WE ARE ARTISTS AND ORGANIZERS IN ALBUQUERQUE.
WE CALL FOR MAJOR CHANGE AT THE DEPT OF CULTURAL SERVICES, ESPECIALLY THE ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM AND PUBLIC ART DIVISIONS:
1. Review the structure of Cultural Services. We (Black, Indigenous, Chicanx, and People of Color) should not be a minority at the table.
• Take a census of the Cultural Services leadership, staff, boards, and commissions to understand the strengths, challenges, and deficits in racial and cultural representation and power.
2. We call for the building of capacity of BIPOC culture:
• We call upon funders, donors, governments and businesses to collaboratively develop and implement community benefit agreements that include investing in, protecting, and sustaining arts and cultural spaces for Black, Indigenous, and communities of color, with BIPOC as decision making participants and involved in processes.
• We call for support for place-based cultural practices directly tied to the inter-generational education of children, both in schools and in community cultural space.
• We call for the preservation of public spaces as protected spaces for civic expression, congregation, and experience.
• We call upon funders, donors, governments, and businesses to divest
from companies that do not practice cultural and racial equity.
3. We call upon funders, donors, government entities, and businesses to redress severe racial and cultural inequity in funding arts organizations for and by Black, Indigenous, and communities of color.
• Fund BIPOC-led and serving organizations : "outreach" and "free tickets" for BIPOC communities is paternalistic. We have the right to make our own art and express our own culture.
4. We call for the Department of Cultural Services to articulate a Cultural Plan.
• Create a Cultural Plan that centers Black, Indigenous, and People of Color artists, as well as Truth, Healing, and People Power.
• Collect racial and geographic data for public dollars/contracts allocated through cultural services in order to make racial equity in funding tangible and transparent.
• Rewrite or update the mission statement of relevant divisions/institutions to redress racial and cultural inequities.
WE CALL FOR THE FOLLOWING CHANGES SPECIFIC TO THE ABQ MUSEUM AND PUBLIC ART DIVISIONS:
1. We call upon all funders, donors, governments, and culture-industry businesses to establish and be accountable for equity plans, including furthering diversity of professional full-time staff and boards; providing benefits to all levels of staff; implementing required community benefit and anti-racism trainings; paying artists and community members for labor on advisory groups, panels, and other services spent in the community; and specific and ongoing programs and projects targeting BIPOC communities.
• Rewrite or update mission statement to redress racial and cultural inequities.
• Expand and prioritize the equitable hiring and promotion of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, especially at the senior leadership level.
• Require Cultural Equity, White Supremacy Culture, and Anti-Racism training for all Cultural Services staff, boards, and commissions. Anti-oppression training should be reflected and embodied by decision makers and staff at all levels.
• Organize solo exhibitions of local, non-white artists.
• Commit existing funding (UETF, ABQ Public Art, ABQ Museum programs) to commissioning new public art works that center truth, healing, and racial justice with clear plan to commission Black, Indigenous, and people of color artists and prioritize community engagement with BIPOC and low-financial-wealth communities.
• Acquisitions: Native, Black and Chicanx Art should be acquired and prioritized. Contemporary Art should be purchased from Native People not collectors.
• Audit of 10,000 piece collection: Investigate and present findings of Cultural Impact Report. Audit the collection for BIPOC, women, and contemporary Native work.
• A swift and thorough audit of public art work to identify work that glorifies colonizer history and other white/settler colonial narratives and a commitment to decommissioning them.
2. We call for increased accessibility and transformation of boards and commissions.
• Add stipend and required anti-racism training for board and commission members, to promote equitable inclusion.
• Create transparency about openings and recruitment for boards and commissions.
• Do the work to fill vacant Dep Cultural Services boards and commissions seats with BIPOC people, BIPOC artists and culture bearers.
• Require board and commission members to have background in art, social justice work, or education.
