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METRO ARTS CULTURAL EQUITY STATEMENT

 

Metro Arts believes ALL Nashvillians should be able to participate in a creative life; and that the arts drive a vibrant and equitable community.

 

Cultural Equity embodies the values, beliefs, policies and practices that ensure that all people can fulfill their rights of cultural expression and belonging, participation, learning, and livelihood within the arts ecosystem.

 

This includes specific commitment to people who have been historically underrepresented in mainstream arts funding, discourse, leadership and resource allocation; including, but not limited to, people of color, people of all ages, differently abled people, LGBTQ people, women, and the socio-economically disadvantaged.

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Metro Arts believes:

• The ability to express, celebrate and champion cultural tradition and heritage is elemental to honest civic discourse and the well-being of democratic society.

• Artists and cultural creators have a unique role in challenging inequity and imagining new and more just realities.

• The health of the future cultural ecosystem is contingent on dynamic inclusionary practices that move towards cultural plurality.

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Metro Arts acknowledges:

• Inequity is pervasive and historic. Disparities and discrimination are daily occurrences that are rooted in long-standing majority privilege and power inside and outside of the cultural arts.

• Inequity occurs within systems at all levels within the cultural/creative ecosystem.

• Equity moves past inclusion and representation; accepting that power has created uneven starting points for some communities and individuals. Simple diverse representation does not dismantle the unequal nature of voice, resource allocation and visibility that exist in the arts and cultural ecosystem.

• We hold ourselves accountable by acknowledging that equity does not currently exist in the arts.

• We commit to exposing and unraveling it through our own leadership, practices and policies.

• We commit to holding up examples and practices that facilitate equity and those artists and creators who are equity champions.

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Specifically Metro Arts will:

• Commit to frequent and on-going, agency-wide honest conversations about race, class, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age and income status.

• Pursue formal and regular cultural competence training and discussions with staff, board, and volunteers.

• Expand leadership and employment positions wherever possible with under-invested and under-represented communities.

• Continually review and edit our grant and public art practices and policies to ensure that more under-invested and under-represented communities can compete equitably for artist commissions, grants and other financial investments. This will be ongoing with a view towards transformation of our programs and larger community systems.

• Encourage the broader development of policies and practices that drive equity in Nashville.

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COMMITTEE FOR ANTI-RACISM AND EQUITY (CARE)

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The Metro Arts Board of Commissioners established the Committee for Anti-Racism and Equity (CARE), comprised of community members of the Antiracist Transformation team (ARTt) and Commission members, as a standing committee to support Metro Arts in keeping the promise of its mission to drive an equitable and vibrant community through the arts. CARE is committed to holding Metro Arts accountable in becoming fully antiracist in its identity and working for equity in all policies and practices with the goal of dismantling all systems of oppression within the arts ecosystem.  

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• CARE Members

• CARE Guidelines

• Apply to be a CARE Community Member

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RACIAL EQUITY IN ARTS LEADERSHIP (REAL)

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In partnership with Curb Center for Arts, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University, REAL is a platform that engages artists, organizational leaders, and arts administrators in teaching and learning opportunities about race, equity practices, and ways in which to enact change within their personal practice, organizational structure and the larger arts ecosystem. Participants engage in seminars, lunch and learn sessions for self/peer critique, and organizational workshops and public lectures with the goal to illuminate, interrupt and transform conditions that perpetuate racism.

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Metro Arts is also currently in consultation with Crossroads Anti-Racism Organizing and Training to help us think through dismantling racism and creating content, workshops and discussions for our agency and the arts ecosystem we serve.

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For more information about REAL, including program dates and application information or assistance, please email arts@nashville.gov.