BIPOC artists, arts organizations, and collectives have many dreams for Houston’s BIPOC arts community. A common thread that runs through their dreams is the vision of an abundantly resourced multicultural Houston where BIPOC artists and communities are celebrated and thriving.
In this emerging vision co-created by grantees:
Some established and more well-resourced grantees noted this vision includes empowering BIPOC communities by funding historic and cultural preservation, while newer collectives emphasized mentoring new artists as critical for bolstering Houston’s position as a leader in the arts.
Grantees shared this requires dominant institutions to meaningfully grapple with their power and privilege. Some established and resourced grantees imagine a future created by the self-determination of BIPOC artists, where artists are organizing to shift inequitable systems. Some emerging collectives imagine the future as a sustainable arts ecosystem where artists have a living wage and are building movements that shift the broader culture.
Grantees envision a more collaborative and less competitive arts field where silos are broken down, people are strategic in their relationships, and where there is mutual respect for different cultures and ethnicities.
In this emerging vision co-created by grantees:
Looking ahead 5 to 10 years, what do you hope the BIPOC arts community in greater Houston will look like? What do you hope to see, feel, experience?
“A thriving, healthy, sustainable ecosystem that has several pathways to a livable wage in the arts; having access to plentiful resources[full of ] cultural festivals, the sounds of traditions and celebrations from Black and Indigenous communities. It smells like BBQs, cookouts, a place of liberation.”
– BIPOC Artist, Emerging Collective
“I wish that… any organization looking to invest in our communities, not give money to give a handout but invest because the way I look at the funding at least that comes our way in form of investments to our organization is through reparations. And so we’re not looking for handouts, we’re looking for people to come along with us in the process of healing, of nurturing, of caring and cultivating our communities.”
– BIPOC Artist, Established Nonprofit
“[In] Korea’s funding culture, they funded Gangnam style and K-Pop became huge. If the city thought about funding arts in that way where Houston is the Spotify for the arts because of the culture we are creating. We are creating our own culture from the artists that are in Houston.”
– BIPOC Artist, Emerging Collective
“Expanding definition of art and culture…As a Black person, what is Black culture is a very new thing that is evolving. What is Black American culture that’s not just a copy of African culture or embedded in slave culture? [There’s] space for that and acknowledgement that this is also art.”
– BIPOC Artist, Established Nonprofit