Mission
With the intentional focus on rising arts leaders of color, we believe that the solution to overcoming racial inequity in the field begins by addressing the pipeline.
CultivArt is a free, interactive, online resource hub for people of the global majority interested in exploring arts administration or seeking to further their organizational and management skills, develop a career trajectory, and establish a community within the arts and culture sector.
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*For this project, people of color or people of the global majority are defined as: African Diaspora (Black/African Descent, African American, African Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latinx/e), First Nations/Native American/Indigenous/Indigena (the Americas and Caribbean), Oceania/Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian, SSWANA (South Asian, Southwest Asian, North African), ESEA (East Asian, Southeast Asian)
Inception
From 2015 to 2019, the National Endowment for the Arts found that White [non-Latinx/e] people made up 74.5% of management roles in performing arts organizations and 79.3% of management roles in visual arts and museums despite only accounting for 62.2% of management roles in the United States workforce.
As a 2023 Turn the Spotlight Fellow, CultivArt founding director Jaime Sharp was tasked with curating a project to support equity within the arts. The question that drives her personal mission is how might we diversify arts leadership to challenge structural exclusion. In the expedition to address this obstacle, one of the core structures to revise is the pipeline – which can be altered by increasing education and access for people of color.
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With the guidance of her mentors, Afa Dworkin, and Melissa Wegner, the three brought the idea of an online resource hub for arts leaders of color to fruition. Over the past year, Jaime has collected, organized, and disseminated information on the knowledge instilled in them as an emerging professional and information to help reinforce a triumphant career in arts leadership.
