Tag: sj

With Arrival Of Social Justice And Inclusion Movements, Museums Have To Question Everything About Themselves

“Recently, activists have begun to apply increasing pressure on a number of leverage points in museum systems: leadership and curatorial staff, financial backers, and the institutions’ narrative habits, as well as the provenance of institutional holdings. The question becomes, ‘Whose knowledge is it?’ — and, by extension, ‘Whose world?'” — Nonprofit Quarterly

When A Civil Rights Worker Takes Over A Performing Arts Center… New Things Happen

Doug Shipman — the founding CEO of the Center for Civil and Human Rights before taking over running Atlanta’s Woodruff Center — seems the right person to carry the momentum forward into a new era. In his 18 months at the helm of Atlanta’s mecca of high arts, he has taken steps to broaden the arts center’s reach. In his first months on the job, Shipman made a point of meeting with numerous smaller arts groups with a simple message: how can we help each other? His openness and desire to give Woodruff a deeper imprint on Atlanta’s arts community are palpable. – ArtsATL

Thinking About Trauma And Triggering Issues In Acting Classes

“[Many theater professors] shake their heads about the aspiring actors who have refused to work on material they find harmful or otherwise objectionable. My colleagues sadly wonder how these students could possibly succeed. How, the argument goes, can we train students to become actors if they wish to insulate themselves from upsetting material? How can we inculcate the emotional resilience necessary for a professional actor if students are so afraid of any negative experiences?” Scott Harman explains why those aren’t the right questions. — HowlRound

So The Artist Has Misbehaved. Do S/He And The Work Now Have To Disappear?

Lionel Shriver: “For reasons that escape me, artists’ misbehavior now contaminates the fruits of their labors, like the sins of the father being visited upon the sons. So it’s not enough to punish transgressors merely by cutting off the source of their livelihoods, turning them into social outcasts, and truncating their professional futures. You have to destroy their pasts. Having discovered the worst about your fallen idols, you’re duty-­bound to demolish the best about them as well.” – Harper’s

An Argument: Why Cultural Appropriation Is A Good Idea

Graham Daseler: “The good news is that cultural appropriation is here to stay, no matter how many angry Twitter mobs come to kill it. Critics of the practice can’t even state their grievances without stealing the artifacts of at least half a dozen cultures. The expression itself is a prime example. The word “culture” comes to us by way of French, while “appropriate,” meaning “to take,” was plundered from Latin by Middle English. This, if nothing else, demonstrates how futile it is to try to stop the tsunami of culture or to build fences around it. There is nothing more human—or, one might equally argue, humane—than the desire to copy, emulate, and learn from people who are different from ourselves. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” – The American Conservative

75+ NYC Galleries Sued Because Their Websites Aren’t Accessible To Blind People

“Like the lawsuits targeting other businesses, the claims against galleries tend to identify websites that lack special code that would enable browsers to describe images for people with impaired vision. In order for screen-reading software to work, the information on a website must be capable of being rendered into text. The complaint also cites several other ‘barriers’ to site accessibility, including ‘lack of alternative text,’ an invisible code embedded beneath a graphic image or within a URL.” – Artnet