A New Mutual Respect
It’s been an uplifting feeling to visit museums and attend gallery receptions this month. Although I still find random face masks stashed in my pockets, and get awkward around handshakes – being vaccinated allows us much more freedom to experience art this summer. Because I live in a reasonably responsible community, I am eager to reconnect with colleagues and plan for the future.
In regard to my job as an arts professional, the pandemic has brought frustrating and tragic loss to my community, but also uncanny benefits. Seeing galleries and nonprofits shuttered, staff reduced, and artists left in the lurch has been heartbreaking. I tried to adjust along with my clients and move into the virtual realm. I worked to support them emotionally and help them find grants and loans. I organized auctions and fundraisers to help fill in the gaps, but it will be a long time before artists and organizations recover.
“Life beats you down and crushes the soul, and ART reminds you that you have one.”
On the upside, I feel like creatives gained new respect from the rest of society. Once exhibitions, plays, concerts, and lectures were made physically inaccessible, their absence was painfully palpable. And how did people react? They started singing from balconies, making murals to cover boarded-up storefronts, reenacting famous paintings at home. And the arts turned to tech – online lectures, 3D virtual tours of exhibitions, virtual performances – reaching new audiences worldwide. Regardless of “screen fatigue” I enjoyed a number of artist interviews, virtual tours, and online courses that I never would have attended in person. I hope this is a trend that continues to remove more barriers for those who want to experience cultural events. It means that museums and theaters aren’t defined and restricted to their physical venues and audiences can become more diverse in their geographies and demographics.
And the role of museums has changed over the past decade to be more inclusive and focused on experiences rather than artifacts. Curators and institutions have moved from merely preserving and presenting artifacts of society, to interpreting and contextualizing objects in order to stimulate conversation and understanding. Today’s museums are spaces to explore identity and social justice as well as a place to gather and share experiences.
As cultural venues open back up, I am hoping for a new and improved mutual respect between artists and audiences and organizations. I hope that future memories of “that horrible year” are interspersed with artistic discoveries. I hope people during the pandemic realized the value of song and dance and creativity. I hope that more folks become museum members; more musicians get famous on TikTok; more families go to concerts together; and artists are paid what they are worth. If politicians and world leaders recognized how the arts helped keep things from unraveling, they would enact policies to promote and protect our creative community.
