Last week, 412 New York City-based arts entities founded, led, and serving Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and all People of Color (POC) called for leaders of NYC’s cultural community to create a $100M fund to support POC-led arts entities and to address gaps in cultural equity across the city. The call comes as the group launches HueArts NYC, the only citywide effort to bring greater cultural equity, visibility, and support to all POC cultural institutions and initiatives across NYC’s five boroughs.
Following an extensive series of surveys, interviews, and community conversations with POC arts community leaders, HueArts NYC has released “Mapping a Future for Arts Entities Founded and led by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and All People of Color in New York City,” its ‘brown paper,’ outlining the unique contributions, assets, and challenges of POC arts entities in the face of persistently limited resources and support. The report also includes six key findings and six recommendations NYC policymakers and philanthropic leaders can take to radically shift cultural equity across the city.
“For decades POC leaders in our arts community have advocated for policy changes that would make the difference between our POC-led arts entities surviving or thriving,” said Kemi Ilesanmi, Executive Director of The Laundromat Project, a project partner of HueArts NYC. “An initiative like this is far overdue, and so is receiving the meaningful support equal to the contributions we make in keeping New York so vibrant and special.”
Accompanying release of the brown paper is a first-of-its-kind digital map and directory spotlighting more than 400 POC arts entities serving NYC neighborhoods, and capturing critical information about the work, people, communities, and opportunities that POC arts entities offer that shape NYC’s cultural fabric and that helps fuel NYC’s creative economy.
Image credit: Screenshot of Map & Directory, HueArtsNYC.org.