Arts Alert: Minnesota Arts Town Halls

Minnesota Arts Town Halls

You are invited to a Minnesota Arts Town Hall to discuss the next phase of recovery and stability for the Minnesota arts community. We will be holding two of these events: one for individual artists and one for arts organizations.

These town halls are brought to you by Arts Midwest, the Forum of Regional Arts Councils of Minnesota, Minnesota Citizens for the Arts, Minnesota Presenters Network, Minnesota State Arts Board, Minnesota Theater Alliance, City of Minneapolis Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, and Springboard for the Arts. 

We know that arts are absolutely crucial to getting us through this pandemic. We know that artists are sewing masks, virtually entertaining the state, and maybe most important, helping to make meaning out of all of this. We know that for many not only your ability to create or administer art, but your livelihood related to that art has been put on hold for an unclear amount of time. 

We know some of the story. Thousands of you have filled out surveys asking how the Coronavirus pandemic has affected your art and your organizations. We know that much of the promised assistance is delayed or hard to get.  We also know that disasters often fall hardest on those who had less going into them. 

We want to ask you to join us for community listening: Where do we go from here? What is it that you need and how can we as statewide organizations help? What questions do you have that you can’t get answered?  How can we ensure that communities are not further marginalized? 

We know that this pandemic will further marginalize Black, Indigenous, People of Color, People with Disabilities, LGBTQIA+ and Rural Communities. How can the arts help?

Click link to register (Registration is required):

• Town Hall for Arts and Cultural Organizations, Wednesday, April 29, 10:30 a.m.- 12 noon
• Town Hall for Individual Artists and Creative Workers, Thursday, April 30, 4:00-5:30 p.m.

You are welcome to attend either event, but they will each have a slightly different focus.

These events will have representatives from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the forum of Regional Arts Councils, Springboard for the Arts, Arts Midwest, Minnesota Theater Alliance, Minnesota Presenters Network, City of Minneapolis Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, and Minnesota Citizens for the Arts present to listen, and as time allows bring the community answers during this session or through subsequent communications.

Because we anticipate that attendance will be larger than the time we have available, not all attendees will have an opportunity to speak. Therefore, if you would like to speak, please note this in your registration. We will send you a confirmation if you are on the speaker list ahead of the web meeting, allotting 2 minutes per speaker. Speakers will be selected based on order of registration, with discretion of the event moderators to adjust the speaker list to ensure a broad diversity in our speakers.

Anyone is welcome to join the Town Hall as an active listener, posing respectful questions and comments in the Chat, or just listening. Event Sponsors hope to take the Town Hall recording, chat record, and topics/questions posed in the registrations to help inform future resources, discussions, or q&a pages on our various art service organization websites.