2021 in Review
Logos remixed by Elaine Hullihen, Carrie Williams, and Kim Lavery
It’s a new year, and while in someways it feels like 2020 has just been extra long, it’s a good time to look back at the last 12 months of work at MCA, what we’ve accomplished, and what we hope to tackle in 2022.
Kris Mills + Cassandra Harner performing for Activate, March 2021 All Photos by Kaitlin K Walsh
2021 remained a hard year for the arts, especially ones that hinge on collaboration. The pandemic continued to distort the ways in which we communicate, create, and connect to others. So much of what has been lost in the zoom era is hard to put into words: the roles of silence, of breath, of attention, of the subtle ways in which we express ourselves has been flattened.
We at MCA feel a strong imperative to take steps to keep our community safe at all costs which often feels at war with our human need for communion. There’s an agonizing tension between protecting and sustaining ourselves. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like this split will be going away anytime soon, and so we are forced to reckon with it, to reconcile ourselves to the task of staying safe, stay sane, and to grab the moments of connection whenever we can.
Adaptation is a big part of our philosophy, and so while the world remained unpredictable, we still found new ways to bring artists together and provide opportunities for art. This included the return of ACTIVATE in March, June, and August. ACTIVATE began in 2020 out of the need to bring some form of art back to our space in a safe way: each weekend, there’s a new pair of artists bringing visual and performance art into our storefront windows. This year, that was complemented by PORTAL, a new visual art gallery that made use of a boarded up doorway outside of our space.
Silk Allen’s fashion window for Activate, March 2021.
Above: Nathalie Bermudez for August’s Portal.
Below: Slideshow of Four Futures.
We also launched Research & Discovery, an online workshop that brought together different types of artists to experiment with new ways of creating and collaborating in remote environments. We then dove into a big project that relied heavily on such collaboration: Four Futures. This sprawling trans-media piece was inspired by the book by Peter Frase, a thought experiment about the possible lives we might lead post-capitalism. With work spanning from the Spring to in-person and online experiences in the fall, Four Futures was big undertaking, requiring the 30 artists involved to innovate and stay flexible in an ever-changing world.
In any year, the most important story at Maelstrom in not the work that was created, but who created it. Looking at the year that way, it was kind of amazing. We had 88 artistic opportunities throughout the year, more than in any year prior and well ahead of our pre-pandemic record of 74. Not only that, but we worked with multiple artists from different parts of Ohio and some who were out-of-state, a surprising benefit arising out of the need for remote work.
Our curatorial guidelines—derived from the values in our Anti-racism, Accessibility and Inclusion statement and goals—were similarly encouraging. Our current criteria are that the majority of our artists non-white/BIPOC, non-cismale, and at least 20% new to working with us. We succeeded in meeting these goals while increasing overall participation which is notable given how difficult artist outreach has become without in-person events.
For this data, we track both Artistic Opportunities (which reflects overall representation) as well as Unique Artists (which reflects depth of community participation). These numbers are almost identical to 2020 with the exception of “New to MCA” which was lower this year by 15-30%, likely due to the pandemic. We also recognize that our ‘simple majority’ benchmarks are blunt tools that need continued reflection and adapting in the future, that there will be future metrics to track, and that numbers like this are only part of the process to building a more equitable arts company and community.
Coming up in 2022
MCA is going to slow down for the next few months. We’ll be continuing PORTAL and launching a new education series—LUX, or “Level Up Experience”—to give artists chances to develop their skills for future projects. We’re also taking some time to reflect on the company as a whole: who we are, who we serve, and how best to do that. The past paradigms are gone; we want to acknowledge that and discover new avenues of creation moving forward. We also have a few secret projects in the works that we’ll be able to talk about soon.
It’s not been an easier year, but we’ve also been so lucky to have had such a strong community of support. At our best, we are a conduit to the creative wellspring that exists in our community and to the many incredible artists exploring the boundaries of established forms. We’re grateful to them, to the audiences that support them, to the donors that fund this work, and for the chance to move forward with new eyes and new ideas in 2022.
