Ben Fink and Kate Fowler on Arlene Goldbard’s podcast talking about Art in a Democracy and Southern Arts and Culture Coalition
Arlene Goldbard’s book, In The Camp of Angels, January 2023
Arlene Goldbard, Ben Fink, Kate Fowler
“By the time that Kate and I both came to Appalshop in 2015, it was an organization that had for 20 years been fighting for its life at the height of a long campaign to defund and privatize anything that could be considered public life, a public commonwealth—that whole idea of the arts and humanities belong to everyone.” - Ben Fink
“Ben and I both left the organization at around the same time. He went back to the East Coast. I’m back home in Richmond, Virginia, at a three staff nonprofit called Studio Two Three, which is a community print shop and community art center that has over 180 artists members. We also support people making art for social change.” - Kate Fowler
“Art in a Democracy provides ample and fascinating context. Reading it made me think a lot about legacy, how community artists who came up decades ago pass on what has been learned without being preachy or condescending. Neither attitude shows up here. What struck me most powerfully was reading about the evolution of Roadside’s approach as it unfolded through stages of learning and experimentation, building on that experience, then watching changes in the systems and structures that supported it render that learning far more difficult to apply. The backdrop was a conventional system of “audience development,” where theaters put on mainstage productions, sell season subscriptions, hope their advertising sells tickets if they tour: a transactional model. In contrast, as you’ll read in the books, Roadside had a sustaining success by building relationship: spending time, collaborating deeply, bringing as much nourishment to the places they visited as to their own place. When they started, the typical audience survey of U.S. theaters revealed a largely white and prosperous audience, but as their way of working evolved, the figures for Roadside’s own performances portrayed an economically and racially diverse audience that suggested to the theater world what was possible. When the funds to sustain that approach were cut off, audience surveys snapped back to the bad old days. The question arises whether a new generation will able to use and develop that model under current economic and political conditions.” - Arlene Goldbard
Click the image above to read the article or listen to the Podcast