WED JULY 19 | 2pm EDT

Learning from Puerto Rican Artists Directly

Whippoorwill Arts | Fabiola Mendez | Precious Perez | Pura Fé | Tiara Mir

What are the historical, cultural, racial/ethnic, ability, and class structures that inform the experiences and livelihoods of working Puerto Rican musicians, both in Puerto Rico and the US mainland? Whippoorwill Arts presents Pura Fé, Fabiola Mendez, and Precious Perez in conversation to honor the living Taino roots of the land, trace opportunities and challenges for artists living in the archipelago, and protect and materially empower artists to tell their own stories. These explorations will be woven through music, witnessing the migration of rhythms and evolving folk traditions.

WED August 23 | 2pm EDT

No art without artists...but where is the funding?

Mollie Flanagan, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts

In a post-WPA and culture wars U.S., public funding for the arts has dwindled to a trickle. How do we get it back? Can we get it back? What are we missing when we fund only nonprofits and not artists? How can public funders work together to build national support for funding artists? Join a group of funders and artists to discuss barriers to spending government funds supporting artists, the ways artists contribute directly to solutions around major public policy problems, and brainstorm ways to work together nationally. 

WED October 04 | 2pm EDT

Community Well-being: Supporting Artists Beyond Museum Walls

Bahia Ramos | Marianne Ramirez Aponte | MAC en el Barrio artist and community partners

Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (MAC) is the only museum in Puerto Rico founded by and for artists and members of the cultural community, urged by the need to create an alternate model for presenting contemporary art and its issues. Today, MAC's museum-artists partnerships are a model for supporting community, artists, and organizational well-being beyond the museum’s walls and balance sheets. We'll learn how MAC works to regenerate the arts ecosystem in Puerto Rico: from providing full-care support to artists and communities, preserving and protecting community assets, to building a cultural workforce, and advocating for equitable rights.

WED OCTOBER 11 | 2PM edt

Funding, For the Culture:

A Just Transition Investing Approach to Supporting our Movements

abdiel lopez | Vanessa Roanhorse | Lora Smith | Annie McShiras

In 2020, philanthropic institutions in the U.S contributed over 13 times the amount of money to extractive global stock markets as they did to all of their grantmaking focus areas (Source: Climate Justice Alliance). The Solidarity not Charity report suggests that leveraging dollars beyond grantmaking capital will help transform our current ecosystem by divesting from Wall Street and into Main Street. Investing in culture centers how communities express themselves in their daily lives. Many of these communities are experimenting with new economic models that transform their daily lives yet continue to be underfunded. Justice Funders recently released the Just Transition Investment Framework, which highlights different ways foundations / investors can shift power and capital to invest in our communities and move toward a more transformative economic paradigm. This dialogue will be moderated by Justice Funders and feature members of the governing body of a community-controlled integrated capital fund and a just transition-aligned funder to underscore how a Just Transition Investing lens can support the creative place-making/place-keeping work on the ground and fund other cultural work. Attendees will gain practical tools and resources to begin moving investing to BIPOC communities that align with funders' priorities.

WED OCTOBER 18 | 2PM edt

AFRO PUERTO RICO:

Contextualizing the Issues of Race, Culture and Environmental Realities

Dr. Marta Moreno Vega | Ruth Noelia Figueroa-Couvertier | Olga Chapman RIvera | Celso Gonzalez | MariCruz Rivera Clemente

The historical colonial status of Puerto Rico continues to frame the reality of its existence at all levels of the society's ability to function and thrive. Presently as a "territory - colony" of the United States with second class citizenship as noted by the United States Supreme Court access to the resources that guarantee access to systems that would provide human,racial, civil and economic rights to Puerto Ricans in general, that are even less available to Puerto Ricans of African descent. Issues of Racism, Environmental Injustice, Displacement , Economic and Educational access, must be urgently addressed if Puerto Rico is to equitably thrive and grow into the future.