Friday, October 16, 2009
New Ideas for New York
Createquity.: "On September 30, the New York City Mayor’s Office announced a set of five new initiatives involving a collaboration between the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and its Economic Development Corporation. Ever since I started following trends in creative economy policy and research a couple of years ago, it has seemed to me that despite having one of the most active cultural economies in the world, New York was embarrassingly behind the times in comparison to places like Massachusetts, Austin, and the UK. Thus, I’m overjoyed to see the city finally considering the arts in their broader economic context in a more explicit way."
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4 comments:
This makes me super excited, especially as a Brooklynite. The last thing that was said about what was going on was that the city is going to promote arts in New York in different neighborhoods, especially the other boroughs. I know that my neighborhood in Brooklyn has a great art scene, and it will be awesome for people from all over the world to come and check it out. It is a little embarrassing to be a New Yorker and know that New York does so little to support the arts community. There are so many amazing artists in New York, and it is great that the city is finally making it easier for them to do what they do. The other thing that really excites me is that the city is going to allow theatre companies to use certain outdoor spaces for free during the spring and summer. I know that someone of the greatest summer performances happen outdoors and it will be great to see even more of them cropping up next year. These performances also help people who can't afford to see theatre to see theatre, it's a win win situation! Yay New York!!!
I think this is really good. i'm so tired of seeing articles about theaters being shut down or sad stories about artists. its nice that the government is recognizing the issue and actually trying to do something to help artists and theaters in the city. It surprises me that places like Massachusetts and Austin had the most active cultural economies in the world.
All of the ideas presented in this article make me very excited for the future of the arts in New York City. As the author points out many time, the devil is in the details and it i important to make sure that these programs continue on after the economic recession, which has incited these changes, has abated. The programs that makes me the most exited are the arts exhibitions, the open air performances, and the grants to artist communities. The exhibitions and open-air performance spaces will hopefully expose unknown artists and works to the general populace. Hopefully artists won't grudgingly accept these situations. There are many opportunities for the artists to adapt the locations to their advantage. Use the medium to enhance the story. I share the same concerns with the author about the retraining program. How can you retrain people to take jobs that a) don't exist and b) people are already trained for and expecting?
That's extremely interesting; I never would have thought a failing realty market would pave the way for artistic endeavors. I guess economic hardship historically goes hand in hand with artistic development; even though art is theoretically a belonging of the leisure class, people flocked to movie theaters during the Great Depression and the Public Works Project gave the United States an incredible backlog of culture. New York as a city tends to be relatively progressive, but it definitely caters to a taste for money. Still, like Allegra said, this is win-win. Go support for the arts!
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