Will Intermedia Arts be next?

News

They’re certainly not going down without a fight, and they’re not going down alone.

After 35 years in operation, Intermedia Arts has announced that, due to reductions and delays in funding, they are moving full-time staff to contract positions and closing their gallery and poetry library. They will, however, still host all previously scheduled, funded event and hope to expand their rental programming.

Ever true to their community-based mission, they are hoping to use their own crisis to galvanize other small and mid-sized arts groups to come together and face the current economic crisis with a collaborative plan for sustainability, to “declare ourselves not victims of an economic crisis, but architects of a revolution.”

Intermedia will be hosting two meetings:

  • For those who want to help, learn more, or show their support, a Community Townhall this Friday December 18, 2008, 5:30 P.M. at Intermedia Arts, 2822 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis.
  • For other arts organizations, an emergency State of the Arts (SOTA) meeting. Email them if you run a small or mid-sized arts organization and want to attend.

Headshot of Leah Cooper
Leah Cooper

Leah Cooper is a freelance stage director, nonprofit administration consultant, co-founder of this here Web site, co-artistic director of Wonderlust Productions, and the Executive Director of the Minnesota Theater Alliance. She is also on the board of directors for Live Action Set and the California Institute of Contemporary Arts. From 2001 to 2006, she led the Minnesota Fringe Festival to annual attendance increases and financial stability. Up next, she is directing Shooting Star at Park Square Theatre and writing a play for Wonderlust's Adoption Play Project.