DEEPENING OUR COMMITMENT TO BE PART OF THE CHANGE

From our Executive Director and Board Chair

We're honored to share this first annual report with you as we collectively experience the anniversary of a very difficult year. This report celebrates everyone who helped create the conditions for Forecast to serve and thrive in 2020 under the most challenging circumstances. This is an act of gratitude from our team to our partners in the community, the artists we work and collaborate with and the funders and donors who believe in our work. It is a thank you for those people who have trusted us to take risks when we were in uncharted waters advancing more equitable places in our world.

Three years ago, with full support of the board, we embarked on a new strategic planning process for Forecast’s future. In tandem with deep internal racial equity work, this plan was rooted in two fundamental themes: become a more adaptive, nimble and generous organization to address the most pressing issues of our time and put a clear stake in the ground about the kind of impact artists can have in the world to advance justice, fight racism and improve community health.

As we adopted this strategic plan in March 2020, we didn’t know a pandemic would be hitting the world and impacting all of our lives. Thankfully, the plan provided a guide for our decision-making day by day over the next year, allowing our team to continually adapt and remain responsive to the needs of artists and the community. With a timely and relevant mission focused on health and racial justice that met the moment, and an experienced team ready to take risks to drive the change we wanted to see in the world, we kept work solidly moving forward.

The last year has been truly humbling, facing both the Covid-19 pandemic and the crisis of systemic racism. While some communities continued to thrive, many Black, Brown and Indigenous communities fell further behind. Although the arts and cultural infrastructure in the U.S. was shuttered and economically devastated, public art in 2020 proved more essential than at any other time in our history. Public art provided opportunities for social connection, healing, activism and gave artists creative ways to get back to work and contribute to problem solving. Isolation and shut downs made our streets into galleries, parks into theaters, sidewalks into music venues and protests into poetry readings. Forecast’s work now has greater relevance as we see clearly that creativity, culture and imagination in public are some of the greatest tools in problem solving.

Inside this report you will read about the efforts we took to address these crises in our country, in our community, in our lives. Under globally stressful circumstances, Forecast’s team served hundreds of artists, launched pro bono services helping artists and cities in the moments of crisis, adapted engagement efforts to keep projects moving, worked with public and private partners to safely engage artists and listened to our community. We emphasized mutual relationships in order to not be extractive and we continue to focus on what we can add and leave with the community in addition to public art, building capacity for artists and others. As Forecast looks ahead at this new year, we are committed to being a part of the adaptive change to advance justice, health and human dignity. Our team is growing and changing, our programs expanding and our impact deepening. Business is not usual as we return to work and life. We seek to disrupt the status quo of public art, ensuring more equitable practices, policies and programs in Minnesota and around the country. We invite you to join us in this future as we:

  • Launch our new Change Lab in 2021 with our first-ever fellowships, including a fellow for racial justice in public art. In the Lab Forecast will catalyze new thinking, test new approaches, and creatively disrupt the status quo to advance justice in the field of public art.
  • Expand our pro bono consulting nationally to provide support in the communities that need it the most: Black, Brown, Indigenous and rural communities. The ability to pay for consulting should not be a barrier for communities to realize their public art dreams.
  • Kick off our nationwide listening tour engaging communities of color across every region in conversations that reimagine public art and monuments to reflect hidden stories, visions, cultures and perspectives. This work will support the development of a national public art policy platform that will push for long-term change rooted in justice, health and human dignity.

With this team, our supporters and the creativity of artists, we are ready for the challenges and the celebrations ahead.

With Gratitude,

Theresa Sweetland, Executive Director

and Lea Bittner-Eddy, Board Chair

2380 Wycliff, Suite 200

Saint Paul, MN 55114

651.641.1128

info@forecastpublicart.org

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