Visioning Exercise for Cultural Access Olympia derives additional inputs for arts accessibility

The Olympia Cultural Access Program Ad Hoc Committee convened last Tuesday, December 6, for its third meeting labeled as a “vision exercise meeting.”

According to the city’s site, Olympia voters approved a measure last April to expand public access to arts, culture, heritage, and science experiences. The city council formed a seven-member ad hoc committee to develop recommendations for program operations.

Before the meeting commenced, the committee was given a scenario to visualize, and the answers were exchanged during the meeting.

As stated in the program model document, the question they were supposed to answer was how they see Olympia in seven years — what they see down the city, how the program is effective, and why the residents love it.

One of the committee members, Paul Knox, answered the question by stating the potential of the Olympia Armory as an accessible art space for the citizens.

“I want us to have a large community art studio that will engage community members of all ages and creations of performance for cultural events,” Knox said.

“I think it also hosts dance music and other creative performances by locals so it's just a pretty vibrant place that is used not once a year by one group, but by the community and everybody brings all these cultural things together,” Knox added.

Committee member Jean Mandeberg also shared her suggestions about building a larger art audience year-round.

“I didn't think so much about this space. I want audience-building, not just culture-building. So then residents of Olympia realize they're an audience for us all year round, and that artists and scientists and cultural workers are doing work all the time. That it's legitimate work. It's work that the community relies upon,” Mandeberg said.

“We have to be more visible in the community, more of the process to be visible, not just support with this process,” Mandeberg added.

The ad-hoc committee is a short-term committee that will address technical elements of the accessibility program structure, engage in strategic planning on program values and objectives, and make recommendations to fit the program to a vision for the Olympia community.