14th Lawrence and Isabel Barnett Symposium on the Arts and Public Policy

Registration has closed for the event – if you still would like to attend, please contact Molly Burke, burke.390@osu.edu.

$10 registration fee covers hors d’oeuvres at Friday’s opening reception and talk, as well as a light breakfast and boxed lunch on Saturday.

Downloadable PDF of Barnett Program

Barnett Symposium 2023 Schedule:

October 27, 2023 – Urban Arts Space (50 W. Town St, Columbus, OH 43215)

5:30 PM Reception , View Creative Connections: Resilience, Innovation, and Community after COVID-19  

In March of 2020, our world changed in ways that were previously unimaginable. Public places of business closed, classes pivoted to an online format, and individuals experienced the mental and physical repercussions of a global pandemic that killed millions of people worldwide. The students, faculty, and staff of the Department of Arts Administration, Education and Policy were no exception—collectively and individually, we struggled to maintain connection, stave off loneliness and fear, and adapt to new ways of teaching, learning, and researching. The objects and ideas in this gallery represent a range of creative responses to the challenges of COVID-19 by AAEP department members, from remembering and documenting specific events, wrestling with personal and professional obligations, and forging new work as a tangible form of hope in the future. They serve as beacons, calling us to move toward rich visions of possibility and promise that are only possible through resilience, innovation, and community.

This exhibition is offered in conjunction with the 2023 Barnett Symposium Resilient Artists, Resilient Communities, held on October 27 & 28, 2023. Reception: October 27, 5:30-8PM.

6:45 PM Opening remarks from Dr. Joni Acuff 

7:00 PM Featured Conversation Community Building Through Creative Entrepreneurship

Panelists: Brian & Emily Kellett, co-founders STUMP; Eric Obenauf, co-founder Two Dollar Radio; Ben Willis, co-founder Parable Coffee    

Moderated by:  Dr. Rachel Skaggs, Lawrence & Isabel Barnett Asst. Prof. of Arts Management, AAEP

Finding the right balance of business acumen and social impact can be a challenge. In this engaging panel, co-founders of three local Columbus businesses, Parable Coffee, STUMP, and Two Dollar Radio will share their stories, their challenges, and their successes as creatives and entrepreneurs. Their stories will illuminate the ways that their approaches to creativity and community solidarity have built vibrant, inclusive communities.

8:00 PM Evening Program Ends 

 October 28, 2023 – Sullivant Hall (1813 N High St, Columbus, OH 43210)

8:15 AM Check-in and Registration (Barnett Center, 1st Floor Sullivant Hall)

8:15 – 9:00 AM Breakfast Available in Collaboratory  

9:15 AM Opening Remarks from Dr. Rachel Skaggs and Dr. Joni Acuff 

10:00 AM Local Perspectives: Insights from Columbus Artists and Arts Leaders

Panelists: Lawrence Tawneven Lemon, artist, innovator, educator, Creative Director for GETCR8V, LLC; Andy J. Pizza, Author, Illustrator, Creator of Creative Pep Talk Podcast; Lydia Simon, Director of Marketing & Communications at Columbus Museum of Art; Elisa Smith, artist, educator, curator, & space facilitator, Co-founder & Executive Director of Columbus Printed Arts Center

Moderated by: Angela Meleca, CEO Meleca Creative Advisors

Though the scope of the pandemic was global, the impact on local communities cannot be understated. Individuals have had to work in distinct ways to navigate challenges and show resilience in their work and creative lives. Bringing together artists and arts leaders who work in and beyond Columbus, the participants of this panel discussion will reflect on the challenges that they have faced since 2020 and the ways that they were able to adapt, innovate, and foster resilience in their artistic practice and in their local arts communities.

11:00 AM Break  

11:15 AM Keynote Lecture – Laura Zabel

Laura Zabel is the Executive Director of Springboard for the Arts, an economic and community development agency run by and for artists. Springboard provides programs that help artists make a living and programs that help communities connect to the creative power of artists. Springboard is a nationally recognized leader in artist-led community development, creative placemaking and cross-sector collaboration. Springboard’s work has been featured by The New York Times, PBS, Wall Street Journal, Stanford Social Innovation Review and The Guardian and directly impacts over 20,000 artists each year. Through their free toolkits, training and resources Springboard’s programs have been replicated in over 100 communities across the U.S. and internationally.

In 2020, in response to the global pandemic, Springboard scaled their artist emergency relief fund to support over 2,500 artists in their region and helped over 80 communities nationwide start their own locally-rooted emergency funds. Through their Artists Respond program, Springboard is supporting artists to respond directly to urgent community needs, including racial justice, social isolation, and rural-urban solidarity. In 2021, Springboard launched one of the nation’s first guaranteed income programs focused on artists.

Zabel has been honored with numerous awards, including the YBCA 100, Gard Foundation Award of Excellence, Common Future Local Economy Fellowship and the Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship. Zabel chairs the board of directors of the Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers and serves as an advisor to Dakota Resources, The Laundromat Project, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and the University of Kansas Department of Theater and Dance.

12:30 PM Lunch  

2:00 PM  Concurrent Research Presentation Panels 

Measuring Artists’ Challenges and Resilience Since COVID-19 – Sullivant Hall Auditorium; Second Floor 220

Co-Presenters: Dr. Rachel Skaggs, Lawrence & Isabel Barnett Assistant Professor of Arts Management, AAEP; Molly Jo Burke, PhD Candidate, AAEP; Dr. Erin J. Hoppe, Visiting Assistant Professor of Arts Management, Miami University; Dr. Megan Jordan, Presidential Postdoctoral Scholar, AAEP; Noor Murteza, PhD Candidate, AAEP

It is unmistakable that artists have been affected by COVID-19. The novel coronavirus has led to a spike in unemployment, led individuals and families to self- isolate and distance themselves from their communities, and has had a monumental toll in terms of death, illness from the virus, and mental health. In addition to the aspects of life during COVID-19 that affect individuals regardless of occupation, the impacts on artists have been specific and have been recorded and interpreted by artists living in this unprecedented moment.

This panel presents a selection of work from a longitudinal interview study of U.S.-based artists interviewed in 2020-2021 and again interviewed in 2023. Our overarching goal in this work is to understand and communicate (1) the impact of the pandemic on artists, (2) the degree to which they were challenged by this experience, and (3) the ways they were able to respond with resilience to this crisis. This panel contributes to the scholarly tradition of creative work and arts labor markets, providing contemporary understandings of a broad array of artists’ experiences of their creative and working lives.

Art Museum Education in the Wake of COVID-19: A Special Topics Issue of Arts and Education Policy Review (AEPR) – Sullivant Hall Collaboratory, First Floor 141

Co-Presenters: Dr. Dana Carlisle Kletchka, Associate Professor of Art Museum Education, AAEP, co-editor of special topics issue of AEPR; Julia Harth, PhD Candidate in AAEP; Dr. Emily Keenlyside, Concordia University, museum scholar and educator; Dr. Laura March, Associate Director of Learning Design, Georgetown University; Amanda Tobin Ripley, PhD Student, AAEP

This presentation features a co-editor and four authors who seek to understand how the field of art museum education changed in the wake of a global pandemic. Museum educators have long utilized varying approaches to pedagogy depending on their institutional and geographical contexts, yet COVID-19 yielded strikingly similar consequences for museums across the globe—including closures, furloughs and layoffs, and staff reorganization, in addition to dramatic changes in methods of delivery for education and public practice. In a sense, COVID-19 served as a catalyst—a great pause, if you will—to assess current realities and then alter and envision new practices to replace those that no longer serve our institutions and communities.

Critical Arts Praxis: Moving Beyond Performativity – Sullivant Hall, Second Floor, Room 225

Co-Presenters: dr. gloria wilson, Associate Professor of Art Education, AAEP; Lynn Robinson, PhD Student, AAEP; Nupur Sachdeva, PhD Student, AAEP

Rehearsals in Anti-racism was a co-convened course taught at the University of Arizona in the spring of 2023. It provided students from various racial, ethnic, and disciplinary backgrounds an opportunity to use artistic methods to develop critical and embodied knowledge of systemic racism and how it affects their own histories, perceptions, and relationships while also developing creative ways to intervene in a world structured by racial inequality. This practice-based course used workshop-style teaching methods that centered creative activities so conversations about race moved beyond words to an embodied and participatory way of learning. The curriculum was emergent, which meant students would help shape the thematic direction of the subject matter taken up in the course. Grounding concepts for understanding structural forms of racism, and anti-racism were woven throughout the course. Shared in this presentation, the student-led project #ABC4US (#ArtBringsChange4us) – focused on harnessing the key concepts of intersectionality, mainstream media, social construction and institutionalized racism. This ongoing project intends to present an accessible community learning space, as well as civic arts engagement through artistic practices of marginalized/minoritized artists. An online platform was chosen to host this project to build community & bring change through art.

3:00 PM Closing Remarks from Dr. Scott Jones 

3:30 PM Event Ends 

Download 2023 Barnett Symposium Promotional Poster

Download 2023 Barnett Symposium Program

REGISTER HERE
$10 registration fee covers hors d’oeuvres at Friday’s opening reception and talk, as well as a light breakfast and boxed lunch on Saturday.