Arts Disaster & Crisis Preparedness Conference

Beyond Rationality: Incorporating First Responder Grief Work into Disaster and Crisis Planning
Presenter: Amber Lynn Scott
First responders are rarely taught how to respect their own individual and organizational manifestations of trauma and grief that emerge during crisis. This presentation discusses a novel framework to overcome this identified gap.

Insights and Lessons Learned: Mitigation, Recovery & Resilience at University of Kentucky
Presenters: Laurel Wood and Kristen Sutherland
Discover approaches to disaster recovery and resilience when faced with natural disasters of any size, shape, or form and the challenges and successes associated with planning for the unknown at the Commonwealth's flagship institution of higher education.

From Coachella to Carnivale, festivals sit at the crossroads of community, cultural tradition, and social transformation. As temporary towns and cities, they’re also windows into a community’s resilience against the impacts of extreme climate events, civil disruptions, and disaster.

Matthew Ché Kowal of Majestic Collaborations and Tom Clareson of Performing Arts Readiness will share lessons learned from the many Art of Mass Gatherings symposiums, festival/venue assessments, asset mapping, and resilience hubs sprints held across the US and Puerto Rico over the last six years. We consider the future trajectory future of workforce and infrastructure with "mass gathering resilience specialists” playing a key role in enhancing accessible and sustainable design.

Community, Healing, and the Arts in Disaster
Presenters: Eleanor Billington and Heather Spooner
Join the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to discuss the critical role that arts and culture play in community wellness and mental health, specifically the NEA's Military Healing Network Intiative: Creative Forces.

Natural Resiliency: Creative Approaches to Healing After Disaster
Presenter: Jessica Evans
This presentation and discussion, with real-world examples, will outline the many ways that creative expression can foster resilience and help both individuals and communities navigate the journey toward healing and recovery amidst adversity.

Take Manageable Steps Towards Adequate Preparation
Presenter: Leah Craig
Disaster preparedness can be a daunting, overwhelming task. Learn manageable steps toward improving your disaster preparedness starting with yourself, working within your team, and influencing your organization.

Creativity in Adversity: Continuing “Pandemic-Era” Community Engagement Practices in the Dance Field Post-Pandemic
Presenter: EveMarie Bessenbach
The dance field should continue utilizing “pandemic-era” practices based on the unexpected, yet tremendous ability to
successfully foster community engagement and increase accessibility to dance - even during one of the most devasting
events in modern history.

This demonstration of materials recovery and salvage from an arts and cultural disaster will provide ideas on how to recover library, archival, and arts collection materials such as books, papers, photographs, tapes, and computer media. Tom Clareson, the Project Director of Performing Arts Readiness and Senior Consultant for Digital & Preservation Services at Lyrasis, the leading library and archives network in the U.S., will also highlight best-practice resources for materials recovery.

The Heritage Emergency National Task Force
Presenter: Sarah Caruso
A partnership between FEMA and the Smithsonian Institution, the Heritage Emergency National Task Force (HENTF) provides resources and information to help cultural stewards, emergency managers, and the public protect cultural heritage sites and resources. In addition to assisting museums and other cultural institutions when their collections are damaged by an event, HENTF helps reduce disaster suffering by assisting the public in salvaging flood-damaged family heirlooms. This presentation will explore HENTF’s role in disaster response, examples of HENTF’s work, and how we advocate for the protection of cultural heritage across the United States.

Federal Legal Frameworks for Protecting Historic Sites
Presenter: Yuha Jung
This session explores the interplay between federal laws and FEMA's role in disaster response, focusing on historic preservation. It examines legal protections and resilience for historic sites, and integration of preservation priorities into disaster management amidst climate change.

The National Weather Service - Building Resiliency in Kentucky
Presenter: Jane Marie Wix
What exactly is the National Weather Service? This presentation will give you an inside look at the role of the NWS offices across the state and country, talk about ways you can get involved, and will also discuss how the NWS Jackson, KY office is working within the community to help build better weather awareness, preparedness, and resiliency.

Safeguarding Community Celebrations
Presenters: Leah Hamilton, Melissa Bond
This session focuses on emergency planning strategies for community-based celebrations, using the Williamsburg, Kentucky Earth Day Festival as a real-world example. Hear about the successful partnership between UK Cooperative Extension and UK Arts Administration conducting a risk audit and building effective communication and training strategies with local administrators in a small town setting.

Sustaining a Resilient Organization through Theoretical Constructivism & Actionable Pragmatism
Presenter: Josh Austin
Tenets of a resilient organization are examined via collaborative and coordinated-based theory. Specifically, both open systems and resilience theory are demonstrated as a means to install effective, sustainable system-to-system pragmatic action within an arts organization.

Preventative Conservation and Digital Revitalization of Cultural Heritage in Asia
Presenter: Ruby Yu
Explore preventive conservation and revitalization of tangible and intangible cultural heritage in Asia through digital technology and public engagement, with a focus on specific case studies including ancient artifacts, Chinese grottoes, traditional paintings, and various forms of intangible heritage.

This session is designed for individual artists and their workspaces. It provides an overview of the important personal and professional readiness actions and resources available for artists through CERF+, the Craft Emergency Relief Fund.