ADMIN⚙️
Righteous Rage: Using Anger as a Tool to Fuel Equity in Arts Management
Co-facilitators: Monica Montgomery & Janelle Naomi Rouse
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
6pm-8:30pm
FREE
Despite glass ceilings, funding disparities, job scarcity, precarity, colonization, and cultural appropriation, ‘Still We Rise!’ As people of color, we are often not included in the leadership, stewarding and direction of the artistic spaces we work in and live near. It is important we fuel our raw anger into righteous rage, and to advocate for better treatment from employers and inclusion of POC in every area of artistic endeavor.
As we desire for audiences to feel welcomed and invited into artistic spaces, there is a simultaneous push for arts administrators to activate their leadership in artistic spaces to foster equitable practice. We know that disparities, internal and external, can cause frustration for culture workers and cultural patrons who are operating in a non-profit industrial complex. We hope to use this workshop as a space to air our grievances and collectively create and engage in developing tools to support and create change in this field.
This workshop will explore a variety of strategies to fuel our contentious feelings around arts administration, to cultivate empathy, advocate action, and speak out against pervasive narratives of injustice in the cultural institutions we work in and around. Scenarios and discussions of lived experience will help participants instigate and investigate ways to bring our personal politics into our professional life in order to make our presence felt.
Monica O. Montgomery is an arts and culture innovator, using creativity and narrative as a means of bridging the gap between people and movements. As an independent curator, museum consultant, and keynote speaker, she uses her platforms to be in service to society. She is cofounder and strategic director of Museum Hue, a multicultural platform advancing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives for people of color in arts, culture, museums, and the creative economy. She is the founding director of Museum of Impact, a mobile social justice museum, and has curated 40+ exhibits and festivals at the intersection of art, activism, and society.
She holds a Bachelors of Arts in Broadcast Communication from Temple University and a Masters of Arts in Corporate Communication from LaSalle University. She is an adjunct professor who’s taught in Museum Studies graduate programs at Harvard University, Pratt Institute, and NYU, and guest lectured at Princeton University, Columbia University, American University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Pennsylvania, CUNY, University of the Arts, and dozens more. Monica holds leadership advisory positions in NYC Arts in Education Roundtable, DEAI committee of American Alliance of Museums, Leading Changemakers, Arts Marketing Association UK, Museums as Sites of Social Action, Museum Camp, Museum Workers Speak, U.S. Emerging Leaders in New York Arts and other groups. She recently delivered a TedX talk, entitled “How To Be an Upstander,” challenging everyone to stand up, speak up, and act up for social good. She has completed fellowships with National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellows, CCCADI Innovative Advocacy Fellowship, and Race Forward’s Racial Equity in the Arts Innovation Lab, and is currently a fellow with the Human Impacts Institute - Impacts Artist Residency.
Janelle Naomi Rouse is an urban educator who specializes in curriculum development, culturally sensitive pedagogy, the facilitation of community conversations around social justice, and is a homeschool consultant. She believes in liberation through education and has been able to touch the lives of over 200 students in the span of 10 years. Janelle recently spoke at NYU, Widener University, and Weeksville Heritage Center around the topics of Righteous Rage, Decolonizing Education, and the importance of African matriarchy. She is passionate about education for children of the African Diaspora by people of the African Diaspora.
This workshop is part of the Admin ⚙️ series, a space for arts administrators to support one another, discuss pressing issues, and workshop new forms of cultural institutions. Admin does so by developing resources and organizing events that draw on personal experience and a collaborative spirit. Learn more at: http://www.admin.network/
CUE Art Foundation is wheelchair accessible. Service dogs are welcome. There is an all-gender, ADA compliant, single stall bathroom in the gallery. The space is not scent-free, but we do request that people attending come low-scent. The closest wheelchair accessible MTA subway stations are Penn Station and Herald Square Station.