and what to give up and what to stand with as we go along. And which is why it's very rooted as what Rashid said is to be rooted in history and legacy and to be rooted in the movement world and which is why I think El Puente's legacy of coming from the young lords of coming from the young Christian workers movement is what really forms that foundation upon which a self-determination movement as a nonprofit can now be built but without that it's very challenging. I assume there is one minute remaining. Thank you, Emily. So and then I would go into the holistic nature of self-determination so it's not enough as a community and this is you know every community that has self-determination at its core is very aware of this. It's not enough to just understand community needs but connected to community needs that actually give away holistic approach to the process of problem solving so it's not about just wanting green spaces but connecting that to health equity connecting that to affordable housing and often at El Puente that has happened by connecting it to the arts and to cultural organizing which makes this process a very long and slow process without very quick and very instant results which of course is not conducive to how the nonprofit industrial complex works. So to understand that the infrastructure and ecosystem that's built around movements that have become institutions like El Puente are still rooted in decolonial values and still demand a narrative that isn't liberatory and actually sometimes you know provides a barrier to liberation in many ways so it's important to recognize that and to recognize that tying that to capital, like financial capital makes it very problematic and of course we know that a lot of this industrial complex as I call it is definitely also using the buzzwords of equity and self-determination and that needs to you know there needs to be some accountability around that and then I want to go to the fact that collective self-determination is also tied to self-liberation and at El Puente we do it through tying it to the work of the Global Justice Institute which works with individuals to actually develop the connection to legacy and principles which are very important in continuing it over the long term and finally I think self-determination is also very much about as an organization if you're talking about self-determination it's about representing a community voice and there isn't one voice there's so many voices and there is no participatory planning tool and I'm saying that as a participatory planner or no survey or no activities that we can do that can actually tap into those voices and the only way that I have seen it being successfully done and that has been reflected in the Greenlight District is to make sure that it is the committee members that are the leaders in the movement it is people who started as young members as 16 who are now the directors and the you know the most senior people in the organization and the movement it is programs that like after school programs food distribution programs where people really directly tap into the needs of community members and those are reflected in the platforms that come out so I'll stop here and I know we are going to discuss a lot more about it but yeah thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much Masoum so I'm going to invite everyone to take just sort of a mid break and come off of mute if you're on mute that's anyone panelists and presenters and let's just have a moment of thanks clapping appreciation thank you for everything that was just shared so come off mute and let's let's just do a quick little public thank you. Thank you. Lent. Excellent, excellent. It's so it was such rich information I'm sure like me you guys have been jotting notes furiously. There's a lot to process and so before we break you into small groups. We just want to take a collective moment to take a breath and give you kind of one minute to write quietly to yourself. Any notes that you want to take any thoughts that you have that you want to bring into your group. So that could be a clarifying question, a powerful observation, a shared learning, but just kind of one minute for some personal writing to reflect on what was an incredible half an hour of information and story. So I'll set the timer and then after the minutes up will move people into small groups. Alright, that's time. So in a second I'm going to invite Emily to give you more kind of technical explanations of how much time we're going to be in the room. I don't have any notices that you get, but for right now I'll say this. This is really the beginning of kind of the peer exchange portion of the day and so we're going to break you into small groups. These are self guided conversations you're not going to get any chat messages about what you should be discussing. What we hope is that you sort of look at your personal writing, you reflect on what you heard and you have a rich information where everyone in your small group has an opportunity to share something. You'll be in small groups for about 15 minutes. And Emily I'll invite you now to step in and say how big the groups are going to be and what kind of notices they'll get on time. This is Emily on speaking. We're going to have small groups for 15 minutes and each group will have four to five participants. And there will be announcements with five minutes remaining and then two minutes remaining. I'm going to jump in here and I just want to invite the people in the live stream that they can join the zoom now we have space and if they want to participate in the small groups, they should come join us on the zoom. All right, so rooms will be opening shortly we'll see you back here in 15 minutes. Hi there. I don't see I don't see any invitation for room. Okay, so I'm going to move. I'm going to move folks now because I think when I set up the breakout rooms, you were maybe not here yet. Okay, just give me a moment. Thank you Emily. Sure. Hi, did you. I know one was my group. Same thing with me. Okay, I can move you all. Let me figure out where you are right now do you remember which room you might have been in. I was in room 11. Okay, great. I was in maybe seven but I don't remember. Okay Karen I'm going to move you into a different room. Okay. Then stuffy, I will move you into a different room as well. Thank you. Hi Pablo. Hi, I'm trying to, I'm not sure. Is this a breakout room or this is not do. Did you make it into a breakout room yet. But then everyone left. I was assuming that like, they were. I see you. I will move you into a different room. Thank you. Sure. Hi, Jason. Hi, Kim. Hi, who are you? Sorry, I'm late. I am Emily. I'm wearing small breakout rooms. Would you like to be put in one for the last five minutes? Okay. What are you doing in the breakout rooms? It's just a really free flowing conversation kind of based off of what was shared so far by the panelists, but. You can just join in. Okay. Okay. And Jason, would you like to be put in a different room? Jason, are you, are you there? Welcome back everyone. I think I'm looking at the numbers. I think we have a few rooms that still have to close. Is that right Emily? No. I think we have a few rooms that still have to close. Yes. Okay. Great. Well, welcome back everyone. I just want to encourage everyone to take a breath. We have a lot of people with us in this space and watching online. And as we move into the sort of the question answer discussion part, I just want to ask everyone to have patience with each other. We're going to try to get to as many people and questions and voices as we can, so we had an incredible conversation in our own breakout room. I was with some of the speakers and in a second I'm going to share some of the themes that emerged. And as I share our themes that emerged, what we were talking about, I encourage all of you in chat to share any of your own reflections. So again, this could be a clarifying question. It could be a powerful observation that you had a shared learning, but we'd like to get as many of those into the chat as we can. And then in a second we'll actually look through them together to pull out some to talk about. But as you're doing that work, I'll just give a little recap of our conversation and invite any of the panelists to riff on some of these themes. You know, I think they can be characterized in some ways as sort of the tensions, the questions and the creative antagonism that emerges when you begin to talk about stories, narrative, meaning making, culture. And so we talked about, you know, the interesting and challenging relationship between violence and narrative right now, and also how it's linked to new kinds of work and reimaginations. We talked about culture and the contested battleground in the cultural battleground. We talked about history as the president present and the past all at the same time and how that feeds into the work that people are doing. We also talked about the challenge of time right time as a time somewhat as a construct, but time also as a barrier and a motivator for when you're doing long term work with short term funding. Or a short term framework. And then we talked about the through line really being equity right that no matter the actions or the questions or the work people were doing that the through line was really around surfacing and centering or re centering equity and community through all of that. So I'll open it up to the panel if any of you want to step in and reflect on any of that, and then encourage others to also look through the chat and see if there's some questions that merge that we can particularly pull forward. So, Rashid, Masum, Niantara, Claudie, any of you want to share a little bit about what we were talking about while I, while I pull some questions. I'll start off. Thank you, colleagues. I got all hot and bothered at the end and I was babbling, and then everything went blank. So let me continue a little bit with my, my babble in the context. We talked about violence and I thought it was very, very stimulating. And then we ended up talking or I brought up the issue of trauma, and that often in the discourse around trauma, it's about the individual that needs to kind of move through the trauma and the discourse around civic trauma. It's not foreground that whether you live, whether you've been policed, whether you're been unemployed, that's a form of civic trauma that the resolution to that trauma needs to have to look at the social systems that created that pain. So. Thank you. And I know Niantara, you wanted to jump in too. Sure. Thanks, everyone. I'll jump in. We talked about a range of things in our little breakout too, but just to add on to the piece that Roberto has shared here about violence and trauma, one of the things we talked about in the context of narrative and culture, because on the progressive and on the sort of the radical left, there is such a lack of narrative infrastructure and cultural infrastructure for power building. We have strategies that essentially mimic what the right and the far right have done, which are strategies of extreme control strategies of convergence, which is to say we take a narrative we converge around it and then we push it through in a messaging in a messaging oriented way. And we actually don't have a lot of ways to consent to narrative and to culture. There's very few mechanisms that we have which say we as a community, we choose self determination we have participatory processes that we choose this narrative we choose this kind of transformation of culture which is also related to a Muslim was sharing about the complexity and the messiness of what self determination and community context can look like. So we did talk a bit about what that means when we have strategies for narrative convergence and enclosure, as opposed to strategies for narrative abundance and consent and how we can get there without leaning on the mechanisms that we have seen work but only because they've worked on the political right because their issues and narratives that have been framed what by the right and have one in the last several decades essentially. So wanted to bring that into the mix as well. Thank you. Just want to pause and see if there's any questions in the chat from the audience we want to make sure we capture those. And while we're waiting for any questions. Linda Paris Bailey I'm going to invite you to come off mute and share a little bit about your presentation especially around story circles digital storytelling etc. Okay, one of the participants in my group was asking about basically process in terms of collecting stories and sharing stories. So we offered a few tools which I put in the chat and I believe one other person's put in the chat so that, you know, people can do their own research and gathering of tools. So that basically was kind of central to the story. And also, we talked about what was happening with the curriculum in Virginia, and how that curriculum is changing, or has changed, and what resources might be there. You know, where that might be available but again, looking at history, or history as story, I would kind of refer to it as that and reclaiming the stories of the African American community in particular and also looking at other BIPOC communities in terms of the curriculum. So that was what I heard and gathered. I didn't know I was going to be reporting or else. No, thank you for sharing. Yeah, I think I think that I think probably the other members of that group can can add more to that conversation. Great. Thank you. Well, I see a couple more questions have come in on chat. We have one from Sinead Lopez. How do you think about cultural organizing within the context of global capitalism, big question, which often serves to alienate folks from community culture traditions, and even themselves, and I will see if there's anyone on the panel who would like to take that. I want to respond a little bit. I also want to connect to this, what Linda just talked about, or collecting stories, firstly, because I feel like that has something deeply to do with visualizing. For example, like, right now, they were working on a campaign called Nuestra are air. And, you know, the city at the same time is doing the city wide environmental just in mapping process. And they and because they were working at the census track data level, they completely eliminated long time environmental justice committees that aren't gentrifying areas, because they were looking at data and that way. The only strategies we have in the face of that is to collect oral histories and stories of people who are going through this to in the face of, you know, this kind of this other kind of level scale of data and citywide processes that are not looking at hyper local stories that might not go with the trend of data so I just wanted to acknowledge Linda's point. In terms of capitalism, I feel like I feel that's another reason that we are, we focus so much on, you know, on radical activism through the arts at a point that wasn't necessarily where it came from it came from a context that as I was telling Russia than the others off gun violence and public health equity, and kind of having to develop counter narratives in not not out of choice but out of compulsion in that context and and very much and it was also works in Puerto Rico around climate justice issues very much all about capitalism, you know about how you know venture capitalists have destroyed the environment and you know, public health resources education resources there, and about how that connects back to the diaspora here. So it's also very much been about connecting the stories of how capitalism global capitalism has had its impact in Puerto Rico, and I think that the community in New York is very much tied to that community. They're not just for Puerto Rico but all the islands, including DR and everyone else who is located in communities so I feel like there's a deep and of course like all the issues, as Rashid was saying that violence isn't just about gun violence or this it's also about policing it's also about not being able to breathe clean air because entire like covert what covert did you know entire communities had lower life spans because of being located next to a certain kind of transit infrastructure next to a certain kind of industrial infrastructure. And that's because development purely happened on the basis of profit on the basis of government also working at the service of real estate even by doing zoning policy by doing any of these policies so I feel like one of the big, you know strategies against that has in fact been this flipping the narrative kind of strategy so, and you know so I feel like it's everything to do with ultimately countering this toxic, you know intersection of capitalism racism patriarchy that we are playing in right now, but I do want to hear from everyone else about that as well. That's beautiful is anyone else on the panel want to speak to that otherwise I'll move to the next question. I wanted to just back to Linda's point again, what what you just shared on the story circles, I'm really being read I'm resonating around how it's a tool of history and collection as well. I wanted to chime in that something we did and Amalia you could attest to this because you actually led this is something we do. When we first introduced the story circle methodology of June bug to the residents is educating them around how it's part of this lineage, and that the June bug process itself. The question in the chat is being facilitated all over the United States alone. And so, for participants of this process to really get that understanding that it is, you know, very personal and intimate in that space that they're in, but how it is also connected to a lineage of stories of themes and narratives shared across black families across America, for example, and so I just wanted to attest to that and thank you for sharing that Linda from your team discussion. This is Richard I just wanted to add a small point about capitalism and violence that there's something that we talk about called slow violence that is that that, for example, targeting communities of color for hazardous waste is something that occurs on a regular basis and is killing thousands and thousands of people, but is not really seen in being related to capitalism it's a form of structural violence. It's slow, but it's social murder and we don't use terms like that but we should. It doesn't affect what we could call the social immune system of in the society affecting certain groups. So I think this is something that's been discussed in relation to the difficulties of representation of violence that takes place over a long period of time, where people are dying but it's not seen. Thank you so much, Richard I'm looking at the chat and nine Tara we have a specific question for you, which I'm sure many people will want to know about which are frameworks tools and resources which ones are out there for participatory consent based narrative abundance as you were sharing work, but which one which tools have you come across that you can share. Thanks for the question and I will certainly drop a few things in the shared resources later but there's four specific ideas or tools or just things that might be of use here so one thing that and I think actually Lisa and cloudy both I've heard to this already that the the strategy of harvesting data from a story circle and then linking it to narratives and then linking it to deep narratives, or sometimes they're called mental models or you know metanarratives however you want to call it but the narrative that that lives at the deeper level, right. The reason that works so well is because one single unit of a story. Instantly rings true if you even if it's not factually true. When you hear a story, especially if you're immersed in it in the context of a story circle and then you actually use the story circle process to part in a participatory way, harvest experiences, link up those stories generate themes and patterns, it rings true for the part of the community that's participating because stories are embodied stories are immersive and they come from people's experiential realities so in a way that you might encounter a story that is immersive people will experience it as true even if it is fiction right that's why disinformation works so well on the internet in a way even. in this particular era where it's it's like has its own currency. So that's definitely one strategy to use the other couple of things I would share is that and I'll drop this in the resources link at race forward when I was working on the narrative and cultural strategies there, we would use a tool called the narrative pyramid which is quite intuitive it's the imagine a pyramid, like a triangle at the bottom of the the triangle our stories up one level our narratives. Sorry, forgive me the bottom of the triangle our messages up one level our stories up one level our narratives, and then at the very, very bottom of the iceberg or the tip of the triangle is deep narratives so sometimes people have a range of different narratives that are operating at the same time deep narrative which is the fundamental value that you might align around is actually aligned and and shared with a community. So the community might actually believe we want safety and we want health and wellness for all our people in our community from young to old right but they might disagree about which narratives actually get them there. The question of abundance is, is actually that we don't need alignment at every level we need alignment on values and principles, and we need multiple narratives and an ecosystem that that proliferate those values and system so our stories don't have to match. And in fact they won't because people's experiences are so different. Our narratives don't have to match, but our deep narratives and our value systems do, and they have to be interpreted in the same way across the community. So that people can move in concerted action. This part feels important to me to say because I will say as a cultural strategist, I struggle with when questions and conversations come up about, do we have values alignment. Because at a surface level, people will say that their values aligned, you know, if you talk to someone who is a lobbyist for the NRA, they will interpret the value of safety the same way. But in a different way they'll also say safety is important right but it might actually mean something completely different in the context of those of us who are trying to advocate for community safety and protection for youth of color or trans folks of color in communities that are actually being affected by gun violence. So that piece feels important and the two other things I'd like to share that I will also drop in the resource document. Sometimes narrative abundance, or narrative convergence, it feels like narratives are in conflict with each other because there's a question of timeline, like what is the short term timeline versus a long term timeline. Okay, this has come up recently for me and some immigration work I've been doing through a program called the butterfly lab for immigrant narrative strategy. Whether or not a narrative about immigrants are essential in the short term links up with a narrative of whether borders are even natural or not should we even have borders should the nation state even be an organizing principle for us right. I don't know maybe it's really a question of 100 year vision or 200 year vision versus a five year policy window right so sometimes timeline is an issue. And then one other framework that might be of use here is there is a framework I think it's called the for our framework which is how do you orient to change or to making change are you trying to reform. Are you trying to recreate. Are you trying to resist. Are you trying to reimagine those strategies look different based on where you sit in a change ecosystem. So the narratives look different. When you're when you're actually applying them to strategy as well. And those can be good ways to explore abundance together. We don't all need to align around the same narrative to get to the vision of the future that we want. We actually envision the future and move towards it together and there's many paths to get there so that's what comes to mind. Thanks Amalia. Yes, thank you. Karen I see you had a question do you want to ask it. You can find it. Basically what I was asking is we're in a moment in New York or about to have a major leadership shift in conventional politics. And we're also talking about what is this, what does it mean to reimagine New York is as with a truly just a story and all of that discussion is bombarding us. But what would it, how can story and narrative actually make it possible for people in communities to be fully engaged in this conversation what is civic engagement look like that is truly inclusive because people feel like they're part of the story and they're shifting their part of making the narrative. Who wants to take that. Well, I was just going, I wanted to kind of connect this back to the conversation around global capitalism just a little bit and I wanted to first share that Roberto and Richard I think both of your points kind of emerged in terms of the slow violence that Richard was talking to but then this idea of like the trauma that we're experiencing or that communities experience that we may not call it the way it is because we're so often because of responsibility because of the frameworks in which you know as Americans were taught to individualism. This idea that collective harm that happens because of state violence or violence as we don't use it in that language was kind of what we're discussing in our group. But to Karen's question to the point that I think we've been raising overall, I think that the tension for artists and I'm just thinking about myself and I think about cultural workers in general and organizers is this constant tension between most people to a larger narrative infrastructure, but understanding that their infrastructure and the power in which we're building within is within a capital structure, meaning that we have to rely on resources we have to rely on money. We have to ensure that our ideas become popular to some degree which now within a social media landscape means that those ideas have to go viral, or they have to go to reach a larger audiences in order to get more money, and that more money means more power quote unquote, or more people translate to more money. And so we're now in a dynamic that I think we wrestle oftentimes similar to past artists and and cultural workers as how much, you know how do we say authentic how do we say we're within trying to continue to build a world that has a vision that is still equitable but also striving and understanding that, you know, you know, if we all believe that artists should be, you know, paid well that artists should be treated as other workers just like teachers should be treated as other workers just like everyone else as as we've learned throughout the pandemic that quote unquote essential workers that we all are to some degree but there are others who are doing work that are often not seen and imagine I think global capitalism calm mask, oftentimes the reality that artists are essential. So just to the point. I really think that, and I think people are doing is I know some foundations are doing this. I'm hoping that we can all come together and create like a cultural request or ask because when I see Nartara made this point earlier, when we see the foundation around the infrastructure bill. I'm hoping that at $3 trillion that large part of it becomes a WPA type of model for artists and I think we need to see that, not just as a national effort and that's something we can all rally around. But oftentimes I think that some that we could we definitely should do in New York City, specifically but if we're talking beyond New York City and we're talking about other regions of cities we know that culture in the arts at the heart of how we transmit and also sustain ourselves through the pandemic in terms of staying sane, but also ensuring that those people get back to work and have the foundation upon which they work. And so I think global capitalism to me in that time back is that money still matters. And I know that that's not a lot about value system in terms of how we think about progressiveness but we're talking about living wages people having a roof over there people having food and artists often being seen as you know the starving artists and being lasted on that list. I think that right now is a prime opportunity with all these stimulus bills and resources that we mobilize some effort to engage in conversations about how communities should be, you know, infused with with greater infrastructure and resources to support artists. And I think that's the opportunity that presents itself at this moment for us is that easy no but I think there's a historical reference point. As I've said around the WPA and other models which if you look at it, and you think about June bug you think about story circles you think about the ways in which we capture narratives individuals in community. There's one model that way and then there's also the model of engaging artists themselves and tell their stories and documenting those things in a way and giving them resources so that's one model that comes to mind for me. Thank you. We have about four minutes left so I just want to make sure everyone has a chance to share so cloudy and Roberto I want to invite you in with any last words on any of the questions that have come up recently or reflections from our breakout. It's just honored to listen to my brilliant colleagues. I feel like I got more homework. And thank you for the invitation. And I would just say, you know, longevity longevity longevity sustainability and this work is not accomplished in the day, and to keep that commitment and inspiration to understand that this work is long term. Excellent. Well, we have maybe one more minute left so nine Tara. Let's see my zoom Rashid anyone else just one last sentence in closing. I just want to say that it's so good to work with peers to work through contradictions because I've been struggling with what like what each of you have brought up and what Russia just brought up about, you know, so like the exploitation of artists but also the state supported artists or foundation supported out is how does that work in a movement world in in like and what and what is that tension between the two between visualizing and being able to compensate artists without neutralizing their power. You know, so I feel like these are contradictions to work through in a peer group and this is so incredible to be a part of. Great. I think to add just gratitude. Thank you all. Beautiful conversation. It was such a great conversation. So I'm going to invite everyone off zoom one more time to turn off your mute come back on. Just one more collective round of applause for everyone on the panel but also yourselves for participating in this night and sharing. So thank you so much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Karen, I'm going to turn it over to you to close. I really enjoyed being with all you everyone tonight. Thank you. Thank you again and Karen, it's all yours. Extra clips for Amalia. Yeah, Amalia hearing the chef and for Emily. Yeah, I'm leaving and Tom ASO for doing the amazing work to make this zoom actually happen. And thank you when we were putting this together we were starting we were imagining what the dream team would look like to have this conversation. And you all said yes, and we've been looking forward to it so much and it's been even better than we expected so thank you, thank you for coming everyone. Funding credits which are really important for us the New York Department City Department of Cultural Affairs and partnership with the New York City Council and our commissioner Gonzalo Casals joined us today. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and we have colleagues from there I know Stephie and Corinna and Richard and others joined us from that department. And we also had the national endowment for the arts and thank you we've had representatives from the NEA with us as well today so thank you so much for joining us. I also want to acknowledge Kate Detecchio, whose artwork was on our invitation and was so fantastic, and she joined us today as well. So please remember to put your resources in the Google Doc we want to be able to share them back to everybody and look out for an email you'll get the recording from this session so you can share it with others we'd love you to do that. And we'll put links in there for some of our resources. So thank you again for joining us and thank you to the NYU students. My class, which is here and I'm going to ask you all to stay on when everybody leaves. Thanks. Thank you Karen see you later. Will there be a group?