The ashé cultural arts center and its partners in the alliance for cultural equity will address the structural failures that have resulted in disparities of support for locally-based arts and cultural…

This $1.5M Project Grant award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the National Leadership Grants (CFDA 45.312) program will enable the Ashe Cultural Arts Center and its 19 partner Alliance for Cultural Equity institutions to address structural disparities in support for locally-based arts and cultural organizations in Louisiana. Over the 3-year grant period from September 2023 to August 2026, the project will launch an outreach and education campaign to advocate for greater cultural heritage representation, identify and work to change policies, and create new archiving approaches for non-written traditions. The long-term goals are to dismantle barriers to sustainability for small museums, archives, and cultural organizations, and build the Alliance's collective capacity to help these institutions thrive and evolve.

The ashé cultural arts center and its partners in the alliance for cultural equity will address the structural failures that have resulted in disparities of support for locally-based arts and cultural organizations. They will deploy solutions that highlight the transformative power of art and culture, and the institutions that advance them, to affect the economy and the quality of life of the city and state. Building upon an imls-funded research project that supported the development of the alliance for cultural equity, the team of 19 institutions will launch an outreach and education campaign calling for a more complete telling of their history, advocate for cultural heritage representation on municipal boards, identify policies that can be changed and work to change them, and create a new way to archive particularly for oral, non-material and non-written traditions. In the long-term, the alliance for cultural equity will identify the distinctive challenges and dismantle the barriers to sustainability for small museum, archive, and cultural organizations in the louisiana ecosystem, and build a collective body with the capacity to implement approaches that help arts and culture institutions thrive and evolve.