FRIDAY JUNE 24
AFTERNOON & EVENING

Regional Collaborations:
Location, Connection, Collaboration

Presented by: Kate Hackman, Ben Heywood,
Chris Lynn, Shannon Stratton + Steve Taylor

How do organizations located in cities outside of major commercial art centers envision their role and responsibility? How do they measure their scope and ambitions? And how can they support, promote, and respond to artists and their local and regional cultural ecosystem, while keeping national relationships and relevance in perspective? Session leaders will discuss these questions and explore what role collaboration might play in advancing the mission and extending the reaches and resources of our organizations.

Dealing with Shrinking Budgets:
The Practical Side of Sustainability

Presented by: Ben Aase, Larson Allen

Many of the dynamic discussions within your organization assume that the future will not – must not – look like the past. But have your practices and understanding of financial management kept pace? Come share and learn about ways in which your peer organizations are breaking through “deficit thinking,” whether by revisiting financial fundamentals or making structural changes to their thinking and approach.

Publishing: 5 Models

Led by: Tod Lippy w/ Fairfax Dorn, Anne Barlow,
Peter Russo + Max Schumann

In this session five individuals employ the pecha kucha format to present markedly different approaches to the ever-evolving field of arts publishing. Tod Lippy is the editor of Esopus, a semiannual arts journal published in New York City with a purposefully eclectic, resolutely non-commercial focus; Anne Barlow, executive director at NYC’s Art in General, oversees that organization’s New Commissions publication and library exchange programs; Fairfax Dorn is the co-founder of Ballroom Marfa, an exhibition and performance space in Marfa, Texas, that also publishes artists’ editions, CDs, posters, and catalogs; Max Schumann is the associate director of Printed Matter, the world’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to artists’ publications; and Peter Russo is editorial and program director for Triple Canopy, an online magazine, workspace, and platform for editorial and curatorial activities.

Nomadic Programming

Presented by: Mark Allen, Courtney Fink,
Delicia Harvey + Jeff Khonsary

Aurora Picture Show, Fillip, Machine Project, and Southern Exposure reflect on their nomadic nature in this discussion session. Each organization has a home-base, but also present work within other art venues, at public locations, and in other cities and countries. How does creating and presenting programming in a variety of contexts re-define our approach to curating? Join us for a think-tank style discussion to consider the nomadic program model and its potential.

Friends with Benefits: Sustained Institutional Collaboration, Co-Habitation, Co-Production

Presented by: Diane Barber + Kevin Chen

What models exist for expanding our limited resources and building our abilities to cultivate new audiences? Session leaders discuss their history and experience with long-term institutional collaboration with other organizations, highlighting best practices and missed opportunities, and help facilitate discussion of other models from around the country. Learn from peers at the convening of what has worked well, and where opportunities lie for further growth.

Archiving as Presentation

Presented by: Lauren Cornell + Aaron Levy

The modern world is caught up in a kind of perpetual war between memory and forgetfulness. In this session, speakers and attendees will engage in a conversation about how they negotiate this tension through archival practices and methodologies that approach the archive as more than just a static repository of past productions. Speakers and attendees will share their perspectives and practices concerning the technological and ethical challenges of building and authoring an archive; the possibilities of sharing archival resources and findings across diverse organizations and publics; and the ways that an archive can extend a program beyond the original time and space of the project.

The Board as Partner in Risk-Taking

Presented by: Nancy Lee, Larson Allen

Effective boards partner with the executive director in making decisions about risk assessment, risk management, strategic direction, and new opportunities. How do boards balance their responsibilities to ensure due diligence and prudent use of resources while remaining appropriately opportunistic? How can your board build capacity for this important work? We will talk about some of the elements of good decision-making, and the roles played by board structure and culture. Participants will share their own experiences and lessons learned.

Regional Collaborations, Continued

Presented by: Open Session
This session is meant to build on the 1:30PM session

Dealing with Shrinking Budgets

Presented by: Ben Aase, Larson Allen

Many of the dynamic discussions within your organization assume that the future will not – must not – look like the past. But have your practices and understanding of financial management kept pace? Come share and learn about ways in which your peer organizations are breaking through “deficit thinking,” whether by revisiting financial fundamentals or making structural changes to their thinking and approach.

Epic Fail: What I Did Wrong…
Horror Stories, Lessons Learned, and Things I’ll Never Do Again

Led by: Sina Najafi

Non-profits, ever desperate for funding and attention, are encouraged to present to their public only their successes. That means we only tell half of our stories, keeping to ourselves the dizzying failures, the miserable experiments, and the horror stories. This session encourages the opposite: it asks that you come forward and share the disappointments, wrong turns, and embarrassments. Voyeurism is not encouraged in this session! Come with your stories! We imagine that this will be at least as instructive as hearing about the successes.

Pecha Kucha

Priority for Individuals new to Initiative organizations

More on Pecha Kucha format

Ranger-Led Tours of Headlands

Walks will leave from Headlands 944 Entrance

Travel to Hotel

Travel to Dinner Destination

Buses leave promptly at 7PM