Hue Arts has released a Brown Paper on the experiences and realities of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, and all People of Color arts entities. The project seeks to reveal the value they bring to their communities and to the cultural ecosystem of New York City as a whole. Ensuring that arts leaders, artists, and organizations of color reap the same benefits for their work as their predominantly white counterparts is essential for racial and cultural equity and for the continued vitality of the NYC arts field.

Hue Arts is demanding that the deep systemic inequity that has spread to the art community, including institutions, funders, and policy makers, as well as the artists and communities served, be addressed by New York City, including public and private philanthropy. Until financial resources from both private and government entities are distributed more equitably, there will never be more equitable access to staffing, working conditions, professional training, or space, and there will never be a genuinely equal chance to realize artistic visions and dreams. This is far from the first time this issue has been raised—the tireless efforts of the Cultural Equity Group for over the past 15 years is one notable example. Numerous initiatives over the years have raised many of the issues captured in this report. The gulf in support between the entities studied here and predominantly white-led organizations is both immense and long-standing.

It is important to make the data, stories, and experiences in this report widely visible, but it is equally important that these data, stories, and experiences are heeded. The inequity and imbalance in the distribution of resources cannot be accepted as a given. We must take action as a collective community.

To read the full paper: https://www.hueartsnyc.org/brown-paper/

In addition, Hue Arts has produced a map of POC arts organizations that you can explore: