New Cultural Policy Think Tank Launches In NYC

Today New York City welcomes a new policy think tank dedicated to cultural strategies for the 21st Century. The Institute for Culture in the Service of Community Sustainability (ICSCS)will build synergies between arts and other sectors around a platform of cultural, community and environmental sustainability. Led by Paul Nagle and Lise Brenner, the organization will combine traditional research and evolving technologies with the collective wisdom of the community to gain new and deeper understandings of how culture works.

"From the trenches of Off-Off Broadway to the chambers of City Hall, Paul Nagle has spent the last 20 years fighting for a stronger cultural ecosystem," said former NYC Councilmember Alan J. Gerson, for whom Mr. Nagle served eight years as cultural policy director. "The important unifying frame of cultural, community and environmental sustainability that he has created for ICSCS is a true and very needed innovation."

ICSCS will develop strategies and recommendations that support artists; enhance the operating environment for multiple sectors; foster strong, diverse neighborhoods and communities; and strengthen New York City as an international creative economy.

"Humankind faces huge and existential challenges. Not accepting the limitations of time and space, nor the creed that nothing can be other than it is, artists and cultural workers can facilitate the great act of imagination that it will take for the human race to begin creating a sustainable life," said Executive Director Paul Nagle. "ICSCS sees the health of the cultural community and the health of the greater community as absolutely interdependent."

In addition, ICSCS has launched artspolicynow.org, an interactive website that will facilitate artists, policy thinkers and leaders from other sectors in working together on issues of cultural, community and environmental sustainability. Those interested in these issues can explore, engage and upload creative content, create profile pages, initiate public discussions, share information and co-develop initiatives with other users. The website will also be a searchable repository of ICSCS research and a valuable tool to spot trends, identify and facilitate collaborations, as well as coordinate data assembling and reporting across networks.

ICSCS is grateful to the Rockefeller Foundation for its New York City Cultural Innovation Fund award. "The Rockefeller Foundation is proud to support ICSCS' innovative thinking about how we can integrate support for the expanding role of creativity in the life of communities," said Edwin Torres, Associate Director of the NYC Opportunities Fund at the Rockefeller Foundation.

ICSCS has also received awards from the New York State Council on the Arts, the Experimental TV Center and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The organization is an affiliate program of Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action, Ltd.

In celebration of the organization's launch, a VIP Gala will take place on February 18, 2011.

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