The uniqueness of the Eastside starts with its multiracial multicultural and ethnically diverse community. EastHUB honors this dynamic community and is committed to being antiracist in all aspects of our work and organizational practices. We utilize Consensus Organizing principles to more deeply understand the gaps and opportunities currently facing our community and to foster arts and culture leadership and representation that better reflects the diversity on the Eastside.
From the start of EastHUB’s operations in mid-2020, we made a promise to our community not to dictate to them, but to ask them what they want, discover what they need, and work with them to accomplish the goal of creating meaningful change together. We are working to establish a set of programs and resources that will make it easier to learn about and integrate all aspects of our diverse Eastside into the fabric of arts and culture.
Through our Community Engagement work, we will expand our conversations about major areas of need and gaps, from physical spaces to organizational experiences and capacity. Consensus organizing is a method of community engagement that focuses on finding and developing areas of mutual self-interest between community stakeholders. EastHUB’s consensus organizers work directly with the communities they represent to understand their specific needs when experiencing or showcasing arts and culture, the difficulties they navigate, and the gaps and overlaps.
Our commitment to looking at every aspect of our work through an anti-racist lens has led us to our efforts in creating programming specifically around BIPOC and other marginalized communities through our Culture Creates Community events. These events are free, and range from topics such as Artists with Disabilities, Structural Racism in the Arts, Importance of preserving native language and culture, Art for healing trauma. These presentations and discussions will continue to help us facilitate conversations and shared learnings around topics that emerge through community engagement.
Cultural Mapping is a process and a tool used to create data to help decision-makers and the arts and culture community as a whole to understand cultural assets, needs, and gaps. With this data, EastHUB will help our arts and culture community more clearly define its identity, and create opportunities to expand access to the arts. This work is ongoing and will continue to develop and change as the Eastside changes with direct community input and analysis.
