Schedule

Times are in Eastern Time
Subject to change. Registered attendees will have access to more details.

ON-DEMAND RECORDED SESSIONS

These are available through the app for registered attendees from March 24-May.

Arts Writing and Publishing as Creative Infrastructure

Led by Xiao deCuncha and Nyonu Branch-Watkins

Arts writers, critics, and publishing professionals will discuss how arts writing is an essential link in the arts & culture infrastructure. Some topics to be discussed include:

How do local arts and culture-focusing publications contribute to the development of the artistic community and connect the public with the arts?
How do art writers and artists mutually benefit each other when it comes to professional development?
What is the impact of the general lack of structured training for new art writers?
What type of programs can be incorporated into public and private programming from schools, galleries, organizations, and cultural institutions to ensure a robust art criticism community, especially in the Midwest (outside of Chicago)?
Faced with worsening funding struggles, how can independent publishers, art critics, and publications find creative ways to sustainability and lasting growth?
How can art writing serve as leverage to propel local artists into larger markets? And vice versa, how can art writing bridge the gap and bring in new ideas into local art scenes?
How do art writing and art/culture publications interact with activism, policymaking, and other pressing matters in civic spaces?

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Becoming a Teaching Artist

Led by Gowri Savoor and Heather Bryce, Co-directors of Teaching Artists Connect

In this fun and engaging session, participants will be introduced to the field of Teaching Artistry, and find alignments with the Artists Thrive Rubric, Planning and Capacity. We’ll explore what teaching artists do, what settings they work in, and how to generate income. We’ll define how teaching artists are different from art teachers and/or art therapists, and explore different residency settings where teaching artists can thrive. For those new to teaching artistry, we’ll introduce participants to different pathways to entering the field of teaching artistry, and offer strategies for assessment and documentation. In our final section, we’ll discuss what success looks like, and ask participants to complete a worksheet defining their unique attributes, passions, and goals, and how they can use their creativity to activate the artistry of others.

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Creating Your Own Artists’ Collective: Why, How, Where?!

Led by Alana Ladson, Freelance Artist

This presentation is about creating your own artist collective wherever you live or virtually. Alana will be speaking on her journey into creating her artist collective, The Rooted Collective, in Connecticut, and how she was able to run three cohorts of the fellowship and foster a sense of community amongst the members during that time. Here's how she did it, and here's how you can create your own!

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Creative Futures: Understanding Arts Alumni Experiences and Trajectories Through SNAAP Pulse

Led by Lee Ann Scotto Adams and Christian Folk, SNAAP

How do arts graduates build meaningful and sustainable lives in today’s creative economy? This session introduces insights from SNAAP Pulse, a new initiative of the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project that explores how arts alumni define success, sustain creative work, and adapt to challenges such as AI and financial precarity. Drawing on national survey data from thousands of graduates, presenters will highlight trends in creative careers, equity, and artistic identity after graduation. Participants will learn how institutions and arts organizations can apply SNAAP findings to strengthen alumni engagement, reimagine curriculum, and advocate for creative labor. By centering alumni voices and data-driven insights, this session invites educators, funders, and arts leaders to re-envision how we support artists across their careers and to imagine creative futures grounded in connection, evidence, and care.

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Estate Planning and Readiness for Musicians and Its Possibilities

Led by Gene Meneray & Ashlye Keaton, Co-founders of The Ella Project and Elizabeth Meneray, Founding Partner of the New Orleans law firm, Meneray Family Law, L.L.C.

The Ella Project presents Rampart: A Legacy Planning & Readiness Guide for Musicians. This is a step by step guide for musicians and/or their heirs to protect their legacy, their intellectual property, and prepare their estate. Rampart also provides guidance to heirs whose loved ones may have died without complete estate planning.

In this Guide, you’ll learn:

How to document your work right now to develop an estate plan.
How to work with museums and institutions if you are interested in leaving them assets.
How to protect your digital afterlife.
How to protect your files from loss, theft, fire, hurricane, flood or other disaster.
What information you need to draft a will.
What to do if someone dies without a will.
What documents you need (living will, power of attorney) to prepare to take care of your needs when you no longer can.
How to open a succession for a large or small estate.

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Findings from the National Survey of Artists

Led by Gwendolyn Rugg, Senior Research Scientist at National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and Jessica Feldman, Senior Research Associate at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The recent National Survey of Artists was commissioned by Mellon and conducted by NORC. This nationally representative survey provides a new perspective on the lives, work, and economic realities of artists across the United States. This was recording was shared by SNAAP who supported the project by administering the National Survey of Artists to arts graduates participating in the SNAAP Pulse project. The recording invites you to explore the findings report which shares key statistics on artists’ job holding, sources of income and benefits, health and well-being, and economic precarity. The technical report provides information on how NORC designed and fielded this innovative new survey.

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The Next Leader is You: Why Local Office Needs Your Voice

Led by Tom Tresser, 100K Project (www.100kproject.us)

Are YOU a leader? This presentation will help you realize that the answer is a loud “Hell, yes!” The presenter, Tom Tresser, has been mixing civics and the arts for over 30 years. He will demonstrate that the values, skills, and experiences that you use every day in your creative work are assets desperately needed in public life right now! The presentation will contain links to worksheets and other resources that will help you if your journey to lead in public life – including running for local office, helping someone run, and organizing for political power in order to serve and solve. Hey. It’s what we do!

1:00 pm ET

Registration Open

2:00 pm ET

National Welcome Session

Kick off your Summit experience with intention and excitement! Join us for this essential opening session where we'll ground ourselves in the spirit of Artists Thrive, setting a positive and collaborative tone for the days ahead.

We'll guide you through a brief exercise to help you write a meaningful goal for your time at the Summit, ensuring you focus on what matters most to your artistic journey.

Finally, we'll equip you with everything you need to navigate the Summit Whova app like a pro! Discover all the "bells and whistles" – from session locations and networking opportunities to recorded content and helpful resources. We'll ensure you have the inside scoop to make the absolute most of your week and leave feeling energized and empowered.

Don't miss this crucial first step in your Summit adventure!

3:00 pm ET

Networking Game

4:00 pm ET

National Breakout Sessions

I am For A Nation…

For this session, Mark will invite all 6 sites to create a collective manifesto for our country: "I am for a nation…." The workshop starts with a discussion about social sculpture and the ways we shape the world through our words, thoughts, and actions. This will be the foundation for our time together. Participants will then complete their "I am for a nation…" statements at their tables. They would also share with each other at their tables, then from each location. By naming the kind of city we want, participants can begin to name next steps in their own creative practices that align with the collective manifesto. After the workshop, we will compile the statements together into a document to be shared with all participants across all 6 locations. Participants would also be invited to activate the project in their own contexts, at any time, without the need for permission. This form is a tool that can be used by anyone.

Lead Presenter: Mark Menjivar, TX

The Creative Revolution: AI and the Issues at Stake

Artificial intelligence is not just another digital tool for the arts. It is a structural technology — one that is quietly rewiring how creative work is made, owned, distributed, discovered, and valued. In this talk, ArtsJournal founder and Diacritical author Douglas McLennan examines how AI is beginning to scramble the cultural sector’s operating assumptions: who counts as an artist, what institutions are for, how audiences find meaning, and how creative labor is compensated. Drawing on his ongoing writing about AI and creativity — from copyright and training-data conflicts to the emergence of synthetic media ecosystems — McLennan maps the shift from a human-centered creative economy to one increasingly mediated by generative systems.

At the center of the talk is a national experiment: the Regional Arts Organizations’ AI artist-commission initiative, which asks artists to engage AI not simply as a tool but as a cultural condition. The project offers a practical lens for understanding both the opportunities and risks AI presents — new forms of collaboration and expression alongside profound questions about authorship, labor, provenance, and trust. Rather than framing AI as either salvation or threat, this talk explores it as infrastructure: a technology that will reshape how arts organizations do business, reach audiences, support artists, and define cultural value. The question is no longer whether AI will change the creative sector, but how consciously the sector will participate in shaping what comes next.

Led by: Douglas McLennan, founder and editor of ArtsJournal

5:30 pm ET

Lay of the Land Session

This opening “Lay of the Land” conversation will ground summit participants in the history, culture, and development of Lowell, Massachusetts. Through perspectives from local historians, cultural leaders, and community voices, panelists will explore the forces that have shaped Lowell, from its industrial roots and immigrant communities to its evolution as a creative and educational city today. This session will provide essential context for visitors, highlighting how Lowell’s layered history, diverse communities, and ongoing civic conversations connect to the summit’s theme of spatial justice and the role of arts and culture in shaping place.

7:00 pm ET

Group Dinner at Western Avenue Studios

9:00am ET

Field Trip - Centering Youth Voice: Co-Creating Creative Space with Young People at Elevated Thought, Lawrence, MA

Youth-centered creative spaces are not only built around what young people say they need, they are places where clarity, confidence, and vision emerge through artistic practice. This panel centers organizations that co-create space with youth, positioning them as decision-makers and cultural leaders. Panelists will share how participatory design, youth governance, and creative expression shape spaces that foster belonging, agency, and long-term growth. This session will be off-site and include a tour of Elevated Thought and panel discussion.

9:00 am ET

Local Breakout Sessions

Homes for Our Imagination: Designing Creative Futures Through Space & Belonging

This session is an art-centered, participatory workshop that invites artists, cultural workers, educators, and organizers to explore how creative space and a sense of belonging shape our ability to imagine and build just futures. Rooted in the belief that space is both physical and emotional, the session blends visual storytelling with spatial justice practices to help participants reflect on the places that have shaped their creativity and envision the spaces they need now and in the future. Through guided reflection, collective dialogue, and hands-on making, attendees will examine the impact of displacement, cultural erasure, and gentrification on their communities, and they will identify pathways for preserving and cultivating artist-centered spaces that foster resilience and cultural continuity. This workshop offers a grounding, imaginative experience paired with practical takeaways for local action.

Led by Ngoc-Tran Vu, Vietnamese American visual artist and cultural organizer

Funding Arts Real Estate: Strategies in a Challenging Climate

Preserving and developing space for artists and arts organizations is central to a thriving cultural ecospace. The primary question for most of these projects is where to find the needed capital to accomplish your space goals—during acquisition, pre-development, construction, and the rent up phase. In this session, participants will learn from real estate funding experts about the pros and cons of various sources for funds and how best to navigate the current fiscal climate.

Moderated by Jeremy Liu

10:30 am ET

Local Breakout Sessions

Who Belongs Here? The Power of Building Community

In this interactive workshop, artist and community builder Yahira Torres explores how belonging shapes creative spaces and why it is central to spatial justice. Drawing from her work founding the Lion-ess Retreat and her roles at Western Avenue Community for the Arts and Refuge Art School, Yahira will guide participants through reflections and activities that examine the relationships between space, identity, safety, and connection. Together, participants will consider how creative communities can foster emotional safety, cultural relevance, and equitable access, whether within physical spaces or through intentional community practices. The session will offer practical tools and ideas for artists and organizers seeking to cultivate spaces where people feel seen, supported, and empowered to thrive.

Led by Yahira Torres, Lion-ess Retreat, Western Avenue Studios, & Refuge Art School

Drafting a Proforma: How to Develop This Concrete Tool for Your Funding Plan

The proforma is of central importance for building your case for funding a real estate project. It tells the story about why you need funds and without it, you will not be approved for a real estate loan or major grant. In this session, participants will learn the fundamentals of creating a proforma for their real estate project, including key terminology and how to tailor it for different audiences. Participants will leave with a sample proforma that can be modified for your project.

Session Presenters: Steve Pratt Otto, Financing Consultant, Banker; Jim Grace, A&BC Creative Land Trust Initiative

12:00 pm ET

Local Breakout Sessions

The Art of Holding Space: Building Empowering Creative Environments Through Access + Belonging.

This panel examines how creative spaces—formal and informal—become engines for empowerment, identity, healing, and economic mobility. Rooted in Matthew’s decade of work building artist-centered programs, youth studios, drop-ins, workshops, and multidisciplinary hubs, the session explores how access to space transforms the trajectory of both individuals and neighborhoods. The panel will pair creative practitioners with community organizers to share practical tools, policies, and collaborative strategies

that sustain long-term spatial justice.

Led by: Matthew Wolterding, My Beautiful Mind

Western Avenue Studios & Lofts Tour

Join us for a guided tour of Western Avenue Studios & Lofts, one of the largest artist studio complexes in the United States and a cornerstone of Lowell’s creative community. Housed in a historic mill building along the Merrimack River, Western Avenue is home to hundreds of working artists and residents and has played a key role in Lowell’s creative economy for decades. Participants will explore studio spaces, learn about the building’s history and artist-led redevelopment, and hear how this unique live/work model supports artists while contributing to the cultural vitality of the city.

Led by Hope Greene

1:00 pm ET

Lunch

2:00 pm ET

National Breakout Sessions

A Rally for Cultural Placekeeping: Building Affordable, Accessible, and Creative Communities

Across the country, creative spaces are disappearing due to market pressures, displacement, and inequitable growth. As a response, artists and cultural leaders are partnering with civic and economic organizations to redefine what equitable development looks like. This panel highlights Rally Austin, a real estate nonprofit created by the City of Austin to steward public and private assets toward community benefit through initiatives like the Austin Cultural Trust and Iconic Venue Fund. This panel will explore innovative, artist-centered approaches to real estate and cultural infrastructure, strategies for growth, and replicable models of creative placekeeping. Attendees will gain practical insight into frameworks that support equitable, creative ecosystems and learn how artists and cultural workers can be active stakeholders in shaping the cities and communities where they live and work.

Panel organized by Sara Vanderbeek, TX

Money Mindfulness: Rewriting Your Financial Story with Self-Care and Vision

This workshop invites artists and creative entrepreneurs to explore the intersection of money, mindfulness, and self-worth. Through guided reflection, group dialogue, and a hands-on table activity, participants will examine personal money narratives, identify scarcity patterns, and map a values-aligned vision for financial resilience. Rooted in contemplative practices and practical tools, the session supports shifting limiting beliefs around money. By integrating mindfulness with creative financial planning, it offers a compassionate, empowering approach to building a healthier relationship with money. Participants will reflect on money stories, clarify values, and sketch a vision for financial well-being—encouraging self-care, clarity, and action to move from financial stress to intentional, values-driven decision-making.

Led by: Rhonda Schaller, NJ and Dr. Esmilda Abreu, NJ

3:00 pm ET

Mindful Pause Activities & Break

4:00 pm ET

National Breakout Sessions

We Will Not Go Silent: Building Communities of Care Through Creative Collaboration

How do artists sustain creativity and community in the face of challenge, distance, and change? In this interactive presentation, four members of Breaking Wave Theatre Company (BWTC) - a community-rooted, artist-led organization from Guåhan (Guam) – will invite participants to explore how care, culture, and collaboration can shape thriving creative ecosystems. BWTC ensemble members will share real-world strategies for building partnerships rooted in reciprocity, shared power, and belonging. Participants will reflect on their own creative practices and communities - asking how collaboration can become a form of care, and how care itself can become an act of artistic resistance.

Led by: CJ Ochoco, Breaking Wave Theatre Company, Guam

The Art of the Pivot (Strategic Change Management for Arts Leaders of the Global Majority)

We are living in an era marked by uncertainty and precarity in our sector and society in ways that are unprecedented in recent decades. One that requires us to be grounded in our center and equipped to pivot the ways we steward, manage and lead change. This workshop will provide insight into a step-by-step process developed by a table of arts leaders of the global majority across US and Canada. This resource exists to support arts leaders of color to dynamically navigate pivots and steward change (both externally imposed, and internally devised).

Lead Presenter: Phoenix Sun Park, Voice of Purpose

5:00 pm ET

National Networking

6:00 pm ET

Dinner and Tour: HIVE Market

Join us for a visit to The HIVE Market, a vibrant creative marketplace in downtown Lowell that brings together artists, makers, and small business owners under one roof. During this tour, attendees will hear a short presentation from the HIVE founders about the vision behind the market and its role in supporting creative entrepreneurship and community-centered retail. Participants will then have time to explore the space, meet the artists and shop owners who call the HIVE home, and enjoy food while experiencing one of Lowell’s growing creative hubs.

9:00 am ET

Local Breakout Sessions

Artists-in-Residency – or how to unpack a bridge

This session explores “Art in the Neighborhood,” an artist residency model developed by the Ministry of Future Access in partnership with the Community Libraries of Providence. Instead of traditional studio-based residencies, the program uses “third spaces” such as libraries to connect artists with neighborhood residents and creative processes. Through a presentation by founder Nan Joubá, participants will learn how the program supports artists, fosters bilingual community learning, and addresses neighborhood change, including a 2024 residency focused on the history and impacts of displacement in Providence’s Lippitt Hill neighborhood. The session will highlight lessons learned and invite participants to consider how similar community-based residency models could be adapted in their own cities.

Led by Nan Joubá

Public Art for Spatial Justice: Remembering & Carrying Forward Our Lineages of Imagination

How does artist-led public art activate collective memory and visions for spatial justice? How can public art help us step into these new ways of being?

This panel convenes NEFA Senior Program Director for Public Art Kim Szeto, Arts Equity Group’s Danielle Amodeo, and Public Art for Spatial Justice (PASJ) grantees crystal bi and Dzidzor Azaglo to examine how community-rooted public art generates layered, measurable, and sometimes unexpected impacts.

The session will open with an overview of NEFA’s Public Art for Spatial Justice framework, followed by a preview of preliminary findings from AEG’s multi-year public art impact assessment. crystal bi and Dzidzor Azaglo will then share how the Department of Public Imagination has been shaped by lineages of imagination, physical changes to community spaces over time, and collective visions for the now and the future. Together, we will explore how public art can activate our spatial imagination so that we can carry our memories and dreams into reality.

10:00 am ET

Tour of the Lowell National Historical Park (10:00am-12:30pm)

Join us for a field trip to the Lowell National Historical Park to explore the Boott Cotton Mills Museum and the One City, Many Cultures exhibit. Participants will learn about Lowell’s origins as one of America’s first planned industrial cities and how the textile industry shaped its economy, workforce, and built environment. The visit will also highlight the diverse immigrant and refugee communities that have contributed to Lowell’s cultural identity over generations. Through this tour, attendees will gain deeper insight into the city’s layered history and how Lowell’s past continues to inform conversations about community, culture, and spatial justice today.

10:30 am ET

Local Breakout Sessions

The Power & Place of Arts & Culture in Public Markets

This session, led by A Trike Called Funk, explores how participatory arts programming can activate public markets and strengthen connections between artists and community spaces. Through examples of past event series hosted at local markets, the session will highlight engaging, artist-led experiences featuring rotating collaborations across creative disciplines including music, dance, and visual art. Participants will learn how partnerships between artists and public markets are formed, discover practical approaches to designing interactive cultural programming, and gain insight into funding opportunities that can support arts and culture activities in market environments.

Led by Aaron Myers co-led by Edword Galan

Spatial Justice: From Creative Space Crisis to Community Opportunity
Across Massachusetts and beyond, creative spaces are disappearing, from artist studios to cultural anchors and incubator spaces. But this is not just an “artist problem.” It is a community issue that affects local economies, small businesses, education systems, and neighborhood identity.

This panel explores the widespread loss of creative space through case studies like the Star Store in New Bedford and Mill 5 in Lowell, examining both crisis and resilience. Panelists will discuss how policy, advocacy, funding tools, and cross-sector partnerships can protect and reimagine space as essential community infrastructure, and what practical strategies attendees can bring back to their own cities.
Led by Emily Ruddock, Annis Sengupta, Margo Saulnier, Ami Bennitt

12:00 pm ET

Local Breakout Sessions

Spatial Justice: Reclaiming our Rights to Be, Thrive, Express and Connect

What becomes possible when we think of spatial justice as our collective right to be, thrive, express, and connect in space? This interactive workshop invites participants to explore their relationships to space, power, and justice through a holistic lens that engages body, heart, mind, and memory. Together, we will examine how spatial politics shape the experiences of artists and communities, and how organizing to listen to, reclaim, and transform space can be a powerful tool for change. Participants will engage with a spatial justice framework, reflect on how it intersects with their identities and lived experiences, including as artists, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ community members, youth, elders, and Lowell residents, and share ideas for advancing spatial justice in their own communities through artmaking, public projects, co-design, collective imagination, and community organizing.

Session Presenters: Anulfo Baez, Design Gym Lead; Crystal Bi, Practicing Methodologies Lead, DS4SI; Lori Lobenstine, co-author, Spatial Justice framework and co-founder, DS4SI

Speed Networking

Western Avenue Studios & Lofts Tour

Led by Hope Greene

1:00 pm ET

Lunch

2:00 pm ET

National Breakout Sessions

Designing Funding that Nourishes the Artist - Not Just Their Output

What if funding didn’t just fuel the next project - but actually nourished the whole artist? This session centers four community-designed funding models - the BIPOC Artist Fund, Creative West Artist Fund, Cultural Sustainability Program, and Pacific Jurisdictions Artist Fund - that are reshaping the landscape by centering artist well-being, not just productivity. Led by cultural strategist Anika Tené alongside brilliant co-designers, this session dives into what it truly looks like when wellness, pacing, and relational trust are designed into funding from the start - not treated as afterthoughts. Participants will hear how these initiatives rejected extractive grantmaking and instead embedded coaching, wellness stipends, and flexible timelines to reflect the lived realities of artists - particularly those in BIPOC, Indigenous, rural, and under-resourced communities. Participants will walk away with concrete strategies, adaptable frameworks, and inspiration to champion care-centered, equity-rooted funding practices within their own institutions and networks.

Led by: Anika Tene, VA

Changemakers in Civic Spaces – Strategic Advocacy Pathways for Creatives

Artists are catalysts for empathy, innovation, and change. How can creative voices shape civic life and public policy? Changemakers in Civic Spaces explores how artists can move from community-based action to influencing decision-making at local, state, and federal levels. Three dynamic panelists will share real-world strategies across three key pathways: Community Organizing, where creative practice mobilizes neighborhoods and builds collective voice; Advocacy for All, which maps access points for every level of engagement from small, everyday actions to sustained leadership; and Creatives in Office, guiding artists who aspire to serve in appointed or elected roles. Participants will leave with practical tools, frameworks, and inspiration to see themselves as changemakers in civic spaces. They will gain a deeper understanding of how artistic skills translate into organizing, policy influence, and governance; recognize multiple entry points for advocacy regardless of experience level; and build confidence to move from awareness to action. The session fosters connection, empowerment, and a shared vision for sustainable, artist-led advocacy that drives thriving creative communities.

Organized by: Eepi Chaad, TX

3:30 pm ET

Sending Session

4:30 pm ET

Summit ends

Schedule

Times are in Eastern Time Subject to change. Registered attendees will have access to more details.

Times are in Eastern Time
Subject to change. Registered attendees will have access to more details.