Persistence, Resistance, and Resilience at NIAD
Art Week in the Bay Area is a moment when we really feel the support of our NIAD’s arts partners - from the enthusiastic response to the inaugural exhibition of Karl at Levi’s Plaza, to the many fruitful exchanges around artwork, friendship, and connection at FOG Art + Design each year.
It is an honor to be surrounded by these landmark institutions and the many powerful curatorial and creative voices that make NIAD’s art world an innovative and inclusive one - Richmond Art Center’s blockbuster Art of the African Diaspora, Studio Ahead’s Same Blue As The Sky at Et Al, and CCA’s thriving exhibitions programs at the Wattis and the Campus Gallery, just to name a few.
The togetherness felt at this year’s Art Week might seem to stand in stark contrast to the national mood. I don’t know anyone who was untouched by the federal funding freeze, and the majority of NIAD’s partners are reasserting the protections of our sanctuary cities, communities, and the "third spaces" that are in many ways our second homes.
However, we see time and again that the connection we build as an art community is a critical part of the persistence, resistance, and resilience we will need to move through the current era.
As Richmond Renaissance helps our city shape an Arts Corridor of investment and visibility for the arts, as nonprofits gather to support each other nationwide - just to name a couple of the gatherings this week - our creative capacities are more important than ever. The room to breathe and be with each other that we often find in the arts becomes a space of survival, of care, and of stability in a world that changes faster every day.
As the week closes, disability providers in the East Bay will meet with the region’s legislators, echoing many of the same principles as last week - the investments we make for our communities’ well-being now will last us a lifetime, as we defend and define our institutions, our systems, our communities. We are shaping the legacy of our future as we draw together, and it takes all of us.
In Community,
Amanda
