Future Aesthetics

UP from the UNDER GROUND Documentation of the Ford Foundation’s Future Aesthetics Program, 2002-2014 UP from the UNDERGROUND 1 << Include Ford Founda- tion logo + IDA logo>> Executive Summary Introduction Definition of Future Aesthetics Report Methodology Future Aesthetics In Historical Context Overview of Future Aesthetics Program The Future Aesthetics Organizational Structure: Why A Cohort? A History of Future Aesthetics Stage 1: Open Inquiry Period: 2002-2005 Stage 2: Development and Maturation, 2004-2009 Stage 3: Decline, Impact, and Change, 2008-2014 Findings List of Recommendations Organizational Profiles Alternate Roots Hip Hop Theater Festival La Peña Cultural Center Miami Light Project Rennie Harris Puremovement Universes BY JEFF CHANG Youth Speaks Bibliography Acknowledgments CONTENTS Appendices JAKEYA CARUTHERS A: Non-Profit Arts and the Next Generation: Some Observations and Questions from the Hip-Hop Generation’s Entre into the Nonprofit Arts Field By James Kass for Youth Speaks and Alexis Frasz for Helicon Collaborative B. Future Aesthetics: Hip-Hop & Contemporary Performance Artist Dialogue KAI KANE AOKI IZU By Anna Alves, with contributions from Jeff Chang, Sylvia Sherman, Mikiko Thelwell and Eddie Torres C. Future Aesthetics: The Impact of Hip-Hop Culture In Contemporary Performance Community Forum with Jonathan Leal By Anna Alves D. Future Aesthetics: The Impact of Hip-Hop Culture In Contemporary Stewart Gray Yeji Jung Colin Kimzey Cody Laux Lan Anh Le Taylor Litchfield Draft of Executive Summary By Sylvia Sherman and Caron Atlas Malcolm Lizzappi Yinshi Lerman-Tan Maia Paroginog Mia Ritter-Whittle E. Select List of Key Events F. List of Future Aesthetics Artist Regrant Recipients UP from the UNDERGROUND UP from the UNDERGROUND 3 EXECUTIVE FINDINGS SUMMARY In the early 2000s, the Future Aesthetics program of the Ford Founda- The program began with a set of convenings, which brought together 1. Cultural equity remains a central issue in the field of the 4. Future Aesthetics impact reached beyond the years of the tion’s Media Arts and Culture division was a ground-breaking initiative peer-based networks where hip-hop artists, presenters, and activists could non-profit arts. The field of the non-profit arts must be more inclusive initiative, elevating practitioners who continue to advance to address changing demographics, changing aesthetics, and issues of connect on a deeper level, work together to define the field, and ultimately and visionary about questions of aesthetic and demographic change. practices related to arts and social justice. The experience of Future cultural equity in the non-profit arts sector. Launched by Ford program build a sustainable cultural ecosystem of national prominence. Aesthetics points to the role that funders can play in diversifying officer Roberta Uno, Future Aesthetics was animated by a belief that It then developed a cohort of six organizations through which much of the 2. The Future Aesthetics program proposed a ground-breaking artistic and cultural practices that do not fit the marketplace model, changing demographics had shifted the narrative of American identity, ideation and program work would be directed. The cohort was subsequently model of field development meant to directly address cultural but can transform the mainstream. The success of plays such as “Fela!” thus promoting new strategies for community inclusion while simulta- complemented by strategic opportunity grants and individual travel grants inequity by identifying, supporting, and connecting key artistic/ and “Hamilton” are evidence of success. neously catalyzing new art forms. to amplify the initiative. The program finally introduced the Future Aesthetics cultural assets. It empowered those individuals and organizations to The program effectively lasted from 2002 to 2008, although its Re-Grant Program (FAAR) that fostered a touring initiative and an individual raise crucial questions about underrepresentation, access to resources, 5. The Future Aesthetics program demonstrates that strategic impact continued through and after Uno’s tenure at the Foundation artist re-grant program. Together, these initiatives developed a creative critical reception, organizational development and long-term sustain- funding can foster the development of vital, vibrant, and creative (which ended in 2014). This report documents the ideas, values, and ecosystem that sought to bring equity and redistribution of resources to a new ability. ecosystems. Future Aesthetics individuals and organizations valued accomplishments of this important program and describes its impact. generation of diverse artists. the horizontal learning and collaborations, that in turn, proved genera- It covers the period from 2002 to 2014. This report was researched and written by a team led by Jeff Chang, 3. Future Aesthetics’ focus on centering artists and developing tive for the field as a whole. Coming after the culture wars reduced direct funding to artists, Fu- one of the original Future Aesthetics participants, along with Stanford leadership among artists is among the most underutilized but ture Aesthetics re-centered artists and directly took on issues of access students, Jakeya Caruthers and Kai Kãne Aoki Izu, consisting of 2 effective models to advance equity in the arts. Additionally, when and underrepresentation. It opened new avenues for artists to explore graduate students and 10 undergraduate students. Extensive interviews artists were entrusted to regrant money to each other, they did so cutting-edge aesthetics at the leading end of demographic change; were done with Uno and members of the Future Aesthetics cohort. across discipline, geography, gender, culture, and ethnicity, fostering established enduring networks of arts institutions, organizations, and diverse networks. individuals committed to this new work; and remade narratives around past, present, and future intersections of art and social justice. UP from the UNDERGROUND 5 RECOMMENDATIONS INTRODUCTION 1. Demographic reporting should become a regular tool to raise 5. Centering artists as decisionmakers and leaders can build Established in 2002, the Ford Foundation’s Future Aesthetics program has been In 2015, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA) at Stanford University was transparency for funders and to measure progress towards equity. leadership, knowledge and sustainability for the field. Leadership groundbreaking, influential, and far-reaching in its scope and impact on the commissioned to document the Future Aesthetics program. The commission Equity begins with basic standards for the field. development can be seen as a positive outcome of an artist-centered process. field of the arts. In particular, the Future Aesthetics program advanced hip-hop came at a particularly crucial moment in the field of non-profit arts with aesthetics, especially in the performing arts, while centering artists of color and respect to questions of cultural equity.1 In recent years, social justice movements 2. Cultural change and cultural equity—that is to say, issues of In the end, Future Aesthetics should be regarded as a program crucial issues of cultural equity in the non-profit arts world. have centered questions of access, equity, justice, and representation. In addi- access, underrepresentation, and power—are made urgent by that was visionary in its scope and values. As a program that centered While the initiative ran from 2002 to 2008, its grantees, ideas, and values tion, cultural equity has become an important area of inquiry in the non-profit demographic change, but are much bigger than demographic artists of color and that anticipated a generational shift in aesthetics, have continued to have impact, perhaps most notably in the success of the arts world. Such questions were key in the design, implementation, and develop- change. Demographic change and cultural equity cannot be con- the story of this program is instructive for future non-profit arts pro- Broadway play, “Hamilton,” one product of the creative ecosystem created by ment of the Future Aesthetics program and remained so to this assessment. flated. Cultural change impacts us all. grams that seek to serve a new America transformed by the energies Future Aesthetics. This report covers the entire period from 2002 to 2014. Over The goal of this report is to assess how the Future Aesthetics program has im- of diverse new generations and the sweeping cultural change that is the arc of its development, the Future Aesthetics program fostered the devel- pacted the North American non-profit arts landscape by opening new avenues 3. Work needs to be funded beyond the Northeastern/California remaking the nation day-to-day. opment of artists, organizations, networks, and creative ecosystems, helped for artists, particularly young artists of color, to explore cutting-edge aesthetics axis. The cohort’s geographic diversity led not only to capacity building to popularize hip-hop aesthetics in the performing arts, and pushed crucial at the leading end of demographic change; seeding and developing networks in areas that have been traditionally supported but also to richer, more resources to the leading edge of demographic, cultural, and aesthetic change. of arts institutions, organizations, and individuals committed to this new work; dynamic artistic conversations and collaborations. and remaking narratives around past, present, and future intersections of art and social justice. We hope that the report will benefit the larger field

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