#elsewhere collaborative

Reflections from Open Engagement, a national conference on Art and Social Practice.

George Scheer, Elsewhere Co-Founder + Director, June 2014

Last month a team of Elsewherians ventured to NY for Open Engagement, a three day conference on Art and Social Practice held at the Queens Museum.  It was an excellent gathering of artists from around the country doing spectacular work in the public sphere. Not only were there lectures, panels, and talks, but the conference hosted visits to fellow arts organizations, alongside opportunities for bowling and karaoke.  Our own Emily Ensminger, House(pitality) Curator, gave a wonderful presentation about hospitality as both an artistic practice and a performative feature in Elsewhere’s museum. 

A discussion about the role of artists in institutions and artist-made institutions was a significant topic of conversation in and out of conference sessions.  Throughout the weekend, artists presented their cross-over work in social justice, city planning, museum education, and endeavors to create their own institutions.  The conference showcased a broad spectrum of these practices while offering serious critique about the value of artist labor, the difficulty to monetize social capital, and need for a fair wage economy for arts workers. 

For my part, I continue to think about Elsewhere at the forefront of a movement that is creating a new kind institutional imaginary.  More than an artist space, residency, or museum, we, alongside others in the field, are pioneering the way institutions can be more responsive, participatory, and supportive of artists and publics. In this new frontier, we must re-imagine the role of an arts organization as integral to daily life. What would it look like if arts organizations were no longer a place for simply presenting artists and artworks? How could arts organizations model more integrated practices between creatives and administrations, greater connection to activism and community leadership, less hierarchical strategies for fundraising and decision making? What if arts organizations could operate more directly as producers of social action? What would an organization look like whose mission it was to place artists in all sectors of our community and in all parts of civic and public life?