State of the arts

In early March 2020, Brian J. Carter, ’08, leaned forward in his office chair at 4Culture to do some quick back-of-the-napkin math. The loss of revenue facing the nation’s arts-and-culture industry was staggering: nearly half a billion dollars.

As executive director of King County’s cultural funding agency, Carter knew that arts and culture would face devastating losses as one of the pandemic’s first victims. By the time the statewide stay-home order was issued in late March, Carter saw his initial estimates balloon as theaters went dark, museums shuttered their doors and many artists had no foreseeable income. He knew 4Culture had a monumental task ahead.

4Culture is a driving force in the region’s creative landscape — supporting everything from the Seattle Shakespeare Company’s performances of “Hamlet” to up-and-coming multimedia artists, with tax dollars earmarked for arts and culture. From downtown Seattle to unincorporated rural communities, King County residents encounter 4Culture’s influence every time they step inside a museum, read poetry on a Metro bus poster or stroll past a colorful mural.

Historically, philanthropists who’ve donated to arts and culture have often overlooked and underfunded marginalized communities. 4Culture aims to reverse that trend. When Carter, a UW museology program graduate, took on the executive director role in 2018, he renewed the agency’s mission — to fund, support and advocate for culture in King County — with racial equity at its core.

“I want to position 4Culture as an innovative, experimental place,” says Carter, a dynamic speaker and advocate who believes deeply in pushing for change. “To do that, we had to make a commitment to racial equity as a featured focus of the way we work and see ourselves.”

Behind the scenes, you’ll find him working with two other UW graduates to make the cultural ecosystem more equitable, accessible and inclusive: Joshua Heim, ’10, and Chieko Phillips, ’11. One way they’re putting equity first is by giving grants to help organizations in underserved communities build or renovate their physical spaces.

It’s a commitment to equity that brought these three Husky alums to 4Culture in the first place — and that has remained the agency’s North Star in their pandemic response. On this epic quest, Carter, Phillips and Heim each bring unique skills and perspective, shaped by their time at the UW and a devotion to the idea that arts and culture are the key to making our society a better place.

Fulfilling a public good

Growing up in Yakima, Carter was painfully aware how rarely museums reflected the lives of people like him, the biracial son of an African American father and Hispanic mother.

Armed with an undergraduate history degree and an insatiable curiosity, he faced a professional crossroads — and realized he wanted to create something he’d never seen: a Black history museum. The UW’s Museology Master of Arts program came along at exactly the right moment.

At the UW, Carter discovered that the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle not only shared his dream but was making it come true: By the time the Northwest African American Museum (NAAM) opened its doors two years later, Carter was a full-time staff member.

Over the next 14 years, Carter was frustrated at how infrequently marginalized communities were represented in the staff, programming and exhibits of most mainstream museums. Change was slow because organizations worried about losing donors — so Carter saw how powerful funders could be in advocating for increased diversity and equity through financial support. He was especially drawn to the community-wide reach of 4Culture.

“There’s something fascinating about a public funding agency, because public dollars should fulfill the highest public good,” Carter explains. “When you get lost, you can ask, ‘Is this in the best interests of as many people as possible?’”

It’s a question he has returned to many times, and it became more relevant than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Building a cultural ecosystem

Like his colleagues, Joshua Heim found his calling — and his place at 4Culture — thanks to his lifelong natural curiosity.

Growing up in Hawaii, Heim was fascinated by hula, an Indigenous dance form whose ancient drumbeats and chants are the soundtrack of the islands. Learning hula sparked something bigger in Heim, who is Asian American; he admired hula’s active role in Native Hawaiian activism for sovereignty and self-determination.

Understanding culture as a tool of community empowerment — not just a relic of the past —inspired Heim to earn a master’s degree in cultural studies from UW Bothell and an international development certificate through the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance.

Arts and culture “are significant to our society and critical in helping us become better versions of ourselves,” says Heim, who worked for Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, as well as for the cities of Bellevue and Redmond. “With COVID, we’re starting to understand what it means when we can’t be together and have shared experiences.”

Drawn to 4Culture for its regional influence and Carter’s leadership on equity, Heim joined the team in late 2019. It’s his dream job, working at the crossroads of arts, culture and community to build a more equitable cultural ecosystem in which all communities are represented.

“The good things most people like about their communities are cultural, whether it’s a festival, a local civic organization or an old building that anchors your main street,” says Heim, who as deputy director is leading the agency’s COVID-19 recovery task force. He believes 4Culture’s mission, to create opportunities for all people to help shape that cultural legacy for future generations, is even more critical as the agency helps artists and organizations recover from the pandemic.

Equity in a global crisis — and beyond

The pandemic has transformed the way 4Culture supports the creative community, but it hasn’t altered that central commitment to equity.

With programs canceled and physical spaces closed, cultural workers faced a significant loss of income and opportunity. Creatives in marginalized communities, which are bearing a disproportionate burden of COVID-19, were especially vulnerable.

Carter looked at 4Culture’s original 2020 plan and returned to his guiding-light question: “Is this in the best interests of the public at this moment?”

Switching gears, 4Culture began issuing emergency grants to artists and organizations — and it’s distributed more than $4 million in relief funding from the federal CARES Act. They’ve helped organizations install plexiglass barriers to reopen under state guidelines, supported virtual programming like online art classes for refugee youth and seniors, and helped cultural workers afford necessities like groceries and child care. They built equity into that process by earmarking additional funding for communities outside Seattle and neighborhoods in King County with the lowest incomes and highest need.

At the same time, Carter, Phillips and Heim are looking past the pandemic and brainstorming ways to continue their work with a smaller budget. One of 4Culture’s revenue sources is the county’s lodging tax — levied each time someone stays at a hotel or motel. Fewer visitors during the pandemic means less money for grants.

“Many people want me to predict what the future of culture is going to look like post-COVID,” says Carter. “I am much more interested in how we use this opportunity to create a significant policy change that brings us to more racially equitable outcomes. If we have not moved the needle on where the money goes and who it goes to, then we have not succeeded.”