Third Coast Review is launching The Art of Survival, a research and reporting series that will look at how small and medium size arts organizations in Chicago are surviving and planning for their futures. Our theme is a “Temperature Check” on how the recent pandemic and economic slowdown plus the current political authoritarianism and rejection of the arts are making life difficult for arts organizations.
Our plan is to interview representatives of theaters, art galleries, bookstores, music clubs, niche museums, plus local artists and filmmakers, with specific questions about their quandaries and prospects. By “small organizations,” we mean theaters and arts organizations with annual budgets of less than $500,000; “medium organizations” would have annual budgets of less than $2.5 million. Most of the interviews will be conducted via email.
The project will be managed by Karin McKie, one of our veteran arts writers and organizers of arts events, with the support of publisher Nancy Bishop, managinizg editor Lisa Trifone and deputy managing editor Julian Ramirez. We expect many of our arts writers to contribute too.
We’re currently making our list of organizations that fit our definition of small and medium, but if you would like to participate, don’t hesitate to let us know. You can do that by writing to info@thirdcoastreview.com or to publisher Nancy Bishop at nancy@thirdcoastreview.com. Send your name, organization, email address and mobile phone number by Monday, July 21. Participants will be eligible to win one of three $100 gift cards to be awarded in a drawing.
Our reporting series will include two or three articles telling the stories of our interviewees and then a final report, summarizing the work and pointing the way toward what we hope will be a better future for the arts in Chicago and the nation. The articles will be published in August and September.
This Temperature Check series is being funded by a grant from the Alliance Matters project of the Chicago Independent Media Alliance, which is part of the organization, Public Narrative.
The Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA) is a coalition of community-centered media organizations committed to building a more equitable and representative local media landscape. Our members span legacy print outlets, digital-first platforms, newsletters, podcasts, youth-led media, filmmakers, and more—many of them BIPOC-owned, BIPOC-led, and rooted in historically underserved communities.
