The Juneau Arts & Humanities Council will host a community meeting about creating art respectful of cultures Monday.
It’s part of a series of community conversations, and the event is titled Community Conversation: Empowering Artists to Understand Culturally Sensitive Art Creation. It is planned for 5:30-7:30 p.m. in the Main Hall at the Juneau Arts & Culture Center, 350 Whittier St.
JAHC is collaborating with Aiding Women in Abuse and Rape Emergencies, the Juneau Violence Prevention Coalition, and the University of Alaska Southeast’s Wooch.een and Egan Library to sponsor the discussion of cultural appropriation.
The meeting continues the dialogue which began in the community after the 2018 Wearable Art show, which sparked objections from some in the community on the basis that works appropriated a culture that was not the artist’s.
The partners will convene a group of Juneau artists who specialize in both traditional and contemporary art-forms to discuss ways to be respectful while at the same time expressing oneself freely within and through artistic media.
The group will discuss important terminology, and explore the differences between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation. Artists will be able to share experiences with art that has been made incorporating elements from other cultures and will learn about resources to help navigate a course of culturally sensitive creativity and expression.
