The details are scant, but there is an agenda to be presented to you based on a National Development Meeting for the Arts Summit that happened on September 5.

Sadly, if those kinds of exclusive, by-invitation only meetings continue, then this agenda cannot even begin to represent the arts and culture sectors it promises to speak for.

As a private endeavor by Njel De Mesa, there’s no way to insist that he open up the summit to all cultural workers; he was financially limited to inviting arts and culture organizations and trusted that reps from these groups actually speak for a majority of us in the sectors.

That of course is not true. There is no one organization that can claim to represent a majority of writers or dancers, theater workers or visual artists, musicians or heritage workers, across generations, different media, and various areas of expertise. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the formality of organizations goes against precisely the freedoms that artistry, creativity, innovation are premised on and which these demand. (more…)