Highlighting Arts and Culture in City Elections

Elections are a time for candidates and voters to discuss the strengths and challenges of our towns and cities. It is also the time where communities can debate their visions for the future and think about what is possible.

This fall, MASSCreative injected arts and culture into city elections all across the Commonwealth. MASSCreative worked with over 100 coalition partners in 15 communities to hold public meetings and publicize over 100 candidates’ answers to a questionnaire about the arts. Candidate forums focused on the arts were held in partnership with local cultural organizations and artists in Newton, Cambridge, and Springfield.

Seeing the need to make arts and culture part of the discussion, MASSCreative’s non-partisan Create the Vote 2017, raised awareness and support for arts, culture, and creative expression in dozens of mayoral, city council, and the state legislative races across the Commonwealth.

"In over a dozen cities, the arts community did a great job educating and encouraging mayoral and city council candidates to take bold positions on the arts. Arts leaders pushed candidates to think creatively about how to use artists and cultural institutions to improve the quality of life in communities,” said MASSCreative’s Program Director Tracie Konopinski.  

At the end of October, MASSCreative held its 4th annual Arts Matter Day, an online day of action to celebrate arts and culture in the final days before Election Day. Over 600 organizations and individuals participated, with over 15,000 posts and engagements that reached 1.5 million social media users. Check out our Storify for social media highlights.

More December News