Strong partnerships are grounded in common values and goals, mutual respect and trust, and the experience, sensibilities, and knowledge that each partner brings to the table. Artists and municipalities have very different ways of working and perceiving the world— but in a strong partnership, those differences become points of connection, learning, and mutual benefit.
Strong partnerships are hard work. It takes a commitment of energy and time to listen, learn, and be present in the other’s sphere of work. It takes sharing successes and owning missteps, openness to the new, and a willingness to challenge and be challenged. This applies to municipalities, artists, and to community partners who are often involved. (For more on working with community partners, see this section.)
It is a radical act for artists and government to break out of their usual ways of working and join together around a civic issue. Given that these sectors don’t typically collaborate, intentional relationship-building should be a major part of accomplishing shared goals. Below are some strategies for building strong relationships:
Check Assumptions, Perceptions, and Attitudes
Both artists and municipal partners need to check assumptions and misperceptions of the other in order to build trusting productive relationships. (See the Getting to Know Each Other section for more on this). This idea extends to public misperceptions about artists and government. Artists and city staff working together in the service of the public interest is a prime opportunity to counter assumptions and stereotypes about both.
Negative attitudes—skepticism, dismissiveness, righteous anger—get in the way of building honest and trusting relationships. Keep an open dialogue with a willingness to challenge attitudes in oneself and others that are not constructive.
Identify Shared Values
A strong partnership is based on shared values relating to public service and the nature of the partnership itself. Core values often include:
1) Equity is a stated core value for many of the partnerships featured in this guide. Some M/A programs are formed explicitly to respond to equity as a broad municipal commitment: Seattle and Minneapolis lead initiatives that aim to end institutional racism and inequity both internally and citywide. Los Angeles’ Cultural Equity and Inclusion Initiative is designed to ensure that everyone has access to arts and culture. Nashville’s MetroArts critically explored internal oppressive structures before creating a training program for teaching artists who work with court-involved youth. Within these contexts, artists can introduce innovative strategies to engage local government, community partners, and residents in efforts toward equity and justice.
Seattle, WA
The Creative Strategies Initiative
Office of Arts and Culture, Office of Civil Rights, & local artists
Actors performing The Shape of Trust. From L to R: Ayo Tushinde, Aishé Keita, Nina Williams Teramachi, Monique Aldred, Tricia Castañeda-Gonzales, Anasofia Gallegos, Christi Cruz. Photo: Zorn Taylor.
Tyson Simmons of the Muckleshoot Tribe demonstrating traditional arts during the Muckleshoot TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) Expo. Photo: Zorn Taylor
A traditional herbal medicine created with members of the Muckleshoot tribe during the Muckleshoot TEK Expo.
Photo: Zorn Taylor
In alignment with the City's Race and Social Justice Initiative, Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture partners with the Office for Civil Rights in using the arts as a strategy to move toward racial equity and social justice within City agencies and across the City as a whole.
The Creative Strategies Initiative (CSI) is central to this work. CSI aims to shift government culture by using the arts to build racial equity in non-arts areas like the environment, housing, workforce and community development. One project, The Shape of Trust, began as a theater piece created from City employees' stories of racial harassment, discrimination, and institutional racism. CSI is using the piece as a base for building training curricula and coaching materials for city supervisors and managers about racial equity. Another project involved artist-in-residence Carina Del Rosario working with the City’s Environmental Justice Committee and leaders of the Muckleshoot Tribe to create an event for local government policy makers that includes cooking and eating Indigenous foods and creating a model for a policy on foraging.
Diana Falchuk, who leads the partnership between the Offices of Arts & Culture and Civil Rights, writes that in order to fight the injustices of white supremacy “...we must use art and humor to tell our own stories, ones of justice that wage love; and that local government has a role to play in our overall culture shift by transforming itself with the guidance of artists and grounding in creativity.”
The Equity Pulpit, part of a project by D.A. Bullock and Ariah Fine, in collaboration with the Neighborhood and Community Relations Department.
Photo: Alizarin Meninnga, Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, City of Minneapolis
Part of a creative asset mapping of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood by artists E.G. Bailey and Shá Cage.
Photo: Justin Sengly, Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, City of Minneapolis
Part of a creative asset mapping of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood by artists E.G. Bailey and Shá Cage.
Photo: Justin Sengly, Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, City of Minneapolis
Tenants participating in a “Hearing Tenant Voices” workshop with artists Mankwe Ndosi and Reggie Prim, in collaboration with the Regulatory Services Department.
Photo: Rebecca Crisanta de Ybarra, Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, City of Minneapolis
Housing inspectors participating in a “Hearing Tenant Voices” workshop with artists Mankwe Ndosi and Reggie Prim, in collaboration with the Regulatory Services Department.
Photo: Rebecca Crisanta de Ybarra, Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, City of Minneapolis
Minneapolis’ Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy (ACCE) leads the Creative CityMaking (CCM) program since 2013. CCM advances the City’s goal of improving economic and racial disparities through systems change, and by creating better engagement and services for communities. CCM places experienced community artists into collaboration with staff in City departments which have included Community Planning and Economic Development, Regulatory Services, Information Technology, Neighborhood and Community Relations, City Clerk’s Office, Public Works, and the Office of Sustainability. Projects have focused both on internal concerns, such as transforming agency culture, and on agency work within communities.
CCM is grounded in ideas of equity. Teams have participated in dialogue that included deep personal reflection and often emotional conversations about the City’s and departments’ historical and current patterns of inequity. They have worked to understand the specific contexts of the department and the community that they engage. Artists have been particularly adept at identifying disconnects between the departments’ intentions for community engagement, and the reality of their practices. These conversations, though difficult at times, created a space for both team and project growth.
Three structural aspects of CCM were key to its continued success:
A strong third-party partner was critical to establishing CCM. Nonprofit Intermedia Arts (now defunct) partnered with ACCE to initiate the program, which was funded by an Art Place grant. Intermedia Arts (IA) was the grant recipient in order to have outside control of resources and safeguard against any potential political interference with the program. IA and ACCE collaboratively designed and launched the program with the intention that ACCE would assume administration of the project. IA served as intermediary between artists and City departments.
ACCE engaged an outside evaluator, Rainbow Research, to produce a Developmental Evaluation of CCM. The evaluators were “embedded” early on and provided ongoing feedback and reflection to teams so that projects could adjust in real time to get the best results. For more on this, see the Evaluation in Action profile.
ACCE developed a plan to sustain the program. While the Art Place grant stretched over the three year pilot phase, ACCE contributed departmental matching funds for the second and third years. They then secured an NEA grant to match those funds. ACCE also hired a program manager to support the partnerships and ensure future capacity for CCM.
Created by the LA County Board of Supervisors in 2017, the Creative Strategist program embeds artists who represent diverse communities in year-long, paid positions within county departments. The goal of the program is to develop and implement artist-driven solutions to civic challenges, and in the process improve how participating county agencies do their work.
The artist works alongside staff, project partners, community stakeholders, and other artists in a collaborative process to strategize, promote, implement, document and evaluate artist-driven solutions. Participating county departments include Mental Health, Parks and Recreation, Public Health, Library, and Registrar-Recorder.
The Restorative Arts program is a partnership between Nashville’s Office of Arts and Culture (Metro Arts), the Juvenile Court, and the Oasis Center to create an arts-based intervention system for court-involved youth. Research shows that youth engagement with the arts results in more investment in education, greater community engagement, and better self esteem and social skills. The program provides arts workshops, performances, and other arts experiences for youth in juvenile detention, and for families and youth who are otherwise court-involved.
Metro Arts and the Oasis Center trains teaching artists and partner organization staff in restorative practices, understanding systemic racism, trauma-informed care, positive youth development, non-violent communication and storytelling. This equips artists to be effective front-line service providers for youth. Teaching artists introduce participants to art forms including spoken word, storytelling, theater, creative writing, beat making, music production, dance, visual art, yoga, and drumming.
Restorative Arts is intentional in its commitment to equity because social, structural, and systemic inequities are at the core of trauma experienced by many young people who end up in the juvenile justice system. Before creating the program, Metro Arts staff worked to understand the oppressive structures that exist in its own agency work, in the systems in which it interacts, and in its partnership with Juvenile Justice Center. Only by analyzing inequity, could it devise the program that could help break down barriers.
Actors performing The Shape of Trust. From L to R: Ayo Tushinde, Aishé Keita, Nina Williams Teramachi, Monique Aldred, Tricia Castañeda-Gonzales, Anasofia Gallegos, Christi Cruz. Photo: Zorn Taylor.
Tyson Simmons of the Muckleshoot Tribe demonstrating traditional arts during the Muckleshoot TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) Expo. Photo: Zorn Taylor
A traditional herbal medicine created with members of the Muckleshoot tribe during the Muckleshoot TEK Expo.
Photo: Zorn Taylor
In alignment with the City's Race and Social Justice Initiative, Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture partners with the Office for Civil Rights in using the arts as a strategy to move toward racial equity and social justice within City agencies and across the City as a whole.
The Creative Strategies Initiative (CSI) is central to this work. CSI aims to shift government culture by using the arts to build racial equity in non-arts areas like the environment, housing, workforce and community development. One project, The Shape of Trust, began as a theater piece created from City employees' stories of racial harassment, discrimination, and institutional racism. CSI is using the piece as a base for building training curricula and coaching materials for city supervisors and managers about racial equity. Another project involved artist-in-residence Carina Del Rosario working with the City’s Environmental Justice Committee and leaders of the Muckleshoot Tribe to create an event for local government policy makers that includes cooking and eating Indigenous foods and creating a model for a policy on foraging.
Diana Falchuk, who leads the partnership between the Offices of Arts & Culture and Civil Rights, writes that in order to fight the injustices of white supremacy “...we must use art and humor to tell our own stories, ones of justice that wage love; and that local government has a role to play in our overall culture shift by transforming itself with the guidance of artists and grounding in creativity.”
2) Inclusiveness: Partners prioritize involving people in the municipality and community who have diverse backgrounds, expectations, and aesthetics. They do this by ensuring multiple forms of access and opportunities for participation.
3) Openness: Artists and municipalities should be open to each others’ approaches, and open to changing their own through collaboration with each other and with communities. Openness can be accomplished through a collaborative process and dialogue which is welcoming and respectful of different perspectives and viewpoints; suspends judgment; seeks equality among participants; and aims toward empathy and a common understanding. The outcome is a partnership that creates new possibilities and unexpected outcomes.
4) Responsiveness: When partners are responsive in a substantive and timely way, it helps build trust. This also includes being receptive and responsive to community partners and participating communities, and supporting their agency and input.
5) Transparency and honesty: The artist must be transparent to municipal partners, community stakeholders, and participants about the project, for example in how much time and emotional investment are needed for participation. Municipal partners must be transparent about availability of resources, boundaries, politics, and actions that will affect the partnership and the project. Both partners need to be honest, accurate, and transparent about their intentions, how they will share knowledge, points of disagreement or conflict, concerns about capacity, and when things aren’t working.
Allow Time to Build Relationships
Building relationships and navigating the learning curve in M/A partnerships requires the artist and agency to make time for each other. Some programs allow 3-6 months for partners to do this, as well as gain a mutual understanding of the issue at hand.
“...the reality is that [artists and city workers] learn from each other, and therefore duration is also important. Our rule of thumb is that all placements should be for a minimum of two years, longer for big projects.”
-Frances Whitehead, initiator of the Embedded Artist Project, Chicago
Find the Right Liaison
Not every municipal staffer can be an effective liaison between the city or agency and the artist. It’s crucial that they should be both a champion for the artist and able to work within bureaucratic systems. The ideal liaison:
sees value in the role of artists and wants to work with artists;
is open to change;
opens doors to others in the department to participate;
is a bridge builder, effective in translating and boundary crossing;
has credibility and authority within the system to advance the work;
champions the artist in navigating the system and working through challenge points;
is able and willing to make the time to partner.
Carol Owens, Director of Strategic Engagement and Marketing for the Boston Department of Neighborhood Development, was the liaison to artist Georgie Friedman for . She described her strengths as “I get things done! I have no fear of bureaucracy. I’m willing to twist arms and cajole.” Friedman agreed, “Carol was an awesome partner. She had my back.”
Boston, MA
Boston Artist in Residence Program (AIR)
Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, various city agencies & local artists
Artist Karen Young and artwork for her project Older and Bolder at the Boston AIR showcase, 2018. Photo: Ryan McMahon.
The Oral History Phone Booth, part of Daniel Johnson's project We Are Boston: Stories of Hope, Struggle, and Resilience, at the Boston AIR showcase, 2018.
Photo: Ryan McMahon
AIR Nakia Hill leading a writing workshop. Photo: City of Boston
Karen Young performing with Older and Bolder at National Night Out in Dorchester. Photo: City of Boston.
Steve Locke's Love Letter to a Library, at Central Branch of Boston Public Library. Photo: City of Boston
Nakia Hill leading a writing workshop with senior women, whose stories were featured in her intergenerational anthology I Still Did It: Stories of Resilience.Photo: City of Boston
The Boston Artists-in-Residence Program (Boston AIR) began in 2015, and was developed alongside the the City’s ten-year cultural strategic plan, Boston Creates. The AIR program positions social practice as an important part of government work and community engagement. Artists can help the city approach challenges in new ways, and lift up voices that are less often heard. The program aims to provide communities with more pathways to become active in shaping and understanding the policies that influence them.
Artists work with specific departments, neighborhoods, and/or within city programs such as after-school programs. As of 2019, 20 artists have participated. The AIR program uses a cohort model, in which multiple artists are working in the same year, and also convene for workshops, lectures, and to learn from each other. Cohorts may work with themes—for example the seven 2018 AIR projects were framed through a lens of Resilience and Racial Equity. For the first four months, the artists researched related City policies and practices such as climate change and aging. They then spent a year collaborating with community members and City officials on art projects that reframed public conversations around the issues. You can see some examples of the AIR cohort’s work in this video.
Tensions and conflict can be expected in any partnership and these can be the richest moments for learning and change. Addressing them requires honest and authentic exploration of issues as they come up; showing vulnerability and humility; and being committed to hanging in there. When necessary, identify a person or process to facilitate conflict mitigation.
While navigating differences, M/A partners should continually come back to the common ground they share their desire and commitment to make a difference!
“Underscore the commonalities.”
Maria Rosario Jackson, Urban Planner
Are You Ready for a Partnership?
Passion, creative possibilities and aspirations for meaningful outcomes can be hugely motivating for M/A partners. However it’s hard work to get there, and often stretches partners’ human, financial, and time resources. Use these questions to help gauge if you and your potential partner are ready to work together. Ask these early on in the process.
Questions for Municipalities
What core strengths, knowledge, sensibilities, and resources can we (as people and professionals) bring to the partnership?
What are the gaps? What more do we need to learn to help us imagine and define opportunities to work with artists in our community and/or agency?
To what degree are we able to allow aspects of the creative work to evolve through collaboration with the artist?
How open are we to new ways of working that may disrupt our usual practices? What is our risk threshold? Where can we bend and what are our risk limits? Can we be critically reflective of our work in order to pave the way for new ways of working?
Is the timing right to embark on this? What internal and external factors might propel or impede this work?
Do we have buy-in? Who are the champions in the city and in relevant departments? Who are the skeptics? Where are the barriers in the system that will require preliminary work to ensure buy-in and assistance?
Can and will we commit time and resources to pay artists fair compensation and provide space, access to staff, and other resources as needed?
How will we think about incorporating this work within staff roles and responsibilities, and compensation requirements?
Questions for Artists
What core strengths, knowledge, sensibilities, and resources can I bring to the partnership?
What are the gaps? What more do I need to learn that will help me imagine and define opportunities to work with the agency and to effectively engage community?
How will I handle working in the context of bureaucratic systems, timelines, and procedures? How will my practice need to bend to work within these parameters?
To what degree am I able to allow aspects of the creative work to evolve through collaboration with municipal partners and/or community members?
Am I the right artist for this context? What is my connection to the cultural context, issue, community, population and/or how will I assure credibility, authenticity, and integrity in the way that I work?
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