Dear Artist,
Many of Philadelphia’s mayoral candidates claim to support the arts. They want your vote. We want to vote. Let’s ask them how they feel about the cultural sector and how they plan to support it if elected. Together, we are teaming up with Artblog, one of Philadelphia’s major art publications, to find out exactly how the mayoral candidates will, or will not, support the arts in their administration.
Your vote is the loudest voice, sometimes the only voice, that politicians hear. Election season is when they are the most attentive. The cultural community votes, yet arts and culture issues rarely make it to the forefront of campaigning priorities.
To that end, we made an ongoing document here of questions for the mayoral candidates from the artist community. The questions must pertain to the cultural sector, as there are many other forums for their other priorities. Add your question, or, if you see a question that you would like to see asked, there is a column to add your “vote” to ask this question to the mayor.
We will then select five questions to send to all the candidates. Your votes will be noted, but we will also look at questions that may be similar and combine them.
Our timeline is below:
March 1: Artists are invited to pose Questions to candidates
April 1: Questions from Artists due
April 7: Questions sent to mayoral candidates
April 21: Candidate Responses due
May 1: Candidate Responses shared publicly
May 16: Primary Election, Voting Day!!
The Mayoral Candidates’ answers, or non-answers, will be distributed to the cultural community and can guide our votes. Your voice, and your vote, matter!
In service,
Barbara Silzle
Former Executive Director, Philadelphia Cultural Fund
Jacque Liu
Public Art Consultant
Former Percent for Art Program Manager, Office of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy
Roberta Fallon
Co-Founder and Executive Editor, Artblog
Julia Marsh
Executive Director and Editor, Artblog
