PROVIDENCE – The Department of Art, Culture and Tourism, as well as Mayor Brett P. Smiley, formally introduced Wednesday a new cultural plan that outlines strategies and recommendations for strengthening the city’s arts, culture and creativity.
The 57-page plan, titled PVDx2031: A Cultural Plan for Culture Shift, lays out multiple themes, as well as a breakdown of each theme, to help expand the city’s art and culture sector moving forward. City officials said the plan was created over two years by arts practitioners through several discussions. Officials on Wednesday introduced the plan’s final draft during the city’s annual Pell Lecture on Arts & Humanities.
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In an introductory letter in the plan, then-Providence Department of Art, Culture and Tourism Director Lizzie Araujo said officials heard from the arts sector demands for living wages for artists, reinterpretations of the concept of resource distribution and calls for local investment into the arts and culture sector.
“I have long believed that bureaucratic work, when undertaken humanely, can advance equity,” Araujo wrote. “That is why this plan is as fluid and flexible as it is far-reaching. Indeed, some of its goals may be speculative, but they are grounded in the concrete words and intentions of the many brilliant people who have helped make it real.”
A creative workforce, place keeping in neighborhoods, public awareness and tourism, a creative economy and resilient nonprofits are some of the seven themes outlined in the cultural plan. Each theme notes an overall strategy and recommended activities to turn strategies into realities.
The plan suggests that the city should invest in place-keeping strategies that preserve neighborhood-based cultural expression and strengthen a “sense of belonging.” One recommendation suggests that nonprofit cultural organizations and property owners develop anti-displacement strategies with cross-sector partners. The plan also recommends that artists and cultural nonprofits engage in mutual aid to support housing access for the city’s Black, Indigenous and people of color communities.
Regarding workforce development, the plan calls for artists’ basic needs to be addressed. It suggests independent practitioners create an “artist’s bill of rights” that recommends fair wages, salaries and benefits, as well as offers frameworks for collective bargaining.
The plan also recommends cultural nonprofits and creative businesses make “measurable progress” toward diversifying workforces, closing gendered wage gaps and supporting caregivers. Additionally, it recommends artists and cross-sector partners advocate for access to fixed, low-interest loans for housing.
Having the department, cultural nonprofits and higher education institutions partner to develop a certificate program in arts administration is another recommended activity outlined in the plan. The plan believes that more young artists from Providence will stay and work in the city if there are more pathways established for young artists to explore careers in the creative sector.
The plan also suggests further developing the city’s nightlife and music economy. It calls for the department and other sector partners to fund and facilitate an economy study to assess, plan and implement strategies that could strengthen the city’s downtown and cultural corridors.
“It brings me great pride to know that we prioritize art and our local arts community, and that’s precisely what we’re doing today,” Smiley said in a statement. “As Mayor, I recognize the need for a plan like this, one that asks the tough questions and poses realistic, measurable solutions that can be implemented by both the city and the community.”
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
This document has lots of lofty words that one cannot disagree with, but you need more than word and intentions. What you don’t need is motherhood comments such as “calls for local investment into the arts and culture sector” when what is needed is something much more specific.
Exactly what is the City willing to do to make such investments more appealing. Let me use as example what is left of the old Rialto Theater building on Mathewson Street. This beautiful historic building has been abandoned and is in deteriorating condition especially at the street level. Behind this building is a parking lot, a perfect set-up to build a theater structure attached to the Mathewson Street façade. Invite a currently active theater group to occupy the building and thereby add a second repertory type company, akin to Trinity Rep, to the downtown scene. This will take the coordinated efforts of many different people and the leadership of the City through financial incentives and the easing of any bureaucratic obstacles.
Also, for the arts to succeed in Providence, it needs a growing audience and the philanthropy that often comes with it. Not much in this document about that. Mayor Smiley are you listening?