 The college staff, they've been phenomenal and you're going to see this as a great tech culture for helping put everything together and make this a reality tonight. We're going to share some information with you and have some questions and answers, maybe some polling. We'll get you all set up with the technology. It should be really fun. The other thing I wanted to tell you right from the beginning is you're going to see these really cool photographs throughout the presentation. They're all by Leo March who was one of the artists who was embedded in the process. This is his photography and it's an illustration, his view of what the cultural life of Boston looked like while we were carrying out the public engagement phase of the Boston Fates cultural plan. I just wanted to start out by saying that this is a very unique moment for Boston. Mayor Welch has committed resources and charged us to think about how Boston can become a municipal arts leader. The city is undertaking its first comprehensive plan in over 50 years and we've been working to create the city's first cultural plan. We know that Boston has incredible arts and culture, institutions, nonprofits, commercial entities, artists. We know that Boston is a city that educates and innovates, incubates all kinds of new works, celebrates the arts and participates in the arts. But most of all, Boston is a city that creates. Our name Boston creates really embraces the fact that we have a wealth of creative people here in Boston who work at a very high professional level in all different kinds of arts genres, but also who work in cultural expression and an amateur level or an educational level and have a real personal connection to how arts and culture can really transform us. With the Boston creates plan, we really want to see how can we harness the power of creative thought to solve our problems both great and small. We started that out with a community engagement process. Last June, we had our first big Tom Hall meeting and many of you participated whether you were on the steering committee or the leadership council or you headed up a community team or participated in a conversation. Maybe you took the survey, maybe you came to a focus group, maybe you just encountered Boston creates at your farmers market or at event. We know many of you in the room participated and we think you'll find your voice reflected in our process. So this is just a quick overview, a snapshot really of what was thousands and thousands of people participating in this very multifaceted and inclusive process. Our steering committee actually started meeting before I even came to Boston to conceive what were we aiming for in creating a cultural plan. What was the team we needed to bring on board? It was about 15 people. It's half city employees and half leaders in the cultural community. We also, now it's on, I can tell, we also asked people to get involved in community teams. There were 16 teams and a youth team. Many of you are chairs of one of those teams. We've got about 37 people involved as a co-chair of the community team. We've got a 60 person leadership council. Many people came to town hall meetings, focus groups, 118 community conversations. And over 3,000 people took a survey. The survey was really focused on understanding people's personal engagement and creative expression of all sorts. And we're going to engage you again tonight. When you walked in to the auditorium, hopefully you got a little piece of paper that looked like this. And these are instructions on how to set up your participation in the text message polling we're going to do tonight. So it's very simple. If you have a smart phone or even a dumb phone, what you do is you go to do a text message. And in the two part, instead of putting your friend's name or someone's phone number, you're just going to put the numbers 22333. So actually, if you all want to get out of your phones, you can test it right now. And then in the message part, you're just going to type in Boston creates. I'm going to go ahead and do it right along with you guys, even though I've already done this once. I'm going to test it right along. That way we know it's actually working, right? So get your phone, you're going to do two, right? The numbers 22333. And then the text message is Boston creates all together. Don't spell Boston wrong. Don't let autocorrect mess it up. And then you're just going to hit send. Send. And then you should get an auto reply. I didn't get one yet. Did anyone get their reply yet? Yep. Yep. Okay. All right. And it says, oh, I got my reply. I got my reply. It says, you've joined Cara Elliott or take up my staff person who set this up. Thank God for her. All right. So you're now ready to take the first question in our poll. And this question is really a test question to get you all set up. So you're going to answer what creative expression are you the most passionate about? I know we didn't give you that many to choose from, but you're going to choose one. I'm going to choose one. And then you just put the letter and you hit send. I think it matters if it's uppercase or lowercase. And then the results hopefully are going to show up. Oh, what's happening? So this is the result. Constantly changing landscape. Looks like performing arts. Moving around a little bit. Visual was getting out there. Okay, so this is how the polling is going to work. Later on in the presentation, what we're going to do is ask you a few more questions. Now that you've taken one question, for all the next questions, you're just going to put one or two or A or B. And it'll be really easy. And so for all you latecomers and stragglers, you're going to get your little instruction sheet and maybe poke the person next to you. If you see a new person come in, you can show them how to do it. So this might continue to change a little bit. And if you have another phone, don't poke twice, okay? All right, so now that the polling is all out of the way and we know what we're doing with our text messages. Oh, by the way, if you can't do text messages and you don't want to, there are pieces of paper, hopefully, that you got handed on the way in. And you can just fill that out and check, check, check whatever you want your answers to be. And we'll tally those up. So there's people in the back. I can see Adam in the back who's got pieces of paper. But this looks like a pretty touch savvy group. Did anybody not have it work? Oh, you didn't have it work. Well, we'll get you a piece of paper. All right. I hear you. All right. So let's get going and talk about what did we learn in our, in our, in our very multifaceted, very complicated engagement and research phase. We touched upon this at the last town hall meeting and we collected a tremendous amount of information. Every single meeting that was held had a template for notes, submit your notes. All those notes were read and analyzed. And so we have a tremendous amount of qualitative information as well as quantitative information. And we've been synthesizing and synthesizing and synthesizing all that information. And it's very complicated and multifaceted. And this is a summary and sort of the most, the most high priority things that we found. So we heard from a lot of people about a lot of silos in arts and culture. There's geographic silos. There's silos between the art sector and other sectors. There's silos between sort of different genres and disciplines of the arts. There's silos within city government or the different jurisdictions and layers of, layers of government. We also heard about a lot of barriers. Again, very multifaceted. There are barriers to attendance and participation and engagement with arts and culture. They do very tremendously between different, for example, demographic groups, geography, age groups. So we know that the barriers are very complex. What we learned that we need to overcome these silos and barriers are equitable opportunities for people to participate and benefit from access to the arts or opportunities for creative expression. We heard a lot from organizations and individuals and groups large and small about the challenges with finding space and facilities, occupying that space once they have it, or for individuals finding workspace affordable housing. As a matter of fact, we have launched a cultural performing arts cultural facilities survey. We'll hear a little bit more about that in a few minutes. We also heard that youth want more opportunities in school and out of school. They're looking for innovative ways to connect with cultural opportunities. They're looking for a sequential pathway in arts and culture, and we know we need to do a better job in arts and culture for youth. We also heard that there's a real desire for better access to information. Again and again, people told us, I only heard about it after it was done. Almost every single meeting we're at, we hear about this, and it's a huge barrier, just better access to information, not only for participation and being an audience member, but for connecting to learning opportunities, connecting to networks, professional development. How do you get the information that you need? We also heard about the desire for support, systemic dollars for change. How are we going to grow the supports to the cultural sector? So since we met at the last town hall meeting, we've been analyzing the survey data, the meeting notes, all of the things we heard from the community conversations. We've been synthesizing that together. What are the common themes that we heard again and again? Things that caught across all of the ways we engage people. What are the most urgent issues? What's some of that cause effect? What are some of those sequential things? How are priorities aligning together? And we've been working really hard to coalesce that information into understandable goals, goals that take us from the immediate through ten years to understand how strategies to achieve those goals, what are some programs, first steps, maybe deeper dives into research we need to do, and we've been testing all of those strategies and goals again and again with our steering committee, leadership council, arts funders, closely held stakeholders, testing them again and again. And we're happy to share with you tonight what those goals, strategies, and first steps really look like. And we'll ask you to give us your feedback a little bit further down in the meeting. So the goals, you know, this was really hard to articulate where do we want to move forward as a city? We really took into account what people told us. The strategies you'll see are really the top strategies. There probably could have been a hundred different ones. We needed to sort of boil them down into things that are overarching, ways that we're going to achieve those goals. And first steps are really just a sampling of some of the actions and programs, interventions that we're already taking or that we know we have funding for, thanks to Mayor Walsh and the city budget, which we owe passes, and things that my office can do right away. So we've got five key goals, and we're going to give a quick summary here and then go into detail. And these goals are really the core content of the cultural plan. The goals, strategies, first steps. This is the guts of the plan that we're writing. So let's go to goal one. Can we integrate arts and culture into all aspects of civic life? That could involve these four strategies. Changing city policymaking and practice to integrate creative thinking into the work of every municipal department and all planning efforts. Tarnest the power of arts and culture to engage us in civic discourse, planning and creative problem solving. How can we make Boston a place where arts education and arts-enhanced learning are available city-wide and throughout all stages of life? Not just for youth, but for adults, young adults, older adults, seniors. How can we integrate arts, culture and creativity into the public realm and urban environment? And what might this look like? This really looks like within city government cross-departmental collaborations. We've been piloting exactly how to bring creative approaches into city government with our Boston AIR, Artists in Residence pilot. We recently announced three artist residencies and we're really excited to see that as a testing ground. How can we transform the work of city government and bring these creative approaches and also create amazing art? We know we have funding for a second round of Boston AIR that will be focused on the Boston Center for Youth and Families. We're also working to embed arts into public works. This is really exciting and has the power to possibly transform our public realm. Our poet laureate has been hard at work all over the city. One of the things she's done is organized workshops with the Elderly Commission. So we're really looking at how we can bring arts into everything we do within city government. Those are just a few examples of what we're doing right now. Goal number two is about creating fertile ground for a vibrant arts and culture ecosystem. Some of those strategies would be to create partnerships, to develop platforms, funding streams, and networks that really enable risk taking and innovation across arts and culture sectors. We want to support the availability, affordability, and sustainability of cultural spaces and facilities for arts and culture organizations and artists in Boston. We want to strengthen small and mid-sized arts and culture organizations in the city. And we want to enact and coordinate municipal policies to better support creative expression of all kinds of creative endeavors city-wide. So what might that look like right away? Well, we've already streamlined the temporary public art permit and process and put this really helpful infographic on our website. We're already undertaking the Performing Arts Facility Study that I mentioned a little bit earlier. Goal number three, keeping artists in Boston. Recognizing their essential contribution to a thriving, healthy, and innovative city. What's number one? Invest in individual artists in Boston. We want to make city government more accessible, welcoming, and responsive to artists. And identify and pursue opportunities for affordable artist housing as well as presenting and production spaces. And what are some first steps that we're taking? Our Boston Cultural Council is going to begin making grants to artists this year and then much more robustly in the next fiscal year. As a matter of fact, our application for scholarships for the Americans to the Arts Convention is open right now. I want to make this a little plug for that. And then the other thing we're really excited about creating within our office is an artist resource function. This is a person, a web presence, and someone who's available to artists and arts nonprofits to help them navigate through City Hall, help them find the resources, aggregate that information that's already out there. We're really excited that this is going to be a fantastic resource to artists and nonprofits and commercial arts entrepreneurs. Goal number four, mobilize likely and unlikely partners to generate excitement, demand, and resources for Boston's arts and cultural sector. How do we cultivate and mobilize public support and advocacy for the arts and culture sector? We can utilize the convening power of city government and partners to motivate and assist other sectors and professional groups in advocating for arts and culture. We can develop partnerships and tools necessary to make Boston a leading cultural destination, more so than it already is, with no disrespect to our incredible arts organizations we have now, but we can do more, we know that there's potential to grow. And how do we cultivate greater foundation, corporate, and individual philanthropy and advance public-private sector partnerships to support the city's goals for the arts and culture sector? We're already seeing there's an incredible amount of momentum building off of the convenings that we've been doing as part of the Boston Creates process. People in the healthcare sector, universities, and the arts funders, they told us how they hadn't been in a room together and they were really excited to explore the possibilities of working together towards a common goal. And finally, goal number five. And I also want to say, even though this is goal number five, these are not in priority order. There's no hierarchy here, just numbering them out of convenience, but it is absolutely not any kind of hierarchical order. Goal number five. Cultivate a city where all cultural expressions are respected and equitably resourced and where arts and culture are accessible to all. How might we do that? Well, we start by addressing cultural disparities across race, class, ability, and geographic lines by intentionally bridging divides and promoting cross-cultural exchange. We want to advance equity by facilitating creative, cultural, and artistic opportunities in historically underserved communities. We want to leverage city departments, resources, and facilities to embed arts and culture opportunities in every neighborhood. And we want to increase cultural competency in the arts and culture sector. Facilitate learning opportunities for diverse populations and promote diverse and inclusive participation in the sector. And how are we going to achieve this? Well, partially we can start to get at it by our grant making, being very intentional and strategic, making sure we outreach and work as inclusive as possible. Our chief resiliency officer is working now with us on what role arts and culture can play in resilience and equity. And research is definitely part of this. The city has just released an economic inclusion and equity agenda just about a week ago. And so we know we've got a lot of work to do. I wanted to open it up to questions. This is a lot of information that I've covered relatively quickly. We are going to make these slides available on the Boston Creates website right after this. And the recording of the live stream of this town hall will also be available. So anyone you know who might have missed this presentation can watch it on our website. So with that, I think we have a mic in the audience. I wonder if there were any questions. Maybe just raise your hand and we'll recognize you. Way over there. I don't eat a mic. You don't eat a mic? All right, I will repeat the question for our recording. Okay, if you want to go ahead. So my son is in kindergarten at a BPS school. And already the parent council is 100% responsible for raising funds to have most of the arts programming that comes into the school. And then we found out that next year our art teacher that comes in this year, two days a week, will only be coming in one day. So we have to raise more money to have a partnership with an arts program so that our children can have a well-rounded education. And so my question is, how will these goals and this plan help things in Boston life, the Boston public school system, and then children in that way? Yep, thanks for your question. The question was about her school in particular seeing some shifts and changes in funding and perhaps a loss of arts programming in the school. And so how can the plan address bringing the arts into the school? So we have on our steering committee Myron Parker-Brass, who's the head of arts education for BPS. And I'm a part of the arts education advisory committee council body. I'm not sure its exact name. So we are on each other's committees purposely for coordination and integration. And we can look into the situation in your particular school. But I do know that in the last six years Ed Vesters and BPS has been able to increase the average number of minutes. That I know it's not the issue is, I know we've made a ton of gains in elementary schools, but it does differ from school to school. So please, let me finish. What we're really trying to do is grow the pie. There's been a limited number of dollars for arts education. So we're trying to bring together partners and grow the funding. BPS already has a fantastic arts education policy. It's just a matter of building out the systems so that we can have every kid in every grade get access to every arts genre. Now that said, this is going to take time. There are some structural issues with the BPS budget as you know and I'm sure you've been reading about and hearing about. So I don't have an answer or a solution for your particular school situation. But the whole intent of this plan is to pull together resources and partners so that we can move the needle on every school. I just want to be clear. It's not just our schools. Our neighbor goes to be lost. Yeah, I mean I think you're just illustrating. I understand. I think you're illustrating how much work we need to do. And we heard that loud and clear in our process. And here's the thing about a cultural plan. So my favorite metaphor, I'm not going to claim credit for it, is the colleague who said this. Doing a cultural plan, it's like taking your car for a diagnostic. It identifies all the work that you need to do. Then you issue the plan and you get to work, then you get to work and you do the work that the plan identifies that you need to do. So as much as we're trying to have solutions and programs and funding and partnerships in place before we issue the plan so that we can announce them when we issue the plan, we've got a ton of work to do once we issue the plan. And BPS, it's a big system. And we know that there are tremendous inequities. So that is absolutely part of what we heard in our process. And it shows up in our goals and our strategies and we would love to be working with as many partners as we can possibly identify. So we've heard people loud and clear but we're not going to fix it in one year. We're going to need time. I think we might need the microphone for this one. Yeah, the question was what were the approaches for partnerships with communities surrounding Boston? So I do want you to know that the Performing Arts Facility study is not just Boston, but it's Boston and surrounding communities. We're going to be working with Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea. So our wonderful friends across the border, please take the facility survey. The other thing we recognize is the importance of implementation that is partnership funded. We know that our city dollars in the city of Boston aren't going to be able to be granted outside of the city and that's why we're really looking at funding and implementation solutions that are perhaps pooled funds or partnerships that might have a wider geography. So for example, there's an artist survey that's going to be launched by NIFA. That's not only Boston, but actually all of New England. We know that there are definitely some grant programs that are within the 495 highway boundary, I guess you would call it. The other thing we've been doing is working with the MAPC, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. And we've been meeting with what they would call an inter-core group of, I think it's 12 municipalities. And we've been working actually on an arts and culture toolkit. We have a sort of a working group and we've been sharing a lot of best practices and there will be this Web Arts and Planning Web Toolkit because we know that many of the surrounding communities don't have an arts commissioner as part of city government. It's actually the planning staff who are carrying out public art and murals and that kind of thing. The Arts Council is all volunteer. So we've actually all been working together on this toolkit to help everyone gain access to information and best practices. So those are just a couple of things for the sort of region-wide approach. Hello, my name is Jason Wallace. I just graduated from Tufts University and I just wanted to ask. I was just on the Web site today and you kind of mentioned it but one of the things that I wish is that more of like the Grants and Scholarships were there was more than one opportunity per year because there only being one opportunity it kind of locks out people and in return in regards to strategic partnerships that's one of the things that I see about Boston as the most untapped resources is that there's so many brilliant minds, there's so many great institutions and there's one area. How can we like foster more like collaborations and get more Grants and Scholarships going in that way? Yeah. So first of all congratulations. Did you already graduate or graduating in May? Graduating in May. Well congratulations in advance. It's very exciting. I hope you stay here in Boston and build your career here. All right. Well you know we actually our Boston Cultural Council for many years the ordinance says one deadline a year and we are actually asking City Council to change that so we can have multiple deadlines a year so we know that that's a problem and because we have more grant funding we're seeking to make that change so we're really excited about doing that and then our artist resource website the whole city website is getting redone so our current website we know is really bad the Boston Creates website is a little bit better but eventually we're going to have a great website that will aggregate many more of these opportunities together in one place a little bit more of one stop shopping there's no centralized call for artists in Boston we know that it's really hard to find that information so we're aiming to change that and this is going to be something we'll do on our first year of implementation so we're trying definitely come to the AFTA Convention it's way cheaper for students and I think you'll find a lot of networking and professional development opportunities there June 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th great I think there's a question right back here Hi my name is Rachel and I have a question about the Residencies for Artists I think everyone can test that rental prices in Boston are fairly exorbitant they're both expensive cities in the country and it's very difficult for artists to maintain residence where most of the arts hub is and I think it's very important clearly because it's up there but because not only is it great for the artists and benefits for them to live near where they work and create but it's also great for the neighborhoods themselves to have maybe not just finance people who are able to afford these rents but the artists themselves it makes for a very very creative cooperative interesting dynamic environment so my question to you would be if I have a friend who has a pre-grade idea for creating a more localized residence for artists program and it's a relatively small scale that I think every bit counts what would be the best way to get that idea across yeah so the question was about how to pitch an idea for an artist residency a small scale artist residency you sort of jumped the gun a little bit because if you got your little piece of paper when you got here at the end of the meeting we were going to ask you how do you want to help implement the cultural plan and so today the best idea would be to write your idea on the back of your little piece of paper give it to one of my lovely staff who have the green t-shirts on before you leave or at the registration desk so that's one way that you can let us know be sure you put your email or phone number on there we'd love to work with you to sort of connect the dots on how to help make that happen or you could always submit an email to us through the Boston Creates website as well if you're not ready to do it right now tonight so we'd love to work with you on that your friend asking for a friend so yeah I think our Boston Creates email is what's our Boston Creates email it's um you can just also submit it through the BostonCreates.org website yep right here we have time for I think two more questions very briefly my wife is from Ivory Coast West Africa and she mentioned I'm president of Charleston I grew up in Natick I promise I won't go on that line because she said the last question but she's amazed with all the universities and the scholarship and the universities how few people of color have high profile places in say radio sports radio so dismissive and so mean and she will listen to it and she's amazed at how few anchors say on the local TV have any true voice or one of the point we live in Charleston this very tea stop and I'm very like that I'm in the minority it seems disproportionate to me and I'm Irish and I okay but I find it's disproportionate but places of power citywide especially in our media are disproportionate I mean you have Michael Hawley and some guys that follow the Celtics and it's very limited I didn't know the dynamic so we do have several members the question was about I think a diverse representation of all of Boston's population in the media high profile media but I think also what you're talking about is what we're talking about in goal 5 and we're talking about having the arts and culture sector more accurately reflect the true diversity of the population of the city of Boston and really lifting up a lot of stories that aren't told or haven't been told maybe need to be told again and having people in positions of influence who look a lot more like the people of all of Boston so that's really what goal number 5 is all about but I also wanted to say that in terms of the media we do have a few members of the media in the audience tonight and to think that this is something you know on the radio it's voices so you don't know what do people look like but certainly on television it's a factor and then on our stages and in our concert halls it is for sure a factor we have a lot of work to do and part of it is to support that pipeline of kids in fifth grade through grammar school through high school through college keep that pipeline build that pipeline and keep them here and make sure that our cultural sector really reflects who we are as a city so it's a big part of what we want to accomplish we have time for one more question I think let's go right behind him here we'll have another part of the presentation where we can answer questions hi good evening my name is Sarah Ting and I head up an organization called World Unique I want to really thank you I know you put a lot of work into this and all the people who have worked behind you the question that I have is if we are going to bring some new fresh ideas which I think you're striving for how do we break through and give other organizations an opportunity to receive funding other than the traditional big institutions which we all know I'm talking about how do we bring fresh truly fresh innovative ideas that are about addressing issues of diversity and inclusion and letting the arts be a way to lift our consciousness around diversity and inclusion because quoting Albert Einstein you cannot solve a problem with the same consciousness that created you must stand in a higher ground thank you so the question is really about how do we solve the problem of inclusion giving smaller organizations a chance and I think you talk about innovation as well and this is something that we found innovation is part of the brand the DNA of Boston and yet there's research about the cultural sector the non-profit cultural sector in particular a study issued a couple months ago by the Boston Foundation which looks like we're underfunding innovation pretty dramatically in the city of Boston but I think it's a question of intention and intentionality and really being innovative in how we go about funding organizations for innovation in new ways how do we reach this is the work of implementing the cultural plan this is for us to figure out I do want to move on to the next section and sort of get you guys ready to tell us your opinions I wanted to talk a little bit about what will success look like how will we know we are successful and this has been informed by a great deal of research on creative vitality cultural vitality and several several studies distilled down into several key concepts you know if we're successful in implementing this cultural plan we hope to have a city of Boston with creatively engaged families individuals and communities we want to have a strong pool of artists and creative entrepreneurs who stay and can stay in the city we want to have an active marketplace for arts culture and creativity we want to have sustainable arts and culture institutions and venues we need to have supportive civic municipal policies and goals and finally to have active use of arts creative enterprises to animate and problem solve in all aspects of public life that's the Boston we're envisioning for the future alright so now remember we took that that poll we're going to ask you to weigh in tell us which goal represents your experience in Boston which of the five goals resonates the most strongly to you is most urgently aligned with your opinions is it integrating arts and culture and civic life is it the need for fertile ground is it the need to support artists and keep them in Boston is it partners unlikely and likely and finding those resources or is it about equity and access so take your device or your piece of paper and you can just go ahead and vote which one to vote for you can only vote for one I'm going to vote just put the letter and hit send and we can see how it turns out let's see if it works okay now you can vote oh you have to do it again you can't vote on that poll okay let me go again did you get the error message alright now you can go live results just a reminder arts and civic life fertile ground supporting artists uh oh number two it's really partners and resources or equity it's funny how it goes around right oh you have a question quick question so yes fertile ground is about creating now you're testing my memory right it's really about creating an ecosystem where new organizations can start up mid-sized groups can grow that we remove barriers to organizations have plenty of funding create partnerships that develop platforms and funding streams and networks that enable risk taking strengthen small and mid-sized organizations and municipal policies that are supportive and not onerous that's really what fertile ground is about it's a little bit conceptual alright is everybody done voting oh one more question I'm going to get a message your presenter Jill Blackwell has not opened the poll yet does that mean no? oh I think you're on the wrong poll just a second I think you might be someone next to her help her out a young person that's not nice believe me I needed my secret web bills alright that's pretty interesting pretty even alright let's take the next one a little bit of a similar question for you which goal do you think is most important for Boston so the last question we asked about what do you think for you now you're going to put on your civic hat and think about the whole city the wider city long range which goal do you think is most important for the whole city of Boston whoa alright which one do I think is I'm going to vote remember just have to put the letter um whoa that's interesting everybody vote now the next question we'll just stop moving um so which goal do you see yourself playing a role in making a reality and we didn't put none of the above hahaha you got to choose one um and I think I have to go to the next slide to open it right okay now the voting whoa alright which one am I going to do all of them I'm going to be working on all of them I should have put all of the above um alright let me go put the letter in its end did she get it hooked up this lady over here no we're good yes will this be on the website this presentation will be on the website will the voting be on the website I don't know it probably could be that no it's not going to be on the website okay this is it speak now or forever hold your peace as they say alright partners and resources alright um so I think we have some time a lot faster than we thought it would alright so what are some next steps I did mention earlier in the presentation that we've got scholarships open for city of Boston certified artists and grantees of the Boston cultural council those applications are up if you just go to the americans for the arts website you'll find them we have a facility survey that was supposed to close today and we think we're going to expand the answers through the first the draft plan we're going to take your feedback the draft plan for public comment will be posted on our website in late April or May we're just not a hundred percent sure on the dates yet and the final plan will launch in mid June coinciding with the americans for the arts convention we do have time for more questions I know that there were more hands that were up while we were asking questions so we definitely have time for several more questions so let's go up this hallway so why don't we I think there was a question right here Hi my name is Victor Ginella I'm an individual artist I don't represent any group or organization and I would like to ask you a question which is very important for individual artists about art placement there's nothing more painful for an artist to see or are collecting dust so I have many public exhibitions and shows and every time they just come back to my basement one of my pieces is going to to New York actually in May selected by Metropolitan Museum of Art and I'm just wondering where it will go when it comes back I believe it's going to be my basement so you mentioned that that you're trying to make city officials more available to talk to individual artists who is that city official I can talk to when and how well I know you and I have talked on several occasions and I know that you have talked to my staff so the question is who can individual artists talk to and so this is the whole intent behind creating an artist resource before I go on I do want to let people know that if you specifically want to be involved in helping implement the cultural plan put it on the back of your piece of paper and then we do have video stations on the layout if you want to talk about on camera your reactions to any of the five goals or strategies we'd love to have you tell us so just a little plug as people are filtering out so for individual artists there is going to be the artist resource person in my office so in addition to all the staff I have right now all my staff help out but it'll be one dedicated specific person getting you information helping you figure out who to talk to but then there's also I think we should be really clear that one of the things we're trying to achieve is one of the measures of success is an active marketplace for arts and culture and an active marketplace includes somewhere for musicians to figure out how to get bookings help for an artist to figure out how to either get a gallery open up a cooperative gallery have a website where you can sell your work so that marketplace is meant to help individual artists as well as organizations find the ways that they can bring in revenue and thrive financially we know how challenging it is for individual artists the other thing we're looking to do with our grants to artists is not only support your ability to make your creative work but also help you go through workshops for professional development so that you can access some of that professional support that maybe would help you get to the next stage in your career we're also looking at how can our grants to individual artists help you build not only your professional development and your creative projects but how to learn how to share your work with the public perhaps as a teaching artist in the schools, in a senior center in a community center so we're really looking at a variety of ways to help individual artists but that's not to say that it's going to be everything to everyone we still know how difficult it is to make it as an artist and I just want to acknowledge that so thanks for your question and I think Ellen if we go straight okay we have plenty of time let's get two over here and then we'll come down this row and we'll get the ones there you have to be patient we have plenty of time for everyone to ask their question yeah the question was is Boston Creates looking into partnerships with the corporate community yes, yes, yes, yes we've been we've been meeting with corporate funders corporate foundations who already have a philanthropic arm and we're always interested and eager to meet with partners we do think we're going to be able to create a couple of partnerships or collaborative efforts to implement the plan that would be particularly appealing to corporate partners but yes we're very interested in that and if you have any specifics in mind write them on your piece of paper we would love to follow up with any ideas that you might have and then we'll do one more on this side and then we'll come down that hallway and we'll do the questions on this side I'm very curious about the use of the Dead Spaces in Boston Dead Spaces mean like pop-up galleries that in December you'll see this building will give out for a month to artists and then for 11 months let it sit empty the artist could utilize that space the BCEC will have a big convention there and only use half of it and the rest is empty, they'll hang art on the walls but those rooms are underutilized it could be performance spaces it could be rehearsal spaces things like that, the Dead Spaces that shift and shift downtown crossing has a lot of real estate that's just empty somebody owns that building and it's not really hard to artists don't have a hard time utilizing those spaces until they get sold you know basically you could still sell that property if it's being sold as long as you don't let it do it but those Dead Spaces that sit there and are essentially an eyesore why are those being utilized more so yeah, the comment really was about how or maybe the question is how to make better use of spaces that are empty, underutilized and really we would very much encourage people who have a space to fill out the performing arts facility survey, people who need space to fill out the survey because we do intend to match make and come up with systems for using spaces that are underutilized not easy, very multifaceted but for for example in downtown crossing we have a fantastic organization who could serve as that intermediary and as a matter of fact they often do and this is the downtown crossing business improvement district who helped during fashion week helped an organization to use an empty sixth floor raw space in an office building it was really cool event space so part of the issue is to inventory the need and inventory what's available but then to also have intermediary groups who can come up with a system another great example is our wonderful main street organizations who often can play that role of intermediary so they can sort out the relationship with the landlord and the insurance and the agreements I think the intermediaries are great to have to make it not just an accident but a system and it's something that we would work on the whole intent for Boston Air Round 2 being in the Boston Center for Youth and Families is we think that this is an incredible infrastructure that could be better used and more fully play a role in the cultural life of their neighborhoods the same goes for other civic spaces like libraries most every library has a community room and a fantastic space that can be used for a variety of purposes so we love that idea and are looking for how to build those systems so I think we're going to come down on this side of the room and then we'll get your questions here Hello thanks for sharing your goals I am curious you said that there's no set priority or order for those but I'm wondering if you could take just a little bit of time to speak to how those goals do interact with each other if they is one a foundation for the others do you see them as access points for those who are not in this room to engage with the plan and then I'm generally curious about what conversations around metrics for the success factors have been discussed or identified so far yeah great question so the question is about the interrelatedness of the various goals we recognize there's a tremendous amount of interrelatedness so that if you have systemic dollars for change around you're better able to keep artists so they do definitely relate to each other you could probably easily move one strategy from one goal into another goal and we've painstakingly done that back and forth over the last several weeks we felt like we got things in the right place but we're always interested to hear how maybe we could improve that so they're very highly very highly interconnected and what comes first what comes next there's a lot that we're doing that's opportunistic so what might come first are things that we have funding for partners that come together sooner rather than later there's a lot of research we think and deeper dives and more due diligence that needs to happen to really understand how to build systems and put solutions into place so some of that research and those deeper dives are going to need to come first to inform our efforts that's one of the reasons why we went ahead and did the performing arts facility survey and studying we knew that that was an issue we knew that that would greatly inform what we could put into place as a solution or tools so and then I think you asked about metrics and we are looking at metrics we've been talking a lot about metrics and then again data is really important so when we talk about keeping artists in Boston we recognize we don't have great data on who's leaving and why are they leaving so that's some of the metrics that we're looking at again the Boston Foundation study that I mentioned earlier is a great foundational piece of existing conditions for the of the non-profit sector from sort of the funding and financial perspective and something we might look at are metrics tied to the financial health of non-profits I don't think that for profits would disclose their financial health to us so some of the metrics is what's available in what exists we know that there are metrics that every separate school keeps on where their graduates go and end up and what they end up doing it's a matter of accessing that data and aggregating that data so metrics is something that we're deeply investigating I would say we have been throughout the whole plan process looking at my staff so that'll be in the final the draft of the plan will be our initial thinking on metrics and we certainly do intend to report back on how we're doing every year on how we've accomplished the goals that we've set out and what and sort of then reporting on some of those metrics but we definitely need to put some systems into place so we can figure out where we're going metrics and then I think there were some very eager hands up there okay and then we'll come down Hi I'm Jessica thanks for organizing this forum tonight I work at E26 Boston which is a writing and publishing I know E26 Boston they're a great organization and I noticed at the beginning when we did the poll there's a menu of creative expressions but writing was not on there so I mean I checked off culinary personally but professionally we couldn't yeah that was the test question no slate intended well I mean while we're on the topic I'm curious given that it wasn't on the screen tonight good to hear that it'll be next time what the city's priorities are around supporting youth and writing yeah so the question is about why was literary on the creative expression poll question fair question our oversight not intentional I think I had literary on an earlier version okay so and then the question was about supporting literary arts for youth and we do definitely some grant making in that space I know that E26 and Grub Street grants from the city is do a few more organizations and we really think actually programmatically through our poet Laureate program is probably the most visible and tangible evidence of how mayor's office of arts and culture works in that space we're not a big provider of direct programs it's really other actors who will take the lead in executing programs but the poet laureate is working with youth to see if we would have a youth poetry program attached to the poet laureate I can't remember poet ambassadors I think it's called we're developing that concept so it wouldn't be a youth poet laureate but something like a youth poet laureate but not a laureate words are very important when you're in that space and then the other thing we're doing is hosting the louder than a bomb finals on May 6th at the Strand Theater you are all cordially invited to join us it's going to be amazing so those are just a couple of the ways that we've been able in the last year to support youth literary through grant making and partnerships is one of the biggest ways we would continue to support it the other thing that is this enormous area of possibility is how all of our universities could work together to more closely work with the public schools and younger kids we have an incredible model of the Boston Arts Academy being founded as a result of several universities wanting to have a pipeline of young people to go to schools in the performing arts at a professional level and so perhaps there's another sister collaboration that we could copycat from the BAA perhaps that might take some time to incubate and land but it could be pretty exciting and it's a way to think about leveraging our incredible universities in ways that really help youth in Boston come down here and get some questions so it definitely seems like you found in all of the surveying and conversations that the cost of living can be prohibitively expensive for people but I think it's important to remember that it's not just housing costs alone with a transit system that is continuously cutting service and raising costs personally I don't know how many peers I have who went to college in Boston with me who also don't have prohibitively expensive student loans to pay off so for young people to be involved in the arts in the city no matter what their discipline the cost is so much more varied than just housing and there definitely has been a lot about creating housing and living workspace for artists who require that workspace for their medium but as an arts administrator do you guys have any planning for support roles for the arts to ever have any affordable housing in a similar nature I don't feel like I've ever seen information about that and maybe just because an administrative role is a little bit more structured than necessarily being like a freelance role or that type of career I don't feel like it's necessarily not worthwhile to also create something like that for people who do work in early career support roles because all of the friends that I have in similar positions left Boston for similar reasons yeah so the question was really about affordability of the city beyond housing costs and affordable housing for creative people who are in I would say allied creative fields arts administration and it may be that there are multifaceted aspects of the cost of living that are really high but housing is one that we know that public policy and the city government has a housing plan that is intent on addressing it we have tools we can bring to the table there are other aspects of the cost of living where city government doesn't have as many tools to bring to the table I think your point is a really good one about creative people we've always talked about artist housing I always think of it as artist units because we know that perhaps people in the literary field that don't need a big warehouse space for big canvases because they're writing they need a quiet workspace and musicians need a different kind of space so we talk generally about artist units because it might be an affordable dwelling it might be a separate affordable workspace it might be a separate allied affordable production or access to tools so we know that space to create is very multifaceted but for us the city government one of the things we can focus on is housing and it is going to be one of the things we focus on whether it's just plain old units live work units work units work only that is something we're going to focus on it's going to take time to bring the resources to the table it's going to take some research to understand quantify the demand and what kind of partners we can bring together but I think it's a good point to look at our arts administrators part of the certified artist definition I actually don't know that they are so it's a good point that you bring up hi Julie my name is Lauren Colorado Gomez I'm from Miami two months ago after four years in Boston I mean four years in Boston and undergrad it's the last four years we're in Miami New York so thinking of Boston as a potential arts capital I was wondering if you could tell us about some specific initiatives that are in place to bring more people into Boston to encourage them to stay and to have this conversation on a national level so in Miami the art fairs of course are fueling that history of being seen as an arts capital what are we doing on the city level to make Boston have this presence yeah this is something we talk about in the plan and it's a strategy to grow the cultural visitor but we don't have any specific programs to announce at this point so this is something that we're still working on and commuting with our stakeholders seeing like what are some of the first steps and what are the actions so we're not quite there yet on that part of the plan if you have ideas it would be great to hear I know that Art Basel just published a piece talking about wanting to create a whole network of creative capitals and doing programs in other places which is really interesting and exciting so if you have specific recommendations and ideas we would love to know that it would be very helpful for us my name is Joe I work in the footwear design industry here in the city historically Massachusetts has been huge in manufacturing both apparel footwear and just products in general and even today we have half a dozen world headquartered companies known as New Balance, Congress Puma, Rimbaud has and in the last 20 years we have a lot of Miltowns, Lawrence, Lowell Fall River that have been rapidly shrinking in manufacturing jobs and I wanted to know if that's part of something you guys are looking at to engage not only a fertile ground for people to create but for that to kind of compound out into more jobs and engaging these roots that we really have in New England and Massachusetts specifically yeah so the question was about how can we build on our history as a textile and manufacturing center and capture the 21st century manufacturing that's a result of I guess our apparel brands who are here in Boston it's a great question and I know that there are several funders who are really interested in exploring the maker movement, maker space sort of the high tech manufacturing and how we can have that the capture the growth in that sector here so we're definitely talking to people about that I don't know that there's a lot of room to capture that growth within the city of Boston might be a more regional New England effort I do know that NIFA New England Foundation for the Arts just issued an RFP for a creative economy study that's how the artist's senses is going to get done as part of that so NIFA is going to be looking at that sort of New England wide so I think that we might be able to put together some really interesting supports fertile ground to make that a reality but research is going to be the first part of that Hi, so my name is and I run a creative organization called poetic change and I mean I've just been listening and it seems like some of the things like that's been said is that we want to create better systems to better support artists but we've also agreed that the problem is that the current systems in place have not worked because they are the ones that are responsible for for rents rising and not cultivating diverse or representative art it also sounds that like your plan includes to not take responsibility or ownership for changing this dynamic but instead to ask us to trust to trust a new pipeline or system that will be created with those already in power such as like business associations so my question is what is the specific role for Boston creates in the cultural council so are you all more of a research agency because I think the best way to improve the arts ecosystem is to work with an independent organization that is representative of all of the different Boston communities so that way we can create something that that is a bit more inclusive so what do you think about that and who will actually be doing the work so the question was really about who is doing the work of implementing the cultural plan and in developing the goals strategies programs, actions in all of this our question to ourselves is what's the role of the city and for part of the plan the role of the city will be to own and fund and carry out a certain function so the artist resource desk in person that will be located within the mayor's office of arts and culture there is a whole host of other programs to implement the plan where the city is a partner and the partners with the city can be very multifaceted we're still working on what that looks like there's another role for the city to play as catalyst so we're at the table we're not necessarily setting the table and to be perfectly honest we are expecting that a whole another set of actions programs that get carried out are completely owned by independent external to city government actors that are wholly owned by a community organization or an arts organization that's one of the reasons we're really interested in you telling us how are you interested in helping implement the cultural plan you know it might not be a partnership you might not want to have anything to do with city government which I totally understand and respect and honor but we want to support your efforts and know about what you're doing and if you don't want to work with the city that is completely fine but we know that to implement the cultural plan it's going to take every single commutation of city partners you know coalitions and collectives and external community base all of the above it's going to take all of it and make the cultural plan a reality Hi my name is Sean Boyle from Chosun as you probably know Chosun has been going through like a big justification process since I was a little kid in response to that like three years ago I started this grassroots organization this mission was to you know unify and unify the town and to preserve and promote the Chosun culture and traditions and history and all of the events we've really just unified the town we have all sorts of different residents help us with all the events we've done we've resurrected tons of events that have been long gone and we've introduced them to the new generations in Chosun so I just want to know like what I can do to help this like Boston create so that my opinion in Chosun is like grows and becomes successful and how can I help you guys? Yeah, wow so the comment, the question is how can his organization be part of implementing a cultural plan then maybe what can we do to help you and I think we're asking where do you see alignment between your goals and where you're headed and what you've heard about today in the cultural plan and to let us know what you're working on and the other part of the resource office is to be sure that we connect people with you and that we support your effort the other thing we've started doing and we intend to continue is collaborative programs meaning to foster people connecting up and working together so we've had two of them where we've invited all of the main streets all of the Boston creates community team chairs to share information or learn about opportunities at Art Week, Design Week, Pianos Everywhere out of the box any place that's going to have an open call for participation we're having this platform where people can work together so we would be happy to work with you to offer that platform to other artists and organizations to get involved with what you're doing and then to see how they might be a partner with you or vice versa so we are developing a model for sort of collaboration we think actually could be a way to break through these silos and help independent actors work together to carry out the cultural plan or just reach their own goals so definitely tell us in the back of your sheet what you're doing and let's take maybe two more questions Hello Julie Good to see you it's a wonderful event and it's a wonderful opportunity to share our thoughts as we were all aware the arts and culture have a direct relationship to health and well-being to us individually and us as communities as well I'd be very interested to know how we can work to incorporate the ability of the arts and culture to contribute to the overall health and the cultural plan Yeah well as you know people who work at the intersection of arts and healing have been meeting and talking about how can they work together more fully bring people who are missing to the conversation and see what's possible so I do think that through Boston Air we can explore how arts and other sectors work together we would love to talk to you more about that I don't have any solutions other than to recognize that arts and healing play a huge role in resilience and cutting across silos helping people to more fully explore their creative expression we haven't landed any specific collaborations yet we've just submitted a grant to the NEA to explore how music can be used in trauma recovery just a very specific program but in terms of the sort of whole overarching it's maybe partially communications partially a collective impact partnership that involves public health and the university so there's a ton of possibilities but I don't have any specific answers yet in sort of what direction that we're going in Hello Julian thank you for everything this was amazing I just wanted to say my name is Igor Scott shameless plug I have this Facebook group called Boston Art Events there's 1800 members and it's a really good place for you to see local art events in the city of Boston and my question is a lot of artists come to Boston for art school and then they leave school and they have a tremendous amount of debt and then it's hard to find a job so some people change professions or maybe they do something of art on the side do you think it's important for affordable housing to actually consider the amount of student loan debt that people may have the question is do I think it's important for affordable housing to consider how much student debt they have I also think it's important for employers to recognize it as part of I know that Fidelity is starting to do this as part of the benefits package looking at how they can help support people how much debt they have so yeah I absolutely think it should be considered maybe it's something we can work on with Fidelity for a certain kind of a home buyer program I think that they look at that I'm not a banker so I don't know how all the details work but yeah I absolutely think it's a huge factor in how young people getting out of school are considering what path to take for their future yeah absolutely alright well thank you everyone I have to tell us your thoughts again if you're interested in being involved and your contact info on it and then also if you want to stop by a video station and have a little bit more of a platform tell us about your reaction to the goals and we'll be using those snippets of video on our website to talk about all the different five goals from the next several years so thanks everyone