Co-hosted by ArtWRKD and facilitated by WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane, this panel discussion will bring together artists, curators, producers, cultural organizers, and creative entrepreneurs for a candid conversation about the future of the arts and the role creative people can play in shaping stronger communities.
Panelists will explore the questions facing today’s cultural sector: Who gets access? Who gets seen? How do we create meaningful pathways for the next generation? How can cultural organizations become more collaborative, sustainable, and responsive to their communities? And what happens when we stop waiting for institutions to create change and begin creating it ourselves?
This will be a conversation about possibility—challenging familiar models, sharing what has worked and what hasn’t, and imagining a more inclusive, innovative, connected and impactful cultural future.
Marty Moss-Coane is the host and executive producer of “The Connection with Marty Moss-Coane,” a weekly program about living a life of meaning and purpose that airs on WHYY radio Fridays and Sundays at noon and is available as a podcast. For 35 years she was the host and executive producer of the award-winning “Radio Times,” a daily public affairs and cultural arts program that also aired on WHYY.
Panelists will include:
Ashara Shapiro, founder and curator of ArtWRKD, is building a new ecosystem for the creative sector centered on arts education, mentorship, and cross-generational learning. Her work explores new pathways for emerging and established artists to exchange knowledge, develop mastery, build sustainable creative practices, and create opportunities beyond traditional models.
Jonathan LeVine, founder of Jonathan LeVine Projects, has spent decades championing artists and movements outside the traditional art establishment. From his roots in punk and underground culture to his Chelsea gallery and current collaborative model, his career explores how galleries and curators can evolve while continuing to create opportunities for artists.
Joe Montone, founder of Stage United, is building new ways to bring live music into the places where people already live and gather. Through concerts, festivals, and collaborations across Bucks County, his work focuses on access, community connection, and creating a more sustainable local infrastructure for live music.
Clint Flack, whose work with the Mercer Museum connects exhibition-making with the preservation and interpretation of cultural history, brings another perspective to the conversation: how we preserve what came before us while creating space for new ideas, new voices, and new ways of experiencing culture.