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“On the evening of Thursday, September 28, dozens of Brooklyn Museum union workers lined the institution’s grand entrance, chanting ‘overworked and underpaid’ and ‘ancient art, not ancient wages.’ Visitors to the museum’s Open House, an event celebrating the revamped Asian and Islamic art galleries, streamed in through different entrances in an attempt to circumvent the protestors,” said Elaine Velie for Hyperallergic.

“Employees at the Brooklyn Museum officially unionized in August 2021 and began contract negotiations with museum leadership in January of this year. While the two parties have reached tentative agreements on some non-economic issues, they have yet to come to terms on healthcare and wages.”

“The day before their protest, the union announced that they had filed an Unfair Labor Practices charge against the museum with the National Board of Labor Relations, which oversaw their 2021 election into United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2110. UAW Local 2110 represents employees at a score of other other cultural institutions, including the Whitney, the Dia Art Foundation, and the New Museum.”

“A museum spokesperson told Hyperallergic that although they cannot comment on the specifics of the ongoing negotiations, the museum has proposed a 9% average wage increase. UAW emphasized that this 9% figure is an average and would leave more than half of the union’s workers with only a 3% raise. This increase would fall far below the sky-high inflation rate — calculated at 8.3% from August 2021 to August 2022.

“‘We remain committed to partnering with our staff to achieve an agreement that advances our commitments to wage equity,’ a Brooklyn Museum spokesperson said in a statement. ‘The museum recently approved a FY2023 operating budget that dedicates nearly $4M in new investments in wage and benefit improvements for all employees,’ they added, a result of a ‘comprehensive wage equity project.'”

Read the full article here.

“On July 21, 2022, NPN’s Board of Directors voted to support the launch and an initial three years of the Department of Racial Justice and Movement Building: a new programmatic arc of work for NPN. Sage Crump, who has led NPN’s Leveraging a Network for Equity (LANE) initiative, will become the department’s first director. Under her guidance, NPN will work intentionally in the realm of systemic change and movement building by engaging the question ‘What’s possible in our sector when we are in ideological alignment, deep learning, relationship building, and practice together?'”

“This department continues and expands the work started within LANE, which focused on the development and wellbeing of arts organizations of color and rural arts organizations to build healthy, self-determined infrastructure. Engaging this work for nearly a decade has helped us understand the insidious ways racial capitalism and white supremacy infiltrates even the most intimate spaces of our institutions and has produced an incredible amount of learning through lived experience. The Department of Racial Justice and Movement Building will work to integrate this learning throughout NPN’s staff, Network, aligned artists, Board, and strategic partnerships both within the arts sectors and within the larger movement for racial justice.”

“If you are reading this, you are likely part of a circle of humans trying to figure out the levers that will transform society through our work as artists and cultural workers in every part of our ecosystem. This new department is NPN’s way of inviting us all to do this with deeper intention and interconnectedness.”

Learn more here.

“Today, September 30, President Biden issued a proclamation designating October 2022 as National Arts and Humanities Month in celebration of the significance of the arts, humanities, and museum and library services to our nation.”

“The Proclamation includes the announcement of a new Executive Order which seeks to integrate the arts, humanities, and museum and library services into policies, programs, and partnerships throughout the Federal government to tackle the greatest challenges of our time. It also includes a directive to reestablish the President’s Committee for the Arts and the Humanities, which is planned for the coming months.”

“This year the nation’s cultural agencies—the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH)—are joining together to celebrate National Arts and Humanities Month.”

“We take inspiration from the contributions of artists, historians, authors, entertainers, designers, philosophers, curators, scholars, filmmakers, archivists, librarians, administrators, and others who make up our creative sector and document and preserve our history. Their efforts help lift up new voices and shine a light on previously untold stories.”

“Artists and thinkers enrich our experiences by encouraging us to live artful lives, find and create pathways to connection and empathy, improve our well-being, and create and maintain the balance and beauty of the world around us.”

Creatives Rebuild New York, a GIA member since 2021, is a three year, $125 million investment in the financial stability of New York State Artists and the organizations that employ them. CRNY aims to catalyze systemic change in the arts and cultural economy, recognize the value of artists’ contributions, and reshape society’s understanding of artists as workers who are vital to the health of our communities. Simply put, CRNY believes that we must move beyond valuing the artistic product and begin to value the humanity of the artist. Artists need and deserve to be paid predictable and regular incomes, and local organizations likewise deserve support to employ artists within their communities.

To that end, CRNY has supported artists and community based organizations in two ways: Guaranteed Income for Artists, providing 2,400 artists with no strings, $1,000 monthly payments for 18 consecutive months; and our Artist Employment Program, supporting artists, culture bearers, and culture makers with $65,000/year salaries and benefits for two years in partnership with community based organizations across New York State. These 2,700 artists represent a diverse array of artistic and cultural practices ranging from the performing and visual arts to oral traditions, craft, literature, and social practice and myriad approaches to collaboration.

We have also launched an ambitious data collection initiative, A Portrait of New York State Artists, to develop key research and advocacy tools. We look forward to announcing the details of our Guaranteed Income for Artists work in late October, and we encourage you to learn more about our Artist Employment Program.

You can also visit the Creatives Rebuild New York photo gallery on GIA’s Photo Credits page

From Alliance for California Traditional Arts: “Communities of Change discusses and interrogates definitions and terminology of the field, and describes case studies illustrating some of the larger issues and nuances inherent in this discipline, such as tradition and innovation, concepts of indigeneity, and cultural immersion as a teaching model. We list major cultural communities and related art forms across the wide band of 11 Bay Area counties, and share snapshots illustrating the contours on a county-by-county basis. Additionally, we examine some trends in Bay Area ethos of activism which have contributed to how traditional arts have been supported and undervalued in society and by the funding community. Finally, we conclude with recommendations and implications for the broader arts field and the philanthropic sector.”

“I welcome your feedback and comments and hope that this paper will foment a larger discussion recognizing community driven and embedded expressions that we know as traditional arts,” said Executive Director Amy Kitchener.

Read the full report here.