A Message from our CEO Ken Ikeda

Last week’s results left many feeling the weight of a divided country, fearing a perilous future based around deepening polarization and hate instead of honoring the power of communities and mutual respect. 

Our reality: CAST’s mission is in direct conflict with the goals of the next presidential administration. 

Artists help us to question, to see the future, to make sense of ourselves and activate community. Experiences with art can transport us, entertain us, and inspire movements that ground us in our values, aspirations, and community. Artists tell our stories, unapologetically. 

The 47th President has proposed the dismantling of the Department of Education and in 2020 sought to eliminate federal funding for the arts. Thankfully, the NEA survived that threat then, but no one is safe in an autocracy. Particularly disconcerting is the sense that so much of the vitriol of the incoming administration is rooted in a fear of dispossession; an inability to see a world in which the notion of equality translates to less for those who measure power, superiority and security based on possession. In this context, CAST’s efforts to secure long-term, affordable space in which artists imagine, create, share, and build community is a threat to order and misapplication of resources.

We are facing a test of our resolve and we must be led by our values, working together with and within the artist community. We remain dedicated to listening to artists on the ground level, to make space for culture–literally and figuratively–so the community’s voices continue to be heard and moved to action. For CAST, our reason for being has never been clearer, and we are ready to grow our capacity as advocates, problem-solvers and strategists to keep artists and cultural workers in place, introduce affordable artist housing, and assure that artists and arts and cultural organizations can call the Bay Area home. Unapologetically.

Still processing,
Ken