Aspen Art Museum

The Aspen Art Museum will explore the role that art plays in catalyzing connectivity and civic engagement in rural communities. The museum will establish a Leadership Network of arts and culture leaders from fourteen towns across western Colorado. A summit will facilitate the identification of both collective and targeted community needs helping the museum to develop a core program criteria to support a variety of activities in each community such as lectures, art making, performances, bilingual discussions, and community exhibitions. The project team will use evaluation data to refine the core program criteria and develop promising examples of new program designs. The museum will host a Rural Art Museum Convening for education staff from rurally based art museums across the United States to share project findings, in addition to creating reports that will be posted online for the field.