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- We've spent decades building exclusionary,
professional, hierarchical institutions.
I'm asking you to consider
that perhaps it's time to start moving
toward a cooperative infrastructure model--
something Shirky also talks about--
and releasing control of least parts
of our institutions to artists,
community members, and other stakeholders.
I'm asking you to focus not on holding up
your institutions, but on upholding your commitment
to the development of artists,
the preservation and development of your art forms,
and the capacity for every citizen in your community
to find meaningful connection to and through the arts.
It's not about lasting forever.
It's about mattering today.
I'm asking you to consider the following questions.
If governance largely means board members
and executives looking out
for their future of their own institutions,
then who is looking out for the interest
of the community at large?
Who is able to recognize when we may be trying
to sustain one arts institution
at the expense of another or many others?
Or trying to sustain an arts sector
at the expense of other amenities
and social services?
Or trying to sustain opera companies, orchestras,
theaters, and dance companies
at the expense of sustaining artists, creativity,
culture, and broad and deep engagement with the arts?
We must all take responsibility for asking these questions
and answering them.
Please know I understand your impulse
to preserve your institutions.
You are guardians of a social and artistic vision.
But I urge you not to conflate
being the guardians of a social purpose
with being the guardians of an institution
and your status and place within it.
They're different.
In conclusion, a final paradox.
In his book "Man's Search for Meaning,"
Viktor Frankl asserts
that the path to self-actualization
is self-transcendence.
He says one cannot aim for self-actualization
any more than one can aim for happiness or success.
Indeed, aiming for them
may make them all the more conducive.
Rather, they are side effects,
not goals to be pursued directly.
Likewise, I would suggest that relevance,
or meaningful existence,
is not a goal that arts institutions
can pursue directly.
Rather, it is a side effect
of transcending the need to be appreciated,
preserved, and sustained in perpetuity,
focusing instead on serving society
through the arts today.
We may be trading experienced goods,
but we're not Disneyland.
As non-profits, we're not here
to simply give people a momentary diversion
from their lives.
Television can do that.
Broadway revivals can do that.
Pop culture can do that.
We are here to say,
"We see you.
"We see this community.
"We see that for every one person that's doing okay,
"one person is struggling,
"suffering.
"We do not exist exclusively for those that are doing okay.
"We exist for everyone.
"We exist for you.
"We're here to foster empathy,
"understanding of self,
and understanding of other."
We're here to gently or not so gently
open peoples eyes to truth they cannot see
or choose not to see--
suffering and ugliness and their opposites,
love and beauty.
These are not corny words.
These words represent why we are here.
They give you purpose.
Embrace them.
Existence is no more than a precarious attainment
of relevance in an intensely mobile flux
of past, present, and future.
Existence is more than breathing.
It's more than functioning.
It's mattering.
Go forth and matter to the world.
Thank you for your very kind attention.