Racial Equity in the Arts Innovation Lab
Skills: Strategic Planning, Project Management, Internal and External Communications, Editing and Proofreading
Task
In February 2019, the International Center of Photography joined Race Forward’s Racial Equity in the Arts Innovation Lab, a training program dedicated to increasing racial equity in New York City–based arts organizations. I was selected to serve on a committee of four interdepartmental representatives from ICP to participate in the nine-month Innovation Lab. We were tasked with developing a prototype—based on concrete, actionable, race-explicit interventions—that would a working knowledge and practice of equity within our organization.
I was selected to serve on a committee of four interdepartmental representatives from ICP to participate Race Forward’s Racial Equity in the Arts Innovation Lab, a nine-month commitment including four in-person training sessions.
Action
In order to draw on the strengths of staff members within ICP, we formalized and facilitated organization-wide meetings of the Equity Working Group. We generated a one-pager of our mission and priorities that our executive director shared with staff, and created structures, systems, and space for meetings that explicitly addressed opportunities to increase racial equity through the organization’s workplace culture and programming.
Specifically, I:
Adapted Race Forward’s work plan model into a spreadsheet system that allowed Equity Working Group members to capture goals, next steps, and results. This made it easier for us to track and report out on our work.
Crafted templates for agendas, notes, and calendar invites that streamline workflow, allowing us to spend less time organizing ourselves and more time organizing the racial equity work.
Continue to lead the Equity Working Group’s governance structures subgroup, which provides recommendations for creating and implementing systems that strengthen communication and collaboration across the institution.
Result
Clarifying the Equity Working Group’s mission, priorities, and execution plan has allowed our Innovation Lab prototype to serve as a solid base for making progress on racial equity at ICP. With support from Race Forward’s coaches and training resources, we’ve been able to develop an agile, efficient working group that’s checking off its goals.
Accomplishments and activities include:
Institutional adoption of Land Acknowledgement
Institutional adoption of Statement of Accessibility and Inclusion
Staff field trip to Cuchifritos Gallery at Essex Market
Staff field trip to Black Gotham Experience’s Other Side of Wall Street (1609–1644) walking tour
Six three-hour sessions of mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training for all staff, with additional training for faculty and full-time students
In July 2019, the Equity Working Group organized an off-site at Cuchifritos Gallery to view Keep Me Nearby, an exhibition of text and images that reflect on a series of formally vacant lots in Manhattan’s Lower East Side known as the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA). ICP relocated to Essex Crossing, property built on this contested land, in January 2020. The visit offered an opportunity for Equity Working Group members to reflect on and discuss what it means to enter a community under these circumstances.
Image: Jacque Donaldson