Dear ACI Family and Friends,
It is with mixed emotions that I announce that I am stepping down from the role of Executive Director of Arts Connect International. This decision was neither simple nor easy to arrive at.
I began my journey with ACI in 2018 as a somewhat clumsy Programming Fellow with an uncanny ability to coordinate my outfits with the artwork on exhibit at the Open Door Gallery where we our offices are located. While completing my EdM in Arts in Education, my budding friendships at ACI proved to be a source of steady and consistent strength during difficult moments - walks, conversations, coffees and teas, Georgetown cupcakes, cathartic artmaking and impromptu karaoke sessions with our Youth United Artists were invaluable. In my moments of joy and victory, this same family showed up, and continues to. When I had a gig or sat on a panel, I could expect someone from the ACI fam to be there. I took my first trip to the continent of Africa with ACI family, and had the pleasure of taking the lead on this year’s virtual Arts Equity Summit where we supported artists and cultivated much needed community during these difficult times.
And these times are indeed, difficult. I remain ever grateful for the friendships I have developed here, and I have many hopes for how ACI and the arts and culture sector as a whole can move forward, centering equity. It is my sincere desire that we model what it means to put people and community first.
The inequities that we see highlighted during this season were already in existence, and to many are far from surprising. The disparities we see in the arts and culture sector, in health care, education and beyond, also persist in part because we have not slowed down enough to allow ourselves to imagine different and new, and to take the risks necessary to push fragile newness into existence and nurture it in community. Sometimes we must step away to step into healing - for ourselves and for others. What have we to offer each other but ourselves? Let us do the work to not only be better, but to be well.
I remain ever a part of this global family, in love and expectation.
Gratefully,
Allegra Fletcher