With President Joe Biden taking over office, there is talk of what needs to be addressed and funded in the wake of COVID-19. More specifically, there have been several calls regarding the allocation of more funding to the arts and those who have kept culture thriving during this pandemic. One initiative, Be An #ArtsHero, is drafting the Defend Arts Workers Now Act (known as the DAWN Act).
The bill calls on the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (among others) to authorize $43.85 billion in grants for “operators, employees, and artists of live venues, recording venues, cultural spaces, and related businesses to address the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on all Arts Workers across the national Arts Economy.” And while the National Endowment for the Arts does currently give grants to venues and spaces across the United States, this is just one organization trying to fund the artistic endeavors of many.
Translation: It’s not enough.
To say that Be an #ArtsHero is raising awareness about their campaign is an understatement: They have hosted Town Halls for specific areas of the arts, the most recent being music and dance. An Art Workers Day of Action took place on October 7, and its website provides both an excel spreadsheet with senators to call and an action packet to properly “advocate for the passage of massive arts relief by the U.S. Senate”.
There is no full American economic recovery without an Arts and Culture Recovery.
The DAWN Act
The Defend Arts Workers Now Act
A top priority is the campaign’s letter-writing initiative. Titled ‘Dear Mr. President and Madam Vice President’, the campaign is asking for people to write letters to “chronicle your hopes, dreams, and vision for what America can become with the arrival of a new administration.” The intent is to make workers in Arts and Culture a legislative priority.
While past presidential administrations have highlighted vast varieties of the arts (poets, musicians, painters, and writers have frequently attended the White House and even been awarded the Presidential Medals of Freedom for their work), those who have not achieved such status are rallying hard for the DAWN Act and the funds that come with it.
Will There Be a Secretary for the Arts to Support the DAWN Act?
Earlier this month, actor and former associate White House director of public engagement Kal Penn spoke to NPR. In an article titled A Biden Cabinet Secretary For Arts? Advocates Are Hopeful, Penn elaborated on the importance of bankrolling the arts: “When you say, ok, well, why did you spend all this money to save this theater — yes, you’re saving the theater, and maybe you’re saving the 500 jobs that the theater provides for the local community, but you’re also then saving the restaurants that people go to the night of the show.”
The fact is that what you invest in the arts, you are investing in other businesses and in your community. Economically speaking, it makes sense to fund the arts. And in the time of COVID, when so many performances and venues have been stripped away, investing in those who are trying to enlighten the world when they have lost the ability to do so-it speaks volumes about what an artist does for humanity.
It may sound like very little, but when you start to multiply that by the numbers of businesses like this that exist around the country, you can see why investing in the arts really makes economic sense.
Kal Penn (NPR)
The same article toyed with the notion of Biden establishing a cabinet position for Secretary of the Arts. With a campaign like Be An #ArtsHero driving the Defend Arts Workers Now Act, it may be closer than we think.
