Chair Williams asks Casals how artist residencies could become citywide policy

Thank you.

Gonzalo, you mentioned the public artist in residence as a residency.

What would it look like as a citywide policy?

I think that would be helpful to understand, like, how can we make this a policy versus just sort of a residency?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's a great program.

I think it should be doing more of that and invest much more on artists.

But again, right, that was the first step that the de Blasio administration took, you know, 12 years ago into embedding culture in every aspect of city life, right?

But it's just one artist doing a project, discrete project here and there.

We need to think about cross-sector immediately for many reasons.

One is we want to be self-serving, right?

But that's the way we're going to be able to be able to do it.

to bring new funds to the system.

Two is we have this incredible, as Sayyaf said, this incredible infrastructure of cultural organizations that could be doing so much more, right, if we all plan, you know, in a way that with coordination and intention.

I think, you know, in a way what we're trying to do is we're trying to put a square peg through a hole, right?

The way we distribute resources, resources for cultural organizations in the city of New York is through a patronage model, right?

It looks like we're in the 19th century.

The Department of Health spends more money on the South Bronx because there are higher asthma rates.

Why we cannot spend more money in culture knowing that it has all this incredible impact that we just learned from our friends in SIEP.

Right.

So make the policy.

Make it not just a residency of an artist, but let's cultural policy how it can affect other policies across the city.