11 Weeks In - Survey of Ineffable Economics, NYC VOAD Workgroup, and UN75
I’m long overdue in keeping this newslog up to date - but now 11 weeks of nonstop work, support, caregiving, and thought are taking forms of sustained Covid-19 responses.
) As a third phase of our Economic Impacts research project, ALI has launched the Survey of Ineffable Economics, which ALL workers are invited to fill out, to help you vent, complain, and mourn, and to help us understand more richly how Covid-19 is transforming the reality of labor and care in the modern economy.
) ALI, along with Elevated Studio and the Centre for Social Innovation, has been convening a working group of artists and member organizations of the NYC Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster (NYC VOAD). Our goal is to bring to bear artists’ unique ways of knowing on the crisis of grieving in a pandemic that requires us to be isolated. The VOAD movement is equipped for disaster relief in many forms, but this psycho/social/emotional catastrophe - unfolding on a global scale - is not one of them. Working together with artists we are seeking to generate models and a report that can be shared with the National VOAD, and catalyze a role for artists in disaster relief all across the country.
) ALI is joining together with The Future is Unwritten (Culturunners/World Council of Peoples for the United Nations) and UN75 for a multi-pronged initiative exploring the role of artists and arts/cultural institutions in the pivotal next 25 years. Much more about this forthcoming soon, but we will be pursuing our continuing mission of elevating artists above the things they make, and modeling how artists as global and community leaders is not only possible, but essential to realizing the just and sustainable survival of our species on this planet.
) ALI is concluding a yearlong consultancy with scientists at Cornell University to ideate, strategize, and design, an interdisciplinary research center with a Charrette@Cornell in June, which will culminate in a findings and recommendations report that we hope to be implementing in Ithaca (and beyond) in the year to come.
) Oh, and in between I’ve been putting words together to try and make sense of some things… click on over and read and send me your thoughts
Lots of new updates to come, so keep connected by signing up for the ALI email list and following on Instagram. And if you are interested in collaborating, partnering, joining, supporting, working together, or however you want to phrase it - now is a great time to connect. Email here!