Andras Szanto: “Museums could offer people who have experienced weeks of isolation a safe place to go, or a reprieve from cramped quarters. Their opening would signal the beginnings of a return to normalcy. What’s more, once the public is back, museums can serve as hubs of education, information-sharing, and collective reflection as we work together to surmount this crisis.” – Artnet
Author: Douglas McLennan
How Small Non-Profit Arts Organizations Are Slipping Through Cracks
“In this country we don’t have national infrastructure that supports individual artists the way that would be effective in a crisis.” said Laura Zabel. “That said, every disaster is local,” noted Cerf+ Executive Director Cornelia Carey. – Hyperallergic
How Fear Has Shaped (And Built) New York
Justin Davidson: “New York has been a scary place for most of the past 400 years. Fire, flood, attack, crime, rebellion, drugs, and disease have shaped it. I find that an oddly reassuring thought, because all through its litany of misfortunes and bouts of exodus, the city’s magnetic force field has strengthened. Fear and pain are crucial human responses — without them, we die. At every desperate juncture, New York has grown and transformed as it healed.” – New York Magazine
Pandemic Could Be An Opportunity To Rethink How Cities Work
We’re using cities differently while we’re under lockdown, but urbanists see this as an opportunity to maybe challenge the ways we have constructed and use urban areas. Cars, for example – do they have to be so dominant? – Wired
Peter Sellars On Art And Creativity After COVID
“My feeling is truly we are in the midst of a new era trying to be reborn,” he said, reached by phone in Culver City. “And, yes, the labor pains are fierce.” – Los Angeles Times
Essential Tool To Survive The Pandemic? Imagination
“Pandemics, wars, and other social crises often create new attitudes, needs, and behaviors, which need to be managed. We believe imagination — the capacity to create, evolve, and exploit mental models of things or situations that don’t yet exist — is the crucial factor in seizing and creating new opportunities, and finding new paths to growth.” – Harvard Business Review
Broadway Musicians Petition Their Union To Allow Streaming Of Show For COVID Relief
The show is a Disney concert from last year that producers want to use to raise money for COVID relief. All the unions had agreed except for the musicians union. “As musicians we have lost the opportunity to perform publicly, but this use of our recorded performance could have been a great tool to raise funds for people in our community that are in need,” the petition states in part. – Deadline
Dance That Becomes Dis-Dance
So how do you dance with others when you have to keep your distance? Online of course, and Dis-Dance parties allow you to dance together from the safety of your own room. – The News Hour (PBS)
Amazon Self-Publishing Promised To Democratize Publishing. Instead…
It has become a cesspool for scammers and con artists and crackpots of every kind. Worse, it even helps promote racist supremacist views. What can be done? – ProPublica
Is There Anything More Useless In A Time Of Crisis Than The Humanities? Maybe Not…
“Even in good times, the humanistic academy is mocked as a wheel turning nothing; in an emergency, when doctors, delivery personnel, and other essential workers are scrambling to keep society intact, no one has patience with the wheel’s demand to keep turning. What is the role of Aristotle, or the person who studies him, in a crisis?” – The New Yorker