5Q: Shey Rivera

 / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
/ PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

1 Following in Umberto Crenca’s footsteps as artistic director (and now sharing oversight with Managing Director Shauna Duffy), what have you learned about leadership?

Umberto merges creative vision with innovative business acumen. He has led AS220 with core values of unjuried, uncensored access and equity to art and performance, which we believe are critical to empowering individuals, cultivating creative communities and developing a vibrant city with a strong identity.

2How will your experience as director of programs inform your new role?

Two of the most important things for me are the multicultural community, and making sure that AS220 continues toward sustainable growth and responds to the needs of a changing demographic here in a transparent, genuine way.

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[This entails] honoring the work that Bert has been doing throughout the years, but now focusing more on shifting demographics, to serve new communities calling this place home, as well as underserved groups, and people who want to create work in [Providence].

3What are your top priorities for 2016?

AS220 doesn’t just produce art services, or offer just space and tools. We’re an incubator, and we are involved in so many cross-industry conversations – urban development, urban planning and community engagement. [I will] make sure, wherever we go, when we’re involved in conversations with the corporate and political sectors, we’re saying, “We’re artists,” and we’re at the table.

4How many youths belong to the AS220 Youth program and how are they involved?

AS220 Youth serves about 500 teenagers each year. We teach and mentor in the juvenile detention center and serve teens in group homes and those who come from immigrant families. Our programs focus on design thinking and entrepreneurship through art-based skills and mentorship: video and sound production, graphic design, performance, print technologies.

5What is the most challenging aspect of fundraising for AS220?

We are facing a budget shortfall and are envisioning new ways to achieve sustainability, [particularly] for our AS220 Youth program. As artistic director, I’m now heavily involved with our development office, cultivating partnerships and a family of supporters. •

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