What if Real Change—for a Better World—Came from the Pandemic?
This article was first published in BU Today on March 17, 2021. Illustration by Mike Carina
These essays started with the provocative question “What if?” reimagine the future of healthcare, education, voting, transportation, antiracism, workplace culture, and more
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What if the arts community made experiencing galleries, theaters, and concert halls accessible to everyone? Dean Harvey Young explores the bold notion in an essay.
The global pandemic has taught us that arts organizations can outreach to communities if they make it a priority.
Over the years, I’ve sat in a few too many board rooms in which someone would express a wish for more “diverse people” as audience members. To be clear, there’s no such thing as diverse people. It’s just a phrase that folks use when they worry that how they actually think about people of color might be racist. My response usually is “people know when your outreach efforts are not sincere.”
For more than a year, we have experienced takeout artistry. City and state restrictions have prevented theatres, concert halls, and (to a lesser extent) museums from welcoming in audiences. Impressively, arts organizations have found ways to deliver their innovative, inspiring, creative works to a broad, general public.
Pandemic arts outreach should continue in a post-pandemic world. Arts organizations with a commitment to access, inclusion, and, yes, diversity need to continue to create opportunities for everyone to experience the arts. Free online programming is essential. Live streaming events are needed.
The arts industries must proactively reach out to the folks who they previously overlooked or actively ignored. They need to demonstrate the sincerity of their outreach by continuing to make their offerings widely available, even as they welcome back visitors into their galleries, museums, concert halls, and theatres.
If we commit to the work of inclusion, the arts eventually will be uplifted and supported by new generations of folks who reflect the racial, gender, and socioeconomic diversity of our cities.
Harvey Young is dean of the College of Fine Arts, a CFA professor of theater, and a College of Arts & Sciences professor of English.