The Las Vegas Arts Council Explore Biases within the Community

Locals gather at the Las Vegas Historic Fifth Street school to discuss accessibility and equality.

This Las Vegas Arts Council believes that every person should be treated equally and appropriately. This year the Arts Council hosted an IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) Summit. The IDEA Summit is a workshop for concerned locals to join together and discuss their different experiences and convene on ways to make public places accessible and comfortable for all. 

This workshop series is specifically designed for arts and cultural leaders in nonprofits, municipalities, and public institutions. During this two-day workshop, participants explored the intersection of arts and implicit biases in creative workspaces. Through round-table discussions, participants assessed cultural assumptions: how they are developed, sustained, reinforced in arts and cultural planning. The overall goal was to not only recognize and respect fellow creative community members but to also reflect and reconcile on the differences. 

“This discussion is highly interactive and rooted in deep personal sharing and reflection.” Says attendee Raina S.

By starting at the core with a holistic approach, participants sat in small round table groups and had the option to share their own societal biases. All participants were able to assess not only the biases within their work environment, but the biases that they may have personally and the origins.

While focusing on creative biases and biases against people with disabilities in the art world; attendees were able to explore how their personal biases affect their workspaces, introspects into cultural planning, hiring, and other practices.

The Las Vegas Arts Council holds this event for Las Vegas locals to open dialogue on ways to make Las Vegas more accessible and accommodating for all living within the city. Continuing to have this conversation with feedback can generate workshops that encourage other voices to come to the table to build bridges within the community.

For this event, the goal is not for immediate solutions. The purpose is for different perspectives to start the needed conversations. Las Vegas is a town that is ever changing and it’s important to make sure that as Vegas changes, everyone can access and feel comfortable in it!