On March 24, Arizona State University’s annual Social Embeddedness Network Conference was hosted virtually for the first time, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In her opening remarks, keynote speaker and Herberger Institute Professor Maria Rosario Jackson said, “As we meet today, we must remember that this is a moment of crisis and hardship — and it is also a moment of possibility and transformation.”
ASU’s National Accelerator for Cultural Innovation, a partnership between the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts and ASU Gammage, launched Cultural Innovation Tools, a site that brings content and solutions together for the community to understand how arts and culture at ASU are responding to the moment.
In the face of the pandemic, students, faculty and staff at Herberger Institute are leveraging their creativity to pull together tools and resources for other artists/designers/culture makers, for families sheltering at home, for educators adapting their work online and for community organizations and government leaders who seek to partner with artists and designers as they respond and rebuild resilient and equitable communities.
“The National Accelerator advances how artists and designers can leverage their creative talent for transformation of just, equitable communities through new ways of practice and public policy,” said Jen Cole, director of the National Accelerator for Cultural Innovation. “No time is more urgent to imagine how artists and designers can lead change than in this moment, when our cultural sector is disrupted and artists themselves are struggling.”
