While airports, sports arenas, and concert venues are packed with people, many nonprofit performing arts organizations are struggling with attracting audiences and patrons, and they often blame it on a post-pandemic change in consumer behavior. But is that really the case?
Alex Sarian, the president and CEO of Arts Commons, one of Canada’s foremost centers for the arts, thinks the answer is a crisis of relevance. In his new book, The Audacity of Relevance: Critical Conversations on the Future of Arts and Culture, Sarian argues that cultural organizations must embrace a greater civic purpose and prioritize the social impact of the arts if they are to survive and thrive.
And to achieve this greater purpose, it is critical that the leaders of these performing arts organizations ask themselves some tough questions, such as, What is more important in the arts: the intention of the artist or the perception of the audience?
Sarian recognizes that both are important, but he suggests that siding with the audience’s response is a “game-changer” and prioritizing relevance to the audience/community will ensure that the arts are viewed as an important communal and collective experience rather than just another product to be marketed.
For too long, Sarian argues, community outreach has basically been “I’m going to engage with your community, but all I’m really doing is hoping you buy what I have to sell.” But Sarian suggests that the duty of arts organizations is to build community in and around cultural experiences.
“It was becoming painfully obvious that dangerous trends that had been ignored for too long were accelerating in a post-pandemic world,” stated Sarian in an email message to the author in response to a question on what inspired him to write this book. “Our sector was frozen with inaction at a time when communities were changing at record pace, creating a growing chasm between organizations whose mandate is to create cultural experiences and audiences who no longer valued them.”
To begin to prioritize the audience, Sarian suggests that another set of questions for arts leaders is: What are we good for? rather than What are we good at? In order to answer those questions, arts organizations must have a viable value proposition that tells people why they might engage with the organization and choose its goods and services over other institutions in a clear expression of its plans to address their wants and needs. In other words, what is it that will create relevance and real engagement with communities?
Sarian hopes that by writing this book and posing the tough questions, arts leaders will begin to see that their venues can be brimming with engaged and inspired audiences that are experiencing culture that is relevant to them, and he’s gathered an impressive group of institutional leaders to help tell his story.
“The conversations in this book serve as a litmus test, not just for the bold and record-breaking work we’re doing at Arts Commons – which I consider proof of concept – but for leaders and arts communities around the world who are grappling with a crisis of engagement,” stated Sarian. “By interviewing leaders from a variety of sectors who may also be struggling with the topic of relevance, I hope readers walk away with two big learnings: that our sector isn’t alone, and that some of the answers to our most challenging questions exist within the communities we seek to serve…if only we are brave and humble enough to listen.”
Instead of being a luxury good that’s overconsumed by too few people, Sarian hopes that arts leaders will develop programs and facilities that are welcoming and that center less around what an artist is doing and more on how they are doing it. Only then will audiences want to engage in cultural experiences that celebrate our shared humanity and be willing to pay a sustainable price to share in those experiences.
In short, Sarian has written a manifesto for the arts in times of crisis, and he challenges arts leaders to recognize that they have to power to change how the arts are perceived, celebrated and supported.