Was diversity one of the first casualties of Covid-19?
After decades of reinventing themselves to be relevant to newer audiences, all the fanfare about museums prioritising access, education and diversity looks like publicity spin, says Arlene Dávila.
When the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced that it had terminated its educators’ contracts and that it would be years before it would resume regular operations to consider hiring them back, the NYC cultural sector shuddered. I know at least two Latinx artists who made their living working at MoMA part-time, but more broadly I wondered why museums were among the first major NYC institutions to publicly lay off and furlough workers. Less than a year ago, the “New MoMA” opened to much fanfare, after its $450 million makeover, and for years now, art has been touted as a sound investment. It simply did not make sense to me that some of the wealthiest institutions in the NYC art world would become this vulnerable so quickly, to the point of obliging such massive layoffs.
I have been writing on matters of cultural equity and diversity for years focusing on Latinx communities, and I fear MoMA’s termination of educators reveals that diversity in the arts and cultural sector may be among the victims of this crisis. Museum education departments tend to be more racially diverse than other departments, and before COVID-19, institutions from museums to corporations appealed to diversity publicly and with vigor.. Keep reading on Hyperallergic
When the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced that it had terminated its educators’ contracts and that it would be years before it would resume regular operations to consider hiring them back, the NYC cultural sector shuddered. I know at least two Latinx artists who made their living working at MoMA part-time, but more broadly I wondered why museums were among the first major NYC institutions to publicly lay off and furlough workers. Less than a year ago, the “New MoMA” opened to much fanfare, after its $450 million makeover, and for years now, art has been touted as a sound investment. It simply did not make sense to me that some of the wealthiest institutions in the NYC art world would become this vulnerable so quickly, to the point of obliging such massive layoffs.
I have been writing on matters of cultural equity and diversity for years focusing on Latinx communities, and I fear MoMA’s termination of educators reveals that diversity in the arts and cultural sector may be among the victims of this crisis. Museum education departments tend to be more racially diverse than other departments, and before COVID-19, institutions from museums to corporations appealed to diversity publicly and with vigor.. Keep reading on Hyperallergic