“What exactly does Arts Hub do?” Since launching, this is the most common question we are asked. Truth be told, we don’t know yet. At least, not exactly. But, we know how we will get there and what our ultimate goals are. The best way to understand the process is to first understand the goals:
1) Our primary goal is to support artists in Albuquerque by removing the barriers they face to creating in our community. Artists in ABQ face many challenges- from finding appropriate space to create their art, to finding spaces where they feel accepted and comfortable presenting their art, to obtaining support for all the necessary (but time consuming and complicate) business-of-art issues, and more. The barriers artists face are multi-faceted and complex. It’s Arts Hub’s job to discover what issues are holding artists back (more on that below!) and build grass-roots support to help remove those barriers.
2) Our next goal is to connect artists to non-arts sectors as creative problem solvers. The good news is, this is already happening! Artists in our city double as educators, community organizers, farmers, social workers, and…well, the list is kind of endless. But, many of these efforts exist in silos and artists tend to connect with groups or people they just happen to know. We want to create systems and pipelines for artists to help solve our city’s most pressing issues in the ways that only creative problem solvers can.
Now, you may be thinking “wow- those are broad goals!” and you are right. We are currently in a discovery process where the end result will be specific and targeted programming that directly addresses the two main goals. The first step is to have one-on-one conversations with artists and community leaders. For artists- we are asking them about barriers they face to creating art sustainably in ABQ. For community leaders- we are asking the major barriers their organization or sector faces. Our goal is to have 100+ one-one-one conversations. The second step is to use that data to design surveys for broad distribution to hundreds of artists and community leaders. The third step is to convene focus groups that will interpret the data and design programs that will address the two main goals. This will result in community-identified issues and community-designed programming to address those issues. Our timeline is to launch pilot programming by January 2020.
We are talking to artists right now to learn more. Want to be involved in the
conversations and help the arts community thrive!? Want to support arts in another way? Just have a question? Send us a message here - we would love to hear from you.
We hope you will join Arts Hub as we work to support artists in our community. Thanks for stopping by!
-The Arts Hub team
P.S.- In the meantime, we’re going to be hosting arts-based community events that you can check out here.
