June 27, 2024 • 44 mins
What sets successful diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and access (DEIBA) initiatives apart? It's not about checking boxes; it's about prioritizing authenticity and thoughtfulness.
Some of the most impactful DEIBA work in our industry begins with arts organizations fostering genuine community partnerships and engaging audiences in meaningful ways. In this episode, we discuss inspiring examples of how embracing these principles can lead to profound, positive changes in our organizations.
Digital Download (2:15) - Dan sits down with Consultant Selia Aponte to talk about reaching new audiences with bilingual ads: how to use them, when they work best, and how to ensure a smooth audience journey for ESL attendees.
CI to Eye with John Orr (15:15) - CI President Priya Iyer Doshi chats with John Orr, Executive Director of Art-Reach in Philadelphia. They discuss how we can make the arts a more inclusive space for disabled and chronically ill audiences, and ensure the full spectrum of society is served through our programming.
CI-lebrity Sightings (42:00) - Dan highlights some of CI’s favorite arts stories in the news.
LINKS:
New York Times | At Museums, a Revolution Gains Momentum
American Theatre Magazine | They Will Survive: Theatres That Are Beating the Odds
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
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(00:49):
Hi everyone, Dan here. So justlike many other industries,
the arts sector is on an ongoingquest to improve D-E-I-B-A.
That's diversity, equity,inclusion, belonging, and access.
But what truly sets successful initiativesapart? It's not about checking boxes,
it's about prioritizingauthenticity and thoughtfulness.
(01:10):
Some of the most impactful work we'veseen begins with arts organizations
fostering genuine community partnershipsand engaging audiences in meaningful
ways. In today's episode,
we'll discuss inspiring examples of howembracing these principles can lead to
profound, positive changesin our organizations. First,
I'll sit down with Consultant Selia Aponteto talk about reaching new audiences
with bilingual ads (01:32):
how to use them, when they work best,
and how to ensure a smoothaudience journey for ESL attendees.
Then CI's President Priya IyerDoshi will chat with John Orr,
Executive Director ofArt-Reach in Philadelphia.
They'll discuss how we can make the artsa more inclusive space for disabled and
chronically ill audiences and ensurethe full spectrum of society is served
(01:55):
through our programming. Not only dowe have those two great interviews,
but we also have an excitingnew segment debuting today.
Stick around until the end of the episodefor a lightning round of our favorite
arts stories in the news. Who knows?Maybe your organization will be featured.
Alright, everyone,let's dive in, shall we?
(02:17):
I'm so excited to chat with consultantSelia Aponte about the benefits of
running bilingual campaigns. Selia,welcome to your first CI to Eye interview.
Hi, Dan. Thanks for having me.
Absolutely. It does seem likebilingual campaigns are a huge,
often overlooked opportunityto reach new audiences, right?
Definitely.
So running bilingual campaigns foran upcoming exhibition or a show is a
(02:42):
great way to engage with audienceswho may be new to your organization,
and to extend your organization'sexisting efforts around diversity, equity,
inclusion, belonging, and access,otherwise referred to as D-I-E-B-A,
we know that a lot of our audiencescome from a variety of different
backgrounds,
and some patrons may feel more comfortableusing a language other than English.
(03:03):
Yeah,
I think I read recently 42million Americans have Spanish
as a first language,
and another 15 million Americanscan speak it as a second language.
So it's a huge audience, 42million out of, what is it,
350 million people in the USA?
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a huge untapped market and therereally aren't many arts organizations who
(03:24):
are running bilingual campaigns.
So it's a great opportunity to distinguishyourself as an organization that is a
space that is welcoming to patrons in away that feels genuine and authentic to
them.
Keep in mind that this type of approachlikely won't make sense for every single
show or exhibition,
but we do recommend testing bilingualads if and when it makes sense with the
(03:45):
programming that you have and withyour particular audience goals.
And these bilingual ads, arethey relatively easy to set up?
How do we get going on these?
Yeah, they're pretty easy to set up.
So we can use in-platform languagepreferences in Meta and Google to serve
different versions of the same ad todifferent audiences. So for example,
if you select Spanish as your preferredlanguage at the audience level in a
(04:08):
campaign,
then your ads are going to be servedto users who have set Spanish as their
preferred computer language.In the case of Google,
or if we're talking about Meta,it's their preferred app language,
and it's important to note that you willneed to create two different versions
of your ads if you'rerunning a campaign like this.
So you'll need one version that's inEnglish and another version in another
language. So there is a bitof an extra creative lift,
(04:32):
but once you are donecreating those two versions,
the process of setting up a bilingualcampaign is pretty straightforward.
It actually surprises me that thereisn't an automatic button for that.
With the advances of AI recently andhow good it is at translating and
understanding the meaning of words,
and using that in different languages-itactually surprised me there isn't just
(04:53):
a "create ad in Spanish.".
Right, like an automatictranslate kind of feature.
And I'm sure it's comingdown the pipeline.
There are so many AI driven toolswithin the Meta platform specifically,
and also in Google,
there's a feature right now where youwrite in your ad copy and it will give you
variations, right?
So I'm sure there is a version that'scoming where it's like you enter your ad
(05:15):
copy in English andthere's a button that says,
would you like to translate thisinto French? I'm sure that's coming.
Have you run bilingual campaignswith CI clients before?
Yes, I have.
So we recently worked with CrystalBridges Museum of American Art on a
fully bilingual campaign strategy fortheir exhibition, Diego Rivera's America.
(05:36):
So we served English and Spanish versionsof the same ad content to both new
and existing audiences with the goalof building awareness for this exhibit,
and of course to driveticket sales as well.
And this was really the perfect usecase for a bilingual approach for two
reasons. So one,
Diego Rivera is a very prominentfamous Mexican painter whose work
(05:59):
and his life story are reallysteeped in the Spanish language.
So this just felt like a naturalexhibition to do this for.
And then the second thing is that thesecampaigns were part of a multilayered
ongoing D-I-E-B-A strategyat Crystal Bridges.
So the museum has really made a consciouseffort over the past couple years to
create an inclusive, bilingual,accessible space for all patrons,
(06:24):
and that includes both onsite andthrough their digital presence.
So I think that really allowed usto make these campaigns possible,
and it was really a goalfor Crystal Bridges.
So these bilingual campaigns,
they're just one facet of alarger D-E-I-B-A effort, right?
So how did these campaigns perform?
Really well. So our Metacampaign drove 551 purchases,
(06:48):
and of those 59 purchases,
about 11% were driven byour Spanish language ads,
and 12 of those purchases weretransactions from acquisition audiences,
meaning that these were completelynew patrons who had never
visited Crystal Bridges before,which was really exciting to see.
Wow, that's incredible performance.
(07:09):
Did you also see a lift in engagement aswell? Did you see more key page views?
Yeah, we did.
So our ads drove over 4,000 visits tothe Spanish translated version of the
Diego Rivera landing page and over 20,000page views to the English version of
the page.
And what was really exciting was thatcapturing these views allowed us to
further build Crystal Bridges' remarketingpools so that they can then engage
(07:32):
these visitors again infuture bilingual campaigns.
Yeah, it's opening up a whole,almost like, new audience, right?
Absolutely.
As we mentioned before,
those 42 million Americans whoare Spanish speaking first,
I should imagine-you probably don'thave the exact data on this because we
didn't run a like-for-like experiment-butthe conversion rate's likely going to
be higher if you see somethingin your first language, right?
(07:57):
Absolutely. And I think we see thisjust with campaigns in general,
that the more often you run ads, thestronger your results are going to be.
So I would expect that we would seethe same thing here if we were to run
another bilingual campaign in the future,
that we would see better and betterperformance from those Spanish audiences.
Is that just because the Meta platformis kind of learning who that new audience
is so they can get the ads to theright people in the right combinations?
(08:20):
Yeah, it's absolutely that.
And I would also say justthinking about the user journey,
most of us need more than one touchpoint sometimes before we decide to
press play and buy the thing.
I know I have to see at least three adsfor a pair of jeans before I'm finally
like, okay, fine, lemme go tothe website and buy these jeans.
So I think it's multipletouch points as well.
I just bought my dog a newharness. He's a growing puppy,
(08:43):
eight months old at the moment,
and it's been in my tab-my many,
many emotional support tabs asI call them. They're sort of...
A long consideration period.
Where I'm just like, I needto be reminded a few times.
And then finally one Instagramad got me, so I was like, okay.
Sort of tips you over the edge.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So the resultsyou just talked about, they're from Meta,
(09:07):
but you also ran ads onGoogle as well, right?
Yeah, we did. So we saw similarresults on Google as well,
and we ran ads on displayand YouTube for context.
So those ads drove atotal of 433 purchases.
And of those 113, so that's about 26%,
a little over a quarter werefrom our Spanish language ads,
(09:27):
so even stronger than theresults we were seeing on Meta.
And these ads also drove over 104,000visits to the Spanish translated landing
page, which again was justreally awesome performance.
And you didn't run search ads,
but I should imagine theprocess for setting up search ads is reasonably similar
as well.
You would basically need to haveyour list of keywords in English,
(09:48):
a list of keywords in Spanish,
and then again one version ofthe ads that would be in English,
and then another version of theads that would be in Spanish.
And you would set your languagesettings appropriately,
like we talked about before. Sovery similar process for search.
So why do you think theseads were so successful?
Yeah, I think it goes back tosomething that I mentioned before,
(10:08):
which was that these campaigns didn'trun in a vacuum, they weren't one-off,
like "Let's try this and see how itgoes" kind of random flippant decision.
They were really part of a larger,
very authentic D-I-E-B-A effort thatextends beyond Crystal Bridges digital
efforts to the actual onsiteexperience at the museum.
So when you arrive for avisit to Crystal Bridges,
(10:30):
you are going to see bilingualsignage for restrooms, parking,
directions to the various galleries...
There are printed brochures that are inmultiple languages, including Spanish.
There are audio and guided tours offeredin Spanish and other languages as well.
And then finally, I think thisis sort of the coolest feature,
is that those little labels that arenext to a piece of art in a museum?
(10:52):
Crystal Bridges actually has those inEnglish and Spanish for every single piece
of art in their museum,
which is an incredible feat andsomething that took them a while to do,
but really impressive anda really cool feature.
So they thought, even offline,
they thought deeply and authenticallyabout the entire process for both an
English speaker and a Spanish speaker.
(11:14):
They want the experience to beas like-for-like as possible.
Absolutely.
Yeah. And online as well.
Online as well. That waswhere we started with our ads.
So they have made a concerted effortto translate several key pages of their
website into Spanish.
I believe there are plans to translateinto other languages as well,
but they're starting with Spanish.
So all of their exhibition pagesare currently translatable,
(11:37):
including the Diego Rivera landing page.
But all of their exhibitions thatthey've had since then are also,
there's an option toview the page in Spanish,
which is great because in this case,
having a Spanish version of the DiegoRivera landing page allowed us to create a
really seamless digital experience.
So we weren't showing someone an adin Spanish and then having them click
through that ad to an English landingpage sort of breaking up that experience.
(12:00):
It was really just sort of a seamlesstransition from the ad to the website to
the actual museum.
And that can be quite a complexprocess. I know from SEO,
like in the search landscape,
there is certain tags youneed to add if you have two
different versions of a page indifferent languages. Like hreflang tags,
(12:20):
to get super nerdy SEO, which Ican do very easily, unfortunately.
I do think it's interesting. And canI ask on behalf of our users, so Dan,
if I were going to make a Spanishtranslated version of a landing page,
would you recommend that Imake that a separate page,
or should it be this one page withtwo versions? Can you talk about that?
Yeah, there's multiple ways you can do it.
(12:41):
The most important thing is to createwhat's called the hreflang tag.
It basically says to Google, "Hey Google,this is the link for a Spanish page.
This is the link for an Englishpage." And you also have where the
language originates as well.
So it's different for UKEnglish versus US English and
(13:02):
US Spanish versus Spanish Spanish.
So there's a lot that goes into it.
Does that mean if I have theword bathroom on my page,
it will translate to"loo," or what is that?
Yes. Otherwise I won't understandwhat on earth you're talking about.
Okay, great. Good.
Yeah. So yeah, there's a lotof work that goes into it.
Usually there is ways of doingthis with coding in terms of
(13:27):
a developer can usually sort outan easy way to do this as well,
so you don't have to gothrough each one. But yeah,
they would need essentiallytwo different pages.
But I think just because there'sa lot of work that goes into it,
that shouldn't dissuade you frommaking this change and wading
into bilingual campaigns. Right?
(13:48):
Yeah, absolutely. And Iwill say, we talked about,
I just gave you a whole laundry listof things that Crystal Bridges has done
both onsite and online to kind ofmake this a seamless experience.
But one thing we didn't talk about isthe actual ticketing purchase path.
So we were showing these Spanish ads,
which took someone toa Spanish landing page.
Once they clicked on the 'buytickets' button of that landing page,
(14:10):
they were then taken to an Englishversion of the purchase path.
So the entire online journey wasn'tcompletely translated. But again,
to your point,
I don't think anyone should letthat stop them from attempting a
bilingual campaign. I think start small,
work with the resources thatyou have, do what you can,
(14:31):
and go from there.
I think this is something thatyou can continue to iterate on,
but to your point, Iwouldn't let one tiny,
tiny piece of this puzzlestop you from starting at all.
Yeah. There's no such thingas a perfect campaign,
so you can't really let theperfect be the enemy of the good.
Exactly.
I think as you've laid out earlier,
what it comes down to is in your outreach.
(14:54):
When you do this authentically,
it's a great way to reach newaudiences and further your D-E-I-B-A
efforts, right?
Yeah.
So thank you so much for walking usthrough this and for being on the pod.
Thank you so much, Dan.This was so much fun.
(15:17):
Hi, John. Welcome to CI to Eye.
Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great.
Of course. So you are theexecutive director of Art-Reach,
and I am really excited to talk moreabout the organization and just give the
organization more light here onCI to Eye. But before we do that,
I do just want to spend a little bitof time talking about you personally.
(15:38):
So tell me a little bit aboutyour connection to the arts.
Why did you choose topursue a career in the arts?
Yeah,
so I was 17 and my sister worked at the
Franklin Institute ScienceMuseum, and she just got me a job.
But once I got in there, Ikind of fell in love with it,
(15:59):
and I felt like I had found my people.
So, I'm neurodivergent,
and what that means is that sometimes Idon't really learn in a classroom or in
a formal setting the way that otherpeople do. So growing up as a kid,
I needed informal spaces to learn.
And so these informalspaces were always just,
(16:22):
they're just important to me and they'rewhat make sort of the world available
to me. And so when I got to a museumand I was like, wait, I can work here?
This is amazing.
It felt really comfortable and itwas a place I was familiar with.
Those early days,
working at the admission desk of amajor museum in Philadelphia really kind
(16:43):
of shaped how I wouldapproach my work later on,
and it just sort of grew from there.
Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
And I also am just going to take thisopportunity to talk a little bit about
your neurodivergence.
Do you feel like you always had avocabulary to describe what you were
experiencing in that? I feellike that word even is not,
(17:03):
it feels newer in the space,
but I'm just curious to hear more aboutwhen you felt like you could describe
what was happening.
Yeah, so that's a great question.How much time do we have?
I know. I know. I went off script already.
No, you're good. So
disability language isjust such a funny thing.
(17:24):
So many different people thatidentify in different ways.
And so it's always hard to say what I'mabout to say because I don't want to
disparage the way otherpeople feel about it.
I actually don't really likethe word neurodivergence because
divergence to me is always somethingstarting at the same point and kind of
going in opposite directions.
(17:45):
And I don't approach my life as if I'mwalking on this divergent path than
everyone else.
I'm just looking for accommodations tokind of bring our paths together so that
we can have more of aconvergent experience as we go through life. So the word,
even for me, it's a word that I'm stillgetting used to myself, to be honest.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think being younger, Iwas undiagnosed for so long,
(18:10):
so I didn't even have the language.I didn't know what was happening.
I wasn't aware that I was processing
information in a way that wasdifferent than everybody else.
I do remember being in schoolreally young, about nine years old,
and it was the first time I reallythought to myself like, oh my gosh,
I'm the dumbest kid inthis class. I don't get it.
(18:35):
I don't understand whatwe're talking about.
And I remember just being confused andthinking, we all have the same books,
we have the same teachers,we have the same school days.
Why do other people getthis and I am so bad?
So at nine years old,
I cut school the way at9-year-old cuts school.
I just faked a stomachacheevery single day.
(18:59):
Oh my gosh.
But the thing that got me going back toschool was they offered piano lessons
after school the second half of the year.
And what I found was that when Iplayed music, I felt different.
I never learned how to read music.I couldn't ever figure that out.
But playing music did somethingdifferent to my brain.
(19:20):
And I used to call it tricking my brain.
That was my officialdisability language, I guess.
Yeah. Wow.
And it's an accommodationthat I still use today.
I have instruments everywherein my workplace, at my house,
and whenever I'm stuck writing agrant or stuck developing a plan,
I have an instrumentand I think of a song,
(19:43):
and then I figure out how toplay it by ear until it's there.
And then it might take a while,
but once I can put thatpuzzle together in my head,
it's like I've got a baseline togo back, sit down with my work,
and put a coherent grant applicationtogether or a coherent business plan
together.
And it's funny because we talkabout at Art-Reach "the power of the
(20:05):
arts," and we have neverreally defined that,
but in some ways I've been using the artsas an accommodation just to get where
I am and figure out what Ineed to do since fourth grade.
Wow. Talk about theimportance of the arts,
and also I love thatyou still do that today.
(20:25):
I love that when you feelstuck, you know what you can do,
and you surround yourself with music.Wow, I'm glad I went off script.
That is a beautiful story. Yeah, I'm glad.
I know from having talked to you beforeand having had previous conversations
with you that there is an intentionalityto you leading art reach in particular.
(20:45):
And you just talked about your ownneurodivergence and your childhood.
Can you share with our listeners alittle bit more about your journey
to and your connection to themission and sort of what drives you
in that work?
Yeah, so as I mentioned, I started offat admission desks at pretty big museums.
And one of the things you see immediatelyin a city like Philadelphia where the
(21:10):
poverty rate is really high, thedisability rate is really high,
you see families who come in withtheir kids and they're getting this,
they're getting that.
And then you see other familiesthat are coming in that are not.
Their kids are really excited,
but their parents are worried becausethey don't maybe have the money to go into
the site or they can't buy the exhibitupgrade or whatever's happening.
(21:33):
And I think that sat with me for a while,
and I remember working at the Franklin,
then I moved over tothe 'dinosaur museum' --
the Academy of NaturalSciences across the street --
and was working there for awhile. And when I was there,
I learned about what a board of directorswas. And at that time I was the museum
services manager. And I was like,well, who's that group of people?
(21:54):
And someone in the section, thesecurity guard Dave, he was like, oh,
that's the board of directors.And I was like, what do they do?
And he just was like, oh, they run theplace, they're in charge. And I thought,
they can't run. I've never seen them,they've never talked to my team,
they never talked tothe people on the floor.
(22:16):
How do they know what they'redoing? I don't get it.
And I just sort of thought to myself,if I ever run my own organization,
I want to run it differently. I want itto be community built. I want it to be
of the community. And when theopportunity came for Art-Reach,
it was an organization that Ihad sort of seen, I knew of,
(22:37):
there was so much opportunity tobring the community to the forefront
while leveraging relationships witharts organizations in the city.
And so I went for it and forwhatever reason, they hired me.
And nine and a halfyears later, here I am.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's so much that you've doneover the past nine and a half years,
(22:59):
and I feel like the organizationhas really shifted and evolved.
Can you talk a little bit about that,
talk about the evolution with yourleadership and what programs you all offer
today?
Yeah, so I think when I started, wehad the arts up on this pedestal,
and when I came in, I was just like, well,
how are we going to holdthe sector accountable and change it if they're on that
(23:22):
pedestal? And so when I came in,
I made my vision pretty clear that Iwas going to take the sector off that
pedestal and put the community there,
and we were going to work more closelyaligned with community members who were
disabled.
And then we were going to leverageour partnership to create this sort of
community pressure that would resultin social change in the arts in
(23:43):
Philadelphia. And then whenthe arts felt that pressure,
they would turn to Art-Reachto relieve it. And I mean,
there were a lot of people whodidn't agree with the approach.
They thought it was too big of a rebootfor the organization to sort of go
through and maintain the audiencethat it had built up. At that point,
we were serving about 13to 15,000 people per year.
(24:08):
And then in my first year at Art-Reach,
41,000 people used the program.
Incredible.
And since then, over the last nine years,
it's been about 1.4 million peoplethat have gone through our programs
and it's just exploded intothis completely different realm
(24:29):
where we're not justbuilding audiences anymore.
We're not just doing discount accessfor people with disabilities and people
experiencing poverty.We're led by the community.
Most of my staff is disabled.
Every single staff memberidentifies with disability,
either personally or througha direct family member.
(24:51):
And it's just changed the conversation.
Right. Yeah.
We went from this very,
very white non-disabled organization to
an organization that looks likePhiladelphia and is also chronically ill
and physically disabled andquadriplegic and single-sided deaf and
neurodivergent and autistic. And it works.
(25:15):
And the community trustsus because we're like,
we are the communityand the community is us.
And the depth of perspective that theninforms the strategy and the work that
you all are doing comes directlyfrom who you're trying to serve,
which is huge.
And it's been a gamechanger. I mean, it's just,
now every year we have over200,000 people experience the arts
(25:39):
in accessible wayd throughan Art-Reach program.
Each year we want to coursecorrect what happened with the
arts. If people wereleft out, is visual art,
is the visual art that we know,
the full spectrum of what the visualarts could have been if everyone was
included from the start? Is music,
(26:01):
have we experienced the full spectrumof that or are we missing something
because other people were left out ofthat equation for so long? So let's
find out and see what happens.
Yeah. And that's such an inspiringdriving force in the work,
is really figuring out the answerto that question for all art forms.
(26:22):
What would this look like if the artform had evolved including everyone as
opposed to excluding?
We know that the disability communityin particular has been historically
excluded from participating in the arts.
So why do you thinkthat has been the case?
Why do you think that art has evolved,
(26:43):
has in some ways excludedthat community in particular?
Yeah. I think, well, it's like anuanced part of the conversation.
So I think even decades ago,
I think people were justnervous or scared or hesitant,
or they didn't know how to,so they didn't worry about it.
And it's just so disheartening to thinkthat because you couldn't figure it out
(27:04):
right away,
how to engage a person withdisabilities in the arts,
that you just didn't bother to try. That'swhat we're actually trying to change.
We're not necessarily trying toconvince people who aren't disabled to
come up with a solution, right?
Right.
(27:24):
The community probablyknows what the solution is,
and they have ways thatthey can engage in the arts,
just like I have ways that I canengage in the arts that work for me,
and we just need to transfer thatpower to the community so that
A,
there's authentic representation andthere's representation in a way that the
community feels comfortablebeing represented.
(27:46):
So we're not trying tobe anyone's inspiration.
I don't want to be like, oh, look atJohn. He learned a song on a guitar.
Good for him and hisneurodivergent brain. How sweet.
I don't give a shit at all.I don't care about that.
I'm not here to inspire anybody.
I do that because it works for meand it helps me navigate my life
(28:10):
and it feels good and it makes mehappy. And all of those things don't --
everyone's going to findtheir own path in that way,
but the community has to define that path,
and I think that's where theexclusion will start to end.
Yeah,
I love that idea of the transfer ofpower and what that ultimately empowers
(28:32):
us to do as an industry inthe space. So that's great.
I think so many people or somany organizations will ask a
community what they want and then theytake that information and they shoehorn
it into whatever that organizationreally wants to do anyway.
And it doesn't build trust.
(28:53):
It puts this sort of emotional laboron the community and it puts this
expectation that something couldchange, but really it's not going to.
Whereas what we do, we're justlike, what do you want to do?
And people tell us and we're just like,let's go do that. That sounds great.
Super fun. Come on, let's go.
And it's so much more authenticwhen it happens in that kind of way.
(29:16):
We're kind of restoring this trustbetween arts organizations in
Philly and the disability community,which is just huge in the city.
And that trust, when they seetheir idea kind of come to life,
it creates the environment wherepeople feel a little bit more safe,
they feel heard, they feel seen,
and they are willing to probably goback and engage with that organization
(29:40):
again. So it's this little bit of arestorative process that has to be rooted
in trust at the base.
I feel like there are a lot ofarts organizations now who are
really working on their accessible,
sensory-friendly experiences.
And I'm curious to hear yourperspective on that approach with arts
(30:03):
organizations,
and I should say there'ssome arts organizations who haven't yet started on that
work.
So being able to approach specificexperiences accessibly and through
sensory-friendly programming,that's certainly a step forward.
Versus this idea of producinguniversally designed
experiences that include all, touse some of your earlier language.
(30:28):
Give me your thoughts.
Yeah, so it's great when organizationstake a first step. I think still,
if a theater wants to dosensory-friendly theater performances,
I think it's really great.
And there's definitely a lot ofpeople who benefit from that. In fact,
I think sensory-friendly or relaxedperformances are the closest we've
gotten so far to universal design.I think it's a more... like,
(30:49):
a relaxed theater performance is lovely.
I don't know if you've ever been to one.
It's really nice to be able toget up and move around and do it.
Yes, it's great.
It's great on everybody.
I do worry that sometimes whenplaces anchor down in one type
of accessible programming though,
that they start to think aboutdisability in segregated ways. And
(31:12):
there is this idea of universaldesign. I've never really seen it
fully embraced.
I think the closest example I'veliterally ever seen was in the movie
Zootopia, which came out --
Such a good movie.
Such a good movie.
There was one scene where allthese animals were getting off the train and I was
(31:33):
just like, oh, look, they're allgetting off of different size doors.
That's universal design!But no, universal design,
it's a cool idea.
How can you create a spacethat's accessible to the most amount of people most
of the time? It's just, it's challenging.
And I think there are ways to do it andthere's ways that we've done it in the
(31:54):
past, but it's hard tomaintain that all the time.
I think the way that we work withorganizations now is we want them to
understand the communitythat they work in.
And so when we work with anorganization to help them plan out their
accessibility practice,we're kind of like, alright,
so you need to make everythingaccessible, period. Number one.
(32:17):
But we realized that just giving youthat advice is not necessarily feasible.
You might not have the capacityto do so. So let's step back.
And we examine their surroundingcommunity to see what the prevalence of
disability by disability type isaround their site. And we're like,
we want you to prioritizeaccessibility as an organizational
(32:40):
value, but within that,
maybe you want to start with programmingfor people who have cognitive
disabilities and people whohave physical disabilities,
because you have the highest number ofcommunity members among those types of
disability in your neighborhood.
And we're not telling youto ignore the other stuff.
We're just saying investhere first, build up quicker.
(33:03):
And the other ones can be a little bitof a slower burn with a caveat that if
somebody asks for something,
you are obligated by law nomatter how old you are as an
organization to make itaccessible in some way.
But I like the data informedapproach and also the acknowledgement
that we are all human beings witha finite amount of time, energy,
(33:28):
resources to dedicate to anything.
So why not focus on the place whereyou can see will have the greatest
impact first, which doesn't mean thatthe other things on the list fall off.
It just means that you prioritize yourlist accordingly. So when we talked,
you had shared some reallyinteresting museum examples with me of
(33:48):
ways that you've seen various museumscreating more accessible spaces.
Can you just talk about a couple ofthose? I found them pretty inspiring,
so I would love to sharethose with our listeners too.
Yeah, I mean,
it's wild to think of the spectrum onwhich some of our programming exists.
I always use the example,
we do everything from going to EasternState Penitentiary here in Philadelphia,
(34:12):
which is a historic ruinssite of an old prison.
And we were trying to make thataccessible to people who were blind.
And there's this funny wagon wheeldesign that they always talk about,
and you're in the central hub.
And we decided to take a projectionof their map and just using hot
glue,
we traced it out onto a board and itcreated this raised tactile map that
(34:37):
people could use to kind of understandthe layout of the prison as they were
going through their tour. Andthat's a $4 accommodation.
So it's like we always usethat as that's the baseline.
And then we also did this thingwith Opera Philadelphia where we
were making the opera accessible topeople who were deaf by partnering with
(34:58):
Music Not Impossible,
who has this fiber textile hapticsuit that translates music into
vibration so that people can experiencesound through their skin as opposed
to their ears. And it'ssuch a wide spectrum.
I think some of the things we were talkingabout were in art museums, and again,
it scales on the easier sideof the equation where if
(35:23):
you're looking at a painting oryou're looking at a 2D piece of art,
we were using cotton balls withscented oils in Ziploc baggies to
replicate the smells that were representedin the paintings that you're seeing.
If it was still life fruit,
you could create this tactile experience,
scents that we're alsowithin that environment.
(35:45):
So little things that add on
to the experience,
just make it kind of better,
and I remember going throughon that particular tour,
I think that was the BarnesFoundation, we were doing that,
and there were other visitors whowere kind of like, can we do it?
And we were just like, I mean, sureif you want, it's not that hard.
(36:09):
So that's when it gets kindof fun when accessible design
improves an overallexperience for the venue.
It just makes the whole experience alittle bit more immersive and tactile.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When you firsttold me about that cotton ball example,
I had the exact same thought.
I want to smell the cotton ballstoo as a part of my experience.
(36:32):
It just is a deeper experience thatI then get to have and I get to
use other senses, and that'sincredible. I love that.
And it's funny because when we hear,
so there's this narrative forcreating buy-in with leadership at
organizations, it's like, well,
we have to use the argument thataccessible design is actually good for
(36:55):
everybody. And while,sure, that can be true,
what we also need to say is, look.Accessible design is not for everybody.
It is specifically for thecommunity who has been excluded.
And the buy-in should start with:
art is a human right, accessto it is a human right.
(37:18):
So let that be our buy-in.
Not necessarily being convinced becausea bunch of non-disabled people think
that this program is cool as well.
And it's fun to watch thatperspective shift when we
do have to talk to organizations andwe are helping them prep programs,
or it's just like this light bulbwhere they're like, oh, right, no,
(37:39):
I do believe in human rights. Andwe're like, yeah, you sure do.
You posted all that on your Instagramfor so many special holidays.
Human rights, woo! Soyeah, it's just like,
how can we start the conversation there?
Yeah.
And how can we use the drive to removebarriers that currently are in place
to 'art as a human right'as the main driving factor
(38:02):
in the work? I am curious,
perhaps this is connectedand perhaps it isn't,
but I know that Art-Reach puts out aton of resources for the field exploring
accessibility in the arts.
Can you highlight a couple of thoseresources and where somebody who maybe has
never had exposure to Art-Reach,
what resources they should start withand maybe your most popular or the ones
(38:25):
that you think are most impactful?
So on our website, we have apage for community learning,
and it's all workshops we've done inthe past with different folks who have
different programming or different panelsthat are just talking about different
programs that they've tried. Someof them are just sort of, again,
that transfer of powerto the community to say,
(38:45):
what do you want to talkabout accessibility wise and how can art be a tool that
helps facilitate whateverit is that you need?
But some of the more formalthings that we have are,
we have a big nine month cohort thatpeople can join where they're learning
best practices on everythingfrom your baseline
(39:07):
disability justice overview to howyou're serving different communities,
how you can serve them inoverlapping ways. We have a really,
really cheap conferencefor the arts. In fact,
we might even make it free this year.I think last year,
43% of attendees team for free.
So we spend most of our time justgetting scholarship funds to cover the
(39:31):
costs for everybody.
But what's really unique about ourconferences and our cohort is that they're
all led --
all of the sessions are led by peoplewith lived experience and disability.
So there's this different, there's this,
there's leveling of livedexperience being on par with
professional experience and educationalexperience that I think is one of the
(39:54):
most important challenges thatwe're trying to break open.
And then I think we're about tolaunch two new podcasts, I think.
Oh, wow. Nice.
They're just exploring topics.
We want to talk to a number of peoplewith disabilities serving on boards and
what that experience has beenlike. What were the barriers?
Let's just talk about it openly to changethe way that maybe boards operate and
(40:17):
increase representation. So there'sa ton of stuff out there. And then,
there's a bunch of other great books.
Emily Liddell's book "DemystifyingDisability" -- Amazing.
Everyone should justread it. It's incredible.
Yeah. I'll add that one tomy list. Yeah. That's great.
(40:40):
So we've come to the end.
So we have one finalquestion which we ask all of
our guests, which is our CI to Eye moment.
So if you could broadcastone message to executive
directors, leadership teams,
staff and boards of thousandsof arts organizations,
what would it be?
(41:03):
You have to be accessible and you shouldask your community that's around you
how to do it. I think there's
a lot of people out there who think, oh,my site is older. We predate the ADA.
It doesn't apply to us. We'regrandfathered in. Number one,
nobody is grandfathered intoviolating a civil rights law.
(41:25):
And that's what it is. It's a civilrights law that guarantees a human right.
If you want to be accessible, talkto your community. Let them lead.
Let them be not just apart of that conversation.
Let them drive that conversation,
because otherwise you're notgoing to get as far as you could.
Yeah. Beautifully said. John,thank you so much for your time.
(41:48):
Thank you for being here.It's been so lovely.
Yeah, this was great. I'll comeback anytime. This was wonderful.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you.
And now it's time for CI-lebritySightings. You get it?
(42:08):
It's like our name in "celebritysightings." Anytime we can torture a pun,
we love to.
Here are some of our favorite news storiesfeaturing CI clients in 60 seconds or
less. Start the timer. Round of applausefor the High Museum of Art in Atlanta,
which was featured in the New York Timesfor increasing its proportion of BIPOC
attendees from 15% in 2015 to 57% in 2022
(42:31):
and 2023.
Read all about it in the articletitled "At Museums A Revolution Gains
Momentum." And snaps to Atlanta's AllianceTheater and Chicago's Goodman Theater
for being featured in American TheaterMagazine's article, "They Will Survive:
Theaters That Are Beating The Odds." Andfinally cheers the New York City Ballet
for their coverage in the AssociatedPress about their changing audience
(42:52):
demographics. In 2023,
53% of ticket buyerswere under the age of 50,
compared to 41% of ticket buyers in 2018.
We're so proud of these clients fortheir unprecedented audience growth and
commitment to engaging new audiences.Got a story that deserves a shout out?
Well, tag us on social andlet us know. Who knows?
(43:13):
You might be featured in the nextepisode of CI-lebrity Sightings! CI.
Capacity Interactive. 'LebritySightings. CI-lebrity. The pun works!
Thank you for listening to CI to Eye.
(43:33):
This episode was edited and produced byKaren McConarty and co-written by Karen
McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss.
Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CIto Eye's designers and video editors and
all work together to create CI's digitalcontent. Our music is by whoisuzo.
If you enjoyed today's episode,
please take a moment torate us or leave a review.
(43:55):
A nice comment goes a long way in helpingother people discover CI to Eye and
hear from experts in the arts and beyond.If you didn't enjoy today's episode,
pass it on to all of your enemies.Don't forget to follow us on Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube,
and TikTok for regular contentto help you market smarter.
You can also sign up for our newsletterat capacityinteractive.com so you never
(44:17):
miss an update. And ifyou haven't already,
please click the subscribe buttonwherever you get your podcasts.
Until next time, stay nerdy.
If you like nerding out about the artswith CI to Eye, you will love Boot Camp.
It's one of the only conferences 100%tailored to making you a stronger arts
marketer, leader, and championfor our industry. In fact,
we're so sure you'll love it that we'reoffering listeners $50 off in-person
registration.
Just use code POD50 by August31st to claim your discount.
(00:24):
While this offer cannot becombined with other offers,
you can get even more savings byinviting two of your best arts marketing
friends and taking advantageof additional group discounts.
Your Boot Camp adventure awaits atcapacityinteractivebootcamp.com.
(00:49):
Hi everyone, Dan here. So justlike many other industries,
the arts sector is on an ongoingquest to improve D-E-I-B-A.
That's diversity, equity,inclusion, belonging, and access.
But what truly sets successful initiativesapart? It's not about checking boxes,
it's about prioritizingauthenticity and thoughtfulness.
(01:10):
Some of the most impactful work we'veseen begins with arts organizations
fostering genuine community partnershipsand engaging audiences in meaningful
ways. In today's episode,
we'll discuss inspiring examples of howembracing these principles can lead to
profound, positive changesin our organizations. First,
I'll sit down with Consultant Selia Aponteto talk about reaching new audiences
with bilingual ads (01:32):
how to use them, when they work best,
and how to ensure a smoothaudience journey for ESL attendees.
Then CI's President Priya IyerDoshi will chat with John Orr,
Executive Director ofArt-Reach in Philadelphia.
They'll discuss how we can make the artsa more inclusive space for disabled and
chronically ill audiences and ensurethe full spectrum of society is served
(01:55):
through our programming. Not only dowe have those two great interviews,
but we also have an excitingnew segment debuting today.
Stick around until the end of the episodefor a lightning round of our favorite
arts stories in the news. Who knows?Maybe your organization will be featured.
Alright, everyone,let's dive in, shall we?
(02:17):
I'm so excited to chat with consultantSelia Aponte about the benefits of
running bilingual campaigns. Selia,welcome to your first CI to Eye interview.
Hi, Dan. Thanks for having me.
Absolutely. It does seem likebilingual campaigns are a huge,
often overlooked opportunityto reach new audiences, right?
Definitely.
So running bilingual campaigns foran upcoming exhibition or a show is a
(02:42):
great way to engage with audienceswho may be new to your organization,
and to extend your organization'sexisting efforts around diversity, equity,
inclusion, belonging, and access,otherwise referred to as D-I-E-B-A,
we know that a lot of our audiencescome from a variety of different
backgrounds,
and some patrons may feel more comfortableusing a language other than English.
(03:03):
Yeah,
I think I read recently 42million Americans have Spanish
as a first language,
and another 15 million Americanscan speak it as a second language.
So it's a huge audience, 42million out of, what is it,
350 million people in the USA?
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a huge untapped market and therereally aren't many arts organizations who
(03:24):
are running bilingual campaigns.
So it's a great opportunity to distinguishyourself as an organization that is a
space that is welcoming to patrons in away that feels genuine and authentic to
them.
Keep in mind that this type of approachlikely won't make sense for every single
show or exhibition,
but we do recommend testing bilingualads if and when it makes sense with the
(03:45):
programming that you have and withyour particular audience goals.
And these bilingual ads, arethey relatively easy to set up?
How do we get going on these?
Yeah, they're pretty easy to set up.
So we can use in-platform languagepreferences in Meta and Google to serve
different versions of the same ad todifferent audiences. So for example,
if you select Spanish as your preferredlanguage at the audience level in a
(04:08):
campaign,
then your ads are going to be servedto users who have set Spanish as their
preferred computer language.In the case of Google,
or if we're talking about Meta,it's their preferred app language,
and it's important to note that you willneed to create two different versions
of your ads if you'rerunning a campaign like this.
So you'll need one version that's inEnglish and another version in another
language. So there is a bitof an extra creative lift,
(04:32):
but once you are donecreating those two versions,
the process of setting up a bilingualcampaign is pretty straightforward.
It actually surprises me that thereisn't an automatic button for that.
With the advances of AI recently andhow good it is at translating and
understanding the meaning of words,
and using that in different languages-itactually surprised me there isn't just
(04:53):
a "create ad in Spanish.".
Right, like an automatictranslate kind of feature.
And I'm sure it's comingdown the pipeline.
There are so many AI driven toolswithin the Meta platform specifically,
and also in Google,
there's a feature right now where youwrite in your ad copy and it will give you
variations, right?
So I'm sure there is a version that'scoming where it's like you enter your ad
(05:15):
copy in English andthere's a button that says,
would you like to translate thisinto French? I'm sure that's coming.
Have you run bilingual campaignswith CI clients before?
Yes, I have.
So we recently worked with CrystalBridges Museum of American Art on a
fully bilingual campaign strategy fortheir exhibition, Diego Rivera's America.
(05:36):
So we served English and Spanish versionsof the same ad content to both new
and existing audiences with the goalof building awareness for this exhibit,
and of course to driveticket sales as well.
And this was really the perfect usecase for a bilingual approach for two
reasons. So one,
Diego Rivera is a very prominentfamous Mexican painter whose work
(05:59):
and his life story are reallysteeped in the Spanish language.
So this just felt like a naturalexhibition to do this for.
And then the second thing is that thesecampaigns were part of a multilayered
ongoing D-I-E-B-A strategyat Crystal Bridges.
So the museum has really made a consciouseffort over the past couple years to
create an inclusive, bilingual,accessible space for all patrons,
(06:24):
and that includes both onsite andthrough their digital presence.
So I think that really allowed usto make these campaigns possible,
and it was really a goalfor Crystal Bridges.
So these bilingual campaigns,
they're just one facet of alarger D-E-I-B-A effort, right?
So how did these campaigns perform?
Really well. So our Metacampaign drove 551 purchases,
(06:48):
and of those 59 purchases,
about 11% were driven byour Spanish language ads,
and 12 of those purchases weretransactions from acquisition audiences,
meaning that these were completelynew patrons who had never
visited Crystal Bridges before,which was really exciting to see.
Wow, that's incredible performance.
(07:09):
Did you also see a lift in engagement aswell? Did you see more key page views?
Yeah, we did.
So our ads drove over 4,000 visits tothe Spanish translated version of the
Diego Rivera landing page and over 20,000page views to the English version of
the page.
And what was really exciting was thatcapturing these views allowed us to
further build Crystal Bridges' remarketingpools so that they can then engage
(07:32):
these visitors again infuture bilingual campaigns.
Yeah, it's opening up a whole,almost like, new audience, right?
Absolutely.
As we mentioned before,
those 42 million Americans whoare Spanish speaking first,
I should imagine-you probably don'thave the exact data on this because we
didn't run a like-for-like experiment-butthe conversion rate's likely going to
be higher if you see somethingin your first language, right?
(07:57):
Absolutely. And I think we see thisjust with campaigns in general,
that the more often you run ads, thestronger your results are going to be.
So I would expect that we would seethe same thing here if we were to run
another bilingual campaign in the future,
that we would see better and betterperformance from those Spanish audiences.
Is that just because the Meta platformis kind of learning who that new audience
is so they can get the ads to theright people in the right combinations?
(08:20):
Yeah, it's absolutely that.
And I would also say justthinking about the user journey,
most of us need more than one touchpoint sometimes before we decide to
press play and buy the thing.
I know I have to see at least three adsfor a pair of jeans before I'm finally
like, okay, fine, lemme go tothe website and buy these jeans.
So I think it's multipletouch points as well.
I just bought my dog a newharness. He's a growing puppy,
(08:43):
eight months old at the moment,
and it's been in my tab-my many,
many emotional support tabs asI call them. They're sort of...
A long consideration period.
Where I'm just like, I needto be reminded a few times.
And then finally one Instagramad got me, so I was like, okay.
Sort of tips you over the edge.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So the resultsyou just talked about, they're from Meta,
(09:07):
but you also ran ads onGoogle as well, right?
Yeah, we did. So we saw similarresults on Google as well,
and we ran ads on displayand YouTube for context.
So those ads drove atotal of 433 purchases.
And of those 113, so that's about 26%,
a little over a quarter werefrom our Spanish language ads,
(09:27):
so even stronger than theresults we were seeing on Meta.
And these ads also drove over 104,000visits to the Spanish translated landing
page, which again was justreally awesome performance.
And you didn't run search ads,
but I should imagine theprocess for setting up search ads is reasonably similar
as well.
You would basically need to haveyour list of keywords in English,
(09:48):
a list of keywords in Spanish,
and then again one version ofthe ads that would be in English,
and then another version of theads that would be in Spanish.
And you would set your languagesettings appropriately,
like we talked about before. Sovery similar process for search.
So why do you think theseads were so successful?
Yeah, I think it goes back tosomething that I mentioned before,
(10:08):
which was that these campaigns didn'trun in a vacuum, they weren't one-off,
like "Let's try this and see how itgoes" kind of random flippant decision.
They were really part of a larger,
very authentic D-I-E-B-A effort thatextends beyond Crystal Bridges digital
efforts to the actual onsiteexperience at the museum.
So when you arrive for avisit to Crystal Bridges,
(10:30):
you are going to see bilingualsignage for restrooms, parking,
directions to the various galleries...
There are printed brochures that are inmultiple languages, including Spanish.
There are audio and guided tours offeredin Spanish and other languages as well.
And then finally, I think thisis sort of the coolest feature,
is that those little labels that arenext to a piece of art in a museum?
(10:52):
Crystal Bridges actually has those inEnglish and Spanish for every single piece
of art in their museum,
which is an incredible feat andsomething that took them a while to do,
but really impressive anda really cool feature.
So they thought, even offline,
they thought deeply and authenticallyabout the entire process for both an
English speaker and a Spanish speaker.
(11:14):
They want the experience to beas like-for-like as possible.
Absolutely.
Yeah. And online as well.
Online as well. That waswhere we started with our ads.
So they have made a concerted effortto translate several key pages of their
website into Spanish.
I believe there are plans to translateinto other languages as well,
but they're starting with Spanish.
So all of their exhibition pagesare currently translatable,
(11:37):
including the Diego Rivera landing page.
But all of their exhibitions thatthey've had since then are also,
there's an option toview the page in Spanish,
which is great because in this case,
having a Spanish version of the DiegoRivera landing page allowed us to create a
really seamless digital experience.
So we weren't showing someone an adin Spanish and then having them click
through that ad to an English landingpage sort of breaking up that experience.
(12:00):
It was really just sort of a seamlesstransition from the ad to the website to
the actual museum.
And that can be quite a complexprocess. I know from SEO,
like in the search landscape,
there is certain tags youneed to add if you have two
different versions of a page indifferent languages. Like hreflang tags,
(12:20):
to get super nerdy SEO, which Ican do very easily, unfortunately.
I do think it's interesting. And canI ask on behalf of our users, so Dan,
if I were going to make a Spanishtranslated version of a landing page,
would you recommend that Imake that a separate page,
or should it be this one page withtwo versions? Can you talk about that?
Yeah, there's multiple ways you can do it.
(12:41):
The most important thing is to createwhat's called the hreflang tag.
It basically says to Google, "Hey Google,this is the link for a Spanish page.
This is the link for an Englishpage." And you also have where the
language originates as well.
So it's different for UKEnglish versus US English and
(13:02):
US Spanish versus Spanish Spanish.
So there's a lot that goes into it.
Does that mean if I have theword bathroom on my page,
it will translate to"loo," or what is that?
Yes. Otherwise I won't understandwhat on earth you're talking about.
Okay, great. Good.
Yeah. So yeah, there's a lotof work that goes into it.
Usually there is ways of doingthis with coding in terms of
(13:27):
a developer can usually sort outan easy way to do this as well,
so you don't have to gothrough each one. But yeah,
they would need essentiallytwo different pages.
But I think just because there'sa lot of work that goes into it,
that shouldn't dissuade you frommaking this change and wading
into bilingual campaigns. Right?
(13:48):
Yeah, absolutely. And Iwill say, we talked about,
I just gave you a whole laundry listof things that Crystal Bridges has done
both onsite and online to kind ofmake this a seamless experience.
But one thing we didn't talk about isthe actual ticketing purchase path.
So we were showing these Spanish ads,
which took someone toa Spanish landing page.
Once they clicked on the 'buytickets' button of that landing page,
(14:10):
they were then taken to an Englishversion of the purchase path.
So the entire online journey wasn'tcompletely translated. But again,
to your point,
I don't think anyone should letthat stop them from attempting a
bilingual campaign. I think start small,
work with the resources thatyou have, do what you can,
(14:31):
and go from there.
I think this is something thatyou can continue to iterate on,
but to your point, Iwouldn't let one tiny,
tiny piece of this puzzlestop you from starting at all.
Yeah. There's no such thingas a perfect campaign,
so you can't really let theperfect be the enemy of the good.
Exactly.
I think as you've laid out earlier,
what it comes down to is in your outreach.
(14:54):
When you do this authentically,
it's a great way to reach newaudiences and further your D-E-I-B-A
efforts, right?
Yeah.
So thank you so much for walking usthrough this and for being on the pod.
Thank you so much, Dan.This was so much fun.
(15:17):
Hi, John. Welcome to CI to Eye.
Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great.
Of course. So you are theexecutive director of Art-Reach,
and I am really excited to talk moreabout the organization and just give the
organization more light here onCI to Eye. But before we do that,
I do just want to spend a little bitof time talking about you personally.
(15:38):
So tell me a little bit aboutyour connection to the arts.
Why did you choose topursue a career in the arts?
Yeah,
so I was 17 and my sister worked at the
Franklin Institute ScienceMuseum, and she just got me a job.
But once I got in there, Ikind of fell in love with it,
(15:59):
and I felt like I had found my people.
So, I'm neurodivergent,
and what that means is that sometimes Idon't really learn in a classroom or in
a formal setting the way that otherpeople do. So growing up as a kid,
I needed informal spaces to learn.
And so these informalspaces were always just,
(16:22):
they're just important to me and they'rewhat make sort of the world available
to me. And so when I got to a museumand I was like, wait, I can work here?
This is amazing.
It felt really comfortable and itwas a place I was familiar with.
Those early days,
working at the admission desk of amajor museum in Philadelphia really kind
(16:43):
of shaped how I wouldapproach my work later on,
and it just sort of grew from there.
Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
And I also am just going to take thisopportunity to talk a little bit about
your neurodivergence.
Do you feel like you always had avocabulary to describe what you were
experiencing in that? I feellike that word even is not,
(17:03):
it feels newer in the space,
but I'm just curious to hear more aboutwhen you felt like you could describe
what was happening.
Yeah, so that's a great question.How much time do we have?
I know. I know. I went off script already.
No, you're good. So
disability language isjust such a funny thing.
(17:24):
So many different people thatidentify in different ways.
And so it's always hard to say what I'mabout to say because I don't want to
disparage the way otherpeople feel about it.
I actually don't really likethe word neurodivergence because
divergence to me is always somethingstarting at the same point and kind of
going in opposite directions.
(17:45):
And I don't approach my life as if I'mwalking on this divergent path than
everyone else.
I'm just looking for accommodations tokind of bring our paths together so that
we can have more of aconvergent experience as we go through life. So the word,
even for me, it's a word that I'm stillgetting used to myself, to be honest.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think being younger, Iwas undiagnosed for so long,
(18:10):
so I didn't even have the language.I didn't know what was happening.
I wasn't aware that I was processing
information in a way that wasdifferent than everybody else.
I do remember being in schoolreally young, about nine years old,
and it was the first time I reallythought to myself like, oh my gosh,
I'm the dumbest kid inthis class. I don't get it.
(18:35):
I don't understand whatwe're talking about.
And I remember just being confused andthinking, we all have the same books,
we have the same teachers,we have the same school days.
Why do other people getthis and I am so bad?
So at nine years old,
I cut school the way at9-year-old cuts school.
I just faked a stomachacheevery single day.
(18:59):
Oh my gosh.
But the thing that got me going back toschool was they offered piano lessons
after school the second half of the year.
And what I found was that when Iplayed music, I felt different.
I never learned how to read music.I couldn't ever figure that out.
But playing music did somethingdifferent to my brain.
(19:20):
And I used to call it tricking my brain.
That was my officialdisability language, I guess.
Yeah. Wow.
And it's an accommodationthat I still use today.
I have instruments everywherein my workplace, at my house,
and whenever I'm stuck writing agrant or stuck developing a plan,
I have an instrumentand I think of a song,
(19:43):
and then I figure out how toplay it by ear until it's there.
And then it might take a while,
but once I can put thatpuzzle together in my head,
it's like I've got a baseline togo back, sit down with my work,
and put a coherent grant applicationtogether or a coherent business plan
together.
And it's funny because we talkabout at Art-Reach "the power of the
(20:05):
arts," and we have neverreally defined that,
but in some ways I've been using the artsas an accommodation just to get where
I am and figure out what Ineed to do since fourth grade.
Wow. Talk about theimportance of the arts,
and also I love thatyou still do that today.
(20:25):
I love that when you feelstuck, you know what you can do,
and you surround yourself with music.Wow, I'm glad I went off script.
That is a beautiful story. Yeah, I'm glad.
I know from having talked to you beforeand having had previous conversations
with you that there is an intentionalityto you leading art reach in particular.
(20:45):
And you just talked about your ownneurodivergence and your childhood.
Can you share with our listeners alittle bit more about your journey
to and your connection to themission and sort of what drives you
in that work?
Yeah, so as I mentioned, I started offat admission desks at pretty big museums.
And one of the things you see immediatelyin a city like Philadelphia where the
(21:10):
poverty rate is really high, thedisability rate is really high,
you see families who come in withtheir kids and they're getting this,
they're getting that.
And then you see other familiesthat are coming in that are not.
Their kids are really excited,
but their parents are worried becausethey don't maybe have the money to go into
the site or they can't buy the exhibitupgrade or whatever's happening.
(21:33):
And I think that sat with me for a while,
and I remember working at the Franklin,
then I moved over tothe 'dinosaur museum' --
the Academy of NaturalSciences across the street --
and was working there for awhile. And when I was there,
I learned about what a board of directorswas. And at that time I was the museum
services manager. And I was like,well, who's that group of people?
(21:54):
And someone in the section, thesecurity guard Dave, he was like, oh,
that's the board of directors.And I was like, what do they do?
And he just was like, oh, they run theplace, they're in charge. And I thought,
they can't run. I've never seen them,they've never talked to my team,
they never talked tothe people on the floor.
(22:16):
How do they know what they'redoing? I don't get it.
And I just sort of thought to myself,if I ever run my own organization,
I want to run it differently. I want itto be community built. I want it to be
of the community. And when theopportunity came for Art-Reach,
it was an organization that Ihad sort of seen, I knew of,
(22:37):
there was so much opportunity tobring the community to the forefront
while leveraging relationships witharts organizations in the city.
And so I went for it and forwhatever reason, they hired me.
And nine and a halfyears later, here I am.
Yeah. Yeah.
There's so much that you've doneover the past nine and a half years,
(22:59):
and I feel like the organizationhas really shifted and evolved.
Can you talk a little bit about that,
talk about the evolution with yourleadership and what programs you all offer
today?
Yeah, so I think when I started, wehad the arts up on this pedestal,
and when I came in, I was just like, well,
how are we going to holdthe sector accountable and change it if they're on that
(23:22):
pedestal? And so when I came in,
I made my vision pretty clear that Iwas going to take the sector off that
pedestal and put the community there,
and we were going to work more closelyaligned with community members who were
disabled.
And then we were going to leverageour partnership to create this sort of
community pressure that would resultin social change in the arts in
(23:43):
Philadelphia. And then whenthe arts felt that pressure,
they would turn to Art-Reachto relieve it. And I mean,
there were a lot of people whodidn't agree with the approach.
They thought it was too big of a rebootfor the organization to sort of go
through and maintain the audiencethat it had built up. At that point,
we were serving about 13to 15,000 people per year.
(24:08):
And then in my first year at Art-Reach,
41,000 people used the program.
Incredible.
And since then, over the last nine years,
it's been about 1.4 million peoplethat have gone through our programs
and it's just exploded intothis completely different realm
(24:29):
where we're not justbuilding audiences anymore.
We're not just doing discount accessfor people with disabilities and people
experiencing poverty.We're led by the community.
Most of my staff is disabled.
Every single staff memberidentifies with disability,
either personally or througha direct family member.
(24:51):
And it's just changed the conversation.
Right. Yeah.
We went from this very,
very white non-disabled organization to
an organization that looks likePhiladelphia and is also chronically ill
and physically disabled andquadriplegic and single-sided deaf and
neurodivergent and autistic. And it works.
(25:15):
And the community trustsus because we're like,
we are the communityand the community is us.
And the depth of perspective that theninforms the strategy and the work that
you all are doing comes directlyfrom who you're trying to serve,
which is huge.
And it's been a gamechanger. I mean, it's just,
now every year we have over200,000 people experience the arts
(25:39):
in accessible wayd throughan Art-Reach program.
Each year we want to coursecorrect what happened with the
arts. If people wereleft out, is visual art,
is the visual art that we know,
the full spectrum of what the visualarts could have been if everyone was
included from the start? Is music,
(26:01):
have we experienced the full spectrumof that or are we missing something
because other people were left out ofthat equation for so long? So let's
find out and see what happens.
Yeah. And that's such an inspiringdriving force in the work,
is really figuring out the answerto that question for all art forms.
(26:22):
What would this look like if the artform had evolved including everyone as
opposed to excluding?
We know that the disability communityin particular has been historically
excluded from participating in the arts.
So why do you thinkthat has been the case?
Why do you think that art has evolved,
(26:43):
has in some ways excludedthat community in particular?
Yeah. I think, well, it's like anuanced part of the conversation.
So I think even decades ago,
I think people were justnervous or scared or hesitant,
or they didn't know how to,so they didn't worry about it.
And it's just so disheartening to thinkthat because you couldn't figure it out
(27:04):
right away,
how to engage a person withdisabilities in the arts,
that you just didn't bother to try. That'swhat we're actually trying to change.
We're not necessarily trying toconvince people who aren't disabled to
come up with a solution, right?
Right.
(27:24):
The community probablyknows what the solution is,
and they have ways thatthey can engage in the arts,
just like I have ways that I canengage in the arts that work for me,
and we just need to transfer thatpower to the community so that
A,
there's authentic representation andthere's representation in a way that the
community feels comfortablebeing represented.
(27:46):
So we're not trying tobe anyone's inspiration.
I don't want to be like, oh, look atJohn. He learned a song on a guitar.
Good for him and hisneurodivergent brain. How sweet.
I don't give a shit at all.I don't care about that.
I'm not here to inspire anybody.
I do that because it works for meand it helps me navigate my life
(28:10):
and it feels good and it makes mehappy. And all of those things don't --
everyone's going to findtheir own path in that way,
but the community has to define that path,
and I think that's where theexclusion will start to end.
Yeah,
I love that idea of the transfer ofpower and what that ultimately empowers
(28:32):
us to do as an industry inthe space. So that's great.
I think so many people or somany organizations will ask a
community what they want and then theytake that information and they shoehorn
it into whatever that organizationreally wants to do anyway.
And it doesn't build trust.
(28:53):
It puts this sort of emotional laboron the community and it puts this
expectation that something couldchange, but really it's not going to.
Whereas what we do, we're justlike, what do you want to do?
And people tell us and we're just like,let's go do that. That sounds great.
Super fun. Come on, let's go.
And it's so much more authenticwhen it happens in that kind of way.
(29:16):
We're kind of restoring this trustbetween arts organizations in
Philly and the disability community,which is just huge in the city.
And that trust, when they seetheir idea kind of come to life,
it creates the environment wherepeople feel a little bit more safe,
they feel heard, they feel seen,
and they are willing to probably goback and engage with that organization
(29:40):
again. So it's this little bit of arestorative process that has to be rooted
in trust at the base.
I feel like there are a lot ofarts organizations now who are
really working on their accessible,
sensory-friendly experiences.
And I'm curious to hear yourperspective on that approach with arts
(30:03):
organizations,
and I should say there'ssome arts organizations who haven't yet started on that
work.
So being able to approach specificexperiences accessibly and through
sensory-friendly programming,that's certainly a step forward.
Versus this idea of producinguniversally designed
experiences that include all, touse some of your earlier language.
(30:28):
Give me your thoughts.
Yeah, so it's great when organizationstake a first step. I think still,
if a theater wants to dosensory-friendly theater performances,
I think it's really great.
And there's definitely a lot ofpeople who benefit from that. In fact,
I think sensory-friendly or relaxedperformances are the closest we've
gotten so far to universal design.I think it's a more... like,
(30:49):
a relaxed theater performance is lovely.
I don't know if you've ever been to one.
It's really nice to be able toget up and move around and do it.
Yes, it's great.
It's great on everybody.
I do worry that sometimes whenplaces anchor down in one type
of accessible programming though,
that they start to think aboutdisability in segregated ways. And
(31:12):
there is this idea of universaldesign. I've never really seen it
fully embraced.
I think the closest example I'veliterally ever seen was in the movie
Zootopia, which came out --
Such a good movie.
Such a good movie.
There was one scene where allthese animals were getting off the train and I was
(31:33):
just like, oh, look, they're allgetting off of different size doors.
That's universal design!But no, universal design,
it's a cool idea.
How can you create a spacethat's accessible to the most amount of people most
of the time? It's just, it's challenging.
And I think there are ways to do it andthere's ways that we've done it in the
(31:54):
past, but it's hard tomaintain that all the time.
I think the way that we work withorganizations now is we want them to
understand the communitythat they work in.
And so when we work with anorganization to help them plan out their
accessibility practice,we're kind of like, alright,
so you need to make everythingaccessible, period. Number one.
(32:17):
But we realized that just giving youthat advice is not necessarily feasible.
You might not have the capacityto do so. So let's step back.
And we examine their surroundingcommunity to see what the prevalence of
disability by disability type isaround their site. And we're like,
we want you to prioritizeaccessibility as an organizational
(32:40):
value, but within that,
maybe you want to start with programmingfor people who have cognitive
disabilities and people whohave physical disabilities,
because you have the highest number ofcommunity members among those types of
disability in your neighborhood.
And we're not telling youto ignore the other stuff.
We're just saying investhere first, build up quicker.
(33:03):
And the other ones can be a little bitof a slower burn with a caveat that if
somebody asks for something,
you are obligated by law nomatter how old you are as an
organization to make itaccessible in some way.
But I like the data informedapproach and also the acknowledgement
that we are all human beings witha finite amount of time, energy,
(33:28):
resources to dedicate to anything.
So why not focus on the place whereyou can see will have the greatest
impact first, which doesn't mean thatthe other things on the list fall off.
It just means that you prioritize yourlist accordingly. So when we talked,
you had shared some reallyinteresting museum examples with me of
(33:48):
ways that you've seen various museumscreating more accessible spaces.
Can you just talk about a couple ofthose? I found them pretty inspiring,
so I would love to sharethose with our listeners too.
Yeah, I mean,
it's wild to think of the spectrum onwhich some of our programming exists.
I always use the example,
we do everything from going to EasternState Penitentiary here in Philadelphia,
(34:12):
which is a historic ruinssite of an old prison.
And we were trying to make thataccessible to people who were blind.
And there's this funny wagon wheeldesign that they always talk about,
and you're in the central hub.
And we decided to take a projectionof their map and just using hot
glue,
we traced it out onto a board and itcreated this raised tactile map that
(34:37):
people could use to kind of understandthe layout of the prison as they were
going through their tour. Andthat's a $4 accommodation.
So it's like we always usethat as that's the baseline.
And then we also did this thingwith Opera Philadelphia where we
were making the opera accessible topeople who were deaf by partnering with
(34:58):
Music Not Impossible,
who has this fiber textile hapticsuit that translates music into
vibration so that people can experiencesound through their skin as opposed
to their ears. And it'ssuch a wide spectrum.
I think some of the things we were talkingabout were in art museums, and again,
it scales on the easier sideof the equation where if
(35:23):
you're looking at a painting oryou're looking at a 2D piece of art,
we were using cotton balls withscented oils in Ziploc baggies to
replicate the smells that were representedin the paintings that you're seeing.
If it was still life fruit,
you could create this tactile experience,
scents that we're alsowithin that environment.
(35:45):
So little things that add on
to the experience,
just make it kind of better,
and I remember going throughon that particular tour,
I think that was the BarnesFoundation, we were doing that,
and there were other visitors whowere kind of like, can we do it?
And we were just like, I mean, sureif you want, it's not that hard.
(36:09):
So that's when it gets kindof fun when accessible design
improves an overallexperience for the venue.
It just makes the whole experience alittle bit more immersive and tactile.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When you firsttold me about that cotton ball example,
I had the exact same thought.
I want to smell the cotton ballstoo as a part of my experience.
(36:32):
It just is a deeper experience thatI then get to have and I get to
use other senses, and that'sincredible. I love that.
And it's funny because when we hear,
so there's this narrative forcreating buy-in with leadership at
organizations, it's like, well,
we have to use the argument thataccessible design is actually good for
(36:55):
everybody. And while,sure, that can be true,
what we also need to say is, look.Accessible design is not for everybody.
It is specifically for thecommunity who has been excluded.
And the buy-in should start with:
art is a human right, accessto it is a human right.
(37:18):
So let that be our buy-in.
Not necessarily being convinced becausea bunch of non-disabled people think
that this program is cool as well.
And it's fun to watch thatperspective shift when we
do have to talk to organizations andwe are helping them prep programs,
or it's just like this light bulbwhere they're like, oh, right, no,
(37:39):
I do believe in human rights. Andwe're like, yeah, you sure do.
You posted all that on your Instagramfor so many special holidays.
Human rights, woo! Soyeah, it's just like,
how can we start the conversation there?
Yeah.
And how can we use the drive to removebarriers that currently are in place
to 'art as a human right'as the main driving factor
(38:02):
in the work? I am curious,
perhaps this is connectedand perhaps it isn't,
but I know that Art-Reach puts out aton of resources for the field exploring
accessibility in the arts.
Can you highlight a couple of thoseresources and where somebody who maybe has
never had exposure to Art-Reach,
what resources they should start withand maybe your most popular or the ones
(38:25):
that you think are most impactful?
So on our website, we have apage for community learning,
and it's all workshops we've done inthe past with different folks who have
different programming or different panelsthat are just talking about different
programs that they've tried. Someof them are just sort of, again,
that transfer of powerto the community to say,
(38:45):
what do you want to talkabout accessibility wise and how can art be a tool that
helps facilitate whateverit is that you need?
But some of the more formalthings that we have are,
we have a big nine month cohort thatpeople can join where they're learning
best practices on everythingfrom your baseline
(39:07):
disability justice overview to howyou're serving different communities,
how you can serve them inoverlapping ways. We have a really,
really cheap conferencefor the arts. In fact,
we might even make it free this year.I think last year,
43% of attendees team for free.
So we spend most of our time justgetting scholarship funds to cover the
(39:31):
costs for everybody.
But what's really unique about ourconferences and our cohort is that they're
all led --
all of the sessions are led by peoplewith lived experience and disability.
So there's this different, there's this,
there's leveling of livedexperience being on par with
professional experience and educationalexperience that I think is one of the
(39:54):
most important challenges thatwe're trying to break open.
And then I think we're about tolaunch two new podcasts, I think.
Oh, wow. Nice.
They're just exploring topics.
We want to talk to a number of peoplewith disabilities serving on boards and
what that experience has beenlike. What were the barriers?
Let's just talk about it openly to changethe way that maybe boards operate and
(40:17):
increase representation. So there'sa ton of stuff out there. And then,
there's a bunch of other great books.
Emily Liddell's book "DemystifyingDisability" -- Amazing.
Everyone should justread it. It's incredible.
Yeah. I'll add that one tomy list. Yeah. That's great.
(40:40):
So we've come to the end.
So we have one finalquestion which we ask all of
our guests, which is our CI to Eye moment.
So if you could broadcastone message to executive
directors, leadership teams,
staff and boards of thousandsof arts organizations,
what would it be?
(41:03):
You have to be accessible and you shouldask your community that's around you
how to do it. I think there's
a lot of people out there who think, oh,my site is older. We predate the ADA.
It doesn't apply to us. We'regrandfathered in. Number one,
nobody is grandfathered intoviolating a civil rights law.
(41:25):
And that's what it is. It's a civilrights law that guarantees a human right.
If you want to be accessible, talkto your community. Let them lead.
Let them be not just apart of that conversation.
Let them drive that conversation,
because otherwise you're notgoing to get as far as you could.
Yeah. Beautifully said. John,thank you so much for your time.
(41:48):
Thank you for being here.It's been so lovely.
Yeah, this was great. I'll comeback anytime. This was wonderful.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you.
And now it's time for CI-lebritySightings. You get it?
(42:08):
It's like our name in "celebritysightings." Anytime we can torture a pun,
we love to.
Here are some of our favorite news storiesfeaturing CI clients in 60 seconds or
less. Start the timer. Round of applausefor the High Museum of Art in Atlanta,
which was featured in the New York Timesfor increasing its proportion of BIPOC
attendees from 15% in 2015 to 57% in 2022
(42:31):
and 2023.
Read all about it in the articletitled "At Museums A Revolution Gains
Momentum." And snaps to Atlanta's AllianceTheater and Chicago's Goodman Theater
for being featured in American TheaterMagazine's article, "They Will Survive:
Theaters That Are Beating The Odds." Andfinally cheers the New York City Ballet
for their coverage in the AssociatedPress about their changing audience
(42:52):
demographics. In 2023,
53% of ticket buyerswere under the age of 50,
compared to 41% of ticket buyers in 2018.
We're so proud of these clients fortheir unprecedented audience growth and
commitment to engaging new audiences.Got a story that deserves a shout out?
Well, tag us on social andlet us know. Who knows?
(43:13):
You might be featured in the nextepisode of CI-lebrity Sightings! CI.
Capacity Interactive. 'LebritySightings. CI-lebrity. The pun works!
Thank you for listening to CI to Eye.
(43:33):
This episode was edited and produced byKaren McConarty and co-written by Karen
McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss.
Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CIto Eye's designers and video editors and
all work together to create CI's digitalcontent. Our music is by whoisuzo.
If you enjoyed today's episode,
please take a moment torate us or leave a review.
(43:55):
A nice comment goes a long way in helpingother people discover CI to Eye and
hear from experts in the arts and beyond.If you didn't enjoy today's episode,
pass it on to all of your enemies.Don't forget to follow us on Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube,
and TikTok for regular contentto help you market smarter.
You can also sign up for our newsletterat capacityinteractive.com so you never
(44:17):
miss an update. And ifyou haven't already,
please click the subscribe buttonwherever you get your podcasts.
Until next time, stay nerdy.
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