ACI is a Bost0n-based, globally reaching, 501(c)(3).

OUR MISSION

ACI builds equity in and through the arts.

OUR VALUES

1) art is a human right

2) art creates cross-cultural understanding, deep and meaningful learning, creative expression, and community building, making it an adaptive tool for social justice

3) change must be fostered at a community contextualized level to be sustainable

4) creative justice requires us to collaboratively work towards equity and liberation

OUR GOAL

Creative justice is our ultimate goal. Simplified, creative justice is the manifestation of all people living creative and expressive lives on their own terms (Cuyler, 2019)

Creative justice employs three working concepts:

1) objective respect

2) parity of participation

3) reduction of harms (Banks, 2017)

Creative justice is the step beyond cultural equity, as it gives an asset-based framework or guide for a field-level analysis and reformation, reflecting a restorative justice stance.

CULTURAL EQUITY

There is a “cultural equity gap”* within the United States arts landscape, expressing an unequal representation of various identities in the arts, including, but not limited to race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status (class). This gap arises from systemic inequities in access to the arts as well as access to positions of power.

This impacts leadership development and demographics within:

• Arts management and leadership

• Arts training

• Arts funding

• Art production and valuation

When addressing equity within the US landscape, it is impossible to escape the nation’s history of slavery, genocide, and oppression, leading to systemic and institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, ableism, and, more directly, the rise and valuation of patriarchal white supremacy as the founding blocks of this nation. In turn, historically white, affluent, cis-gendered, able-bodied individuals, families, and institutions have been afforded the privilege of systemically defining value and how value is propositioned in the US. ACI aims to rectify this imbalance of power, and narrative, through building equity and inclusion both in, and through, the arts.

* the “cultural equity gap” is an adapted term from American’s for the Arts Statement on Cultural Equity, released in 2016.