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Items of Interest

Please contact ASCA Community Arts Program Director Charlie Sears at charles(dot)sears(at)alaska.gov. Stay well, and we are grateful for all that you do! (lastest update: 6/11/2021 – Resources are ordered from newest to oldest)

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Items of Interest

Items of Interest

  • Why we must make a case for the arts – Alaska Style Published in the Anchorage Daily News Opinion section on May 29, 2021, Rasmuson Foundation President and CEO Diane Kaplan, and Program Officer Enzina Marrari shared a case for the significant value of the arts to our communities and economy in Alaska. To read the opinion, visit the Rasmuson Foundation Blog Post at https://www.rasmuson.org/news/our-case-for-the-arts-alaska-style/.  “The arts are woven into the fabric of society. We depend on the arts to connect us to an outside world, to be entertained or comforted, to learn about new cultures and ways of being, and to escape a current reality that itself can seem like a horror movie. Yet we constantly require the arts sector to prove its worth and indispensability, a fight it’s been at since much earlier than COVID.” 
  • What Makes People Feel Safe Visiting Museums and Performing Arts Entities? (DATA UPDATE)The United States is making progress in vaccine distribution! At the time of writing, it’s been reported that about 43% of Americans have received at least one shot and nearly one in three are fully vaccinated. This is long-awaited positive progress for museums and performing arts organizations, which have observed significant drops in attendance since the pandemic began.Though 2021 likely won’t see attendance fully recover to 2019 levels, visitation is projected to continue improving as vaccinations keep rolling out. This is great news! But feeling safe right now isn’t only about the vaccine, according to cultural organization-goers in the United States.As many know, IMPACTS Experience has been tracking what people say will make them feel comfortable visiting cultural entities for over a year. Especially given the CDC’s new guidelines released yesterday for fully-vaccinated individuals, It’s time for an update on where things stand. (And, of course, we will continue to watch as people react to these changes.) https://www.colleendilen.com/2021/04/28/what-makes-people-feel-safe-visiting-museums-and-performing-arts-entities-data-update/
  • New Report Examines the Role of Arts and Culture in Fostering Social Cohesion and Community Well-BeingWashington, DC and Detroit, MI—Social cohesion is a basic requirement of healthy communities, especially now since the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted trauma and exposed social, racial, and health inequities across the country. A new report published today, WE-Making: How Arts & Culture Unite People to Work Toward Community Well-Being, shows that place-based arts and cultural practices, or creative placemaking, can help grow social cohesion to encourage community well-being.Developed with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Kresge Foundation, and other funders, WE-Making breaks new ground by synthesizing research from different areas of study along with on-the-ground experiences of artists and researchers, practitioners in community development, and advocates for health equity. The report distills that information into key terms and concepts that together demonstrate that social cohesion nurtures coordinated community organizing and can lead to increased community well-being.Arts Endowment Acting Chairman Ann Eilers said, “The Arts Endowment is proud to have been a catalyst of this report. It encourages arts organizations, community developers, and public health officials to work from the same page so they can leverage the arts to help improve social cohesion for the public good. As we climb out of COVID-19 and focus on equitable recovery, this need is greater than ever.”https://www.arts.gov/about/news/2021/new-report-examines-role-arts-and-culture-fostering-social-cohesion-and-community-well-being
  • National Assembly of State Arts Agencies Publishes The Arts and Economic Recovery Research In recent years, data have emerged that reveal that the arts and related creative industries are a substantial economic force, comprising 4.5% of the U.S. gross domestic product—more than construction, transportation, mining and agriculture—and adding $877.8 billion to the nation’s economy. In light of the current challenges facing the U.S. economy—unprecedented in many ways—the need to better understand the role of the arts sector has never been more acute. To do so, NASAA spearheaded a research effort in collaboration with Prof. Douglas S. Noonan of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the Western States Arts Federation. This collaborative research effort provides further evidence that arts and creative industries offer a powerful strategy for states and localities aiming to reignite economic growth. In addition to the healing value of the arts to communities and individuals, the arts have proven economic value and offer vital economic development strategies for diversifying and stimulating local economies in all types of communities. To learn more about the Key Findings, access a Technical Report on the statistical methods used to conduct this analysis, and explore Creative Recovery Case Studies, visit https://nasaa-arts.org/nasaa_research/the-arts-and-economic-recovery-research/