Shaping the Future of Arts and Culture

Published on March 25, 2021

For years, Arlington’s arts and culture community has been a key contributor to establishing and broadening the County’s identity as a collection of unique and livable smart-growth neighborhoods. From a renowned and award-winning collection of contemporary public art to nationally acclaimed performing ensembles such as Regional Theatre Tony Award recipient Signature Theatre, the arts are central to creative placemaking.

Earlier this month, I represented Arlington as a panelist for “Shaping the Future of Entertainment, Arts and Culture,” a Zoom panel organized by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). Moderated by Barbara Coffee, Economic Initiatives Director for Tucson, AZ, my fellow panelists were Abby Kurin, Executive Director for the Tulsa Office of Film, Music & Culture, and Jill McMillan Palm, Executive Director, Business & Arts Council of Greater Nashville.

IEDC is a non-profit, non-partisan membership organization serving economic developers. With more than 5,000 members, IEDC is the largest organization of its kind. Economic developers promote economic well-being and quality of life for their communities by creating, retaining and expanding jobs that facilitate growth, enhance wealth and provide a stable tax base.

I can report that Arlington is well positioned to exploit the accelerating trend of hybrid forms of arts and entertainment products enabled by technology advances, which has resulted in paradigm shifts in distribution and monetization models.  To reframe an old saying, “Necessity is the Mother of Innovation” and during the COVID-19 pandemic we saw extraordinary innovation from local artists and arts organizations across all artistic genres, adapting to instant changes in consumer behavior. Arlington Arts will continue to reposition its assets and processes to support these innovators.

And for in-person live events, Arlington itself can be considered a network of performance platforms, with its abundance of public spaces and public plazas.  You can see this in each of our three Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) – Ballston, Rosslyn, National Landing, and the Clarendon Alliance and Lee Highway Alliance. From the Rosslyn Jazz Fest at Gateway Park to the “Turn Up the Love” winterlong outdoor pop-ups in National Landing, our presenting partners create exciting programming to enliven our public realm.

Look for some exciting new public art to be delivered this year, including the John Robinson, Jr. Town Square in Green Valley, designed by Walter Hood, recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, and a future public art piece in Ballston designed by Olalekan Jeyifous. Both artists are featured in the exhibit Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America at MoMA in New York.