Dorothy R. Santos

Presenters: Liat Berdugo, Dorothy Santos, Leila Weefur, Jerome Rivera Pansa

Organized by Liat Berdugo, Living Room Light Exchange

What does it mean to be an arts organization that resists growth? Can artists, collectives, and small organizations protect their current ‘sizes’ and foci from the pressures of capitalism? Anyone who has written a grant for the arts has likely encountered the ‘growth’ question: it asks how organizations or individuals will grow and expand with money. In other words, funding opportunities often ask for change. This conversation, instead, looks at the radical act of resisting growth, and instead focusing on sustaining current endeavors. We ask what it looks like to be embedded and focused on communities; to need funding for ongoing initiatives; to need resources to better engage and support community; to grow from ground-up initiatives rather than top-down pressure. When does resisting growth become too much to handle? How does a group or collective know when it’s gotten too far and away from the original intention?

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