Edited by Nico Wheadon and David van der Leer — Is a relentless pursuit of perfection holding us back? Should we try to embrace experimentation and messiness more? Should we celebrate learnings from failure more? …

David van der Leer — principal of DVDL— explores how institutional architecture might be able to meet shifting needs for connecting with people, following or shaping their behavior, celebrating human energy, and allowing for changing programs. — One of my first jobs was for an architect who loved to flaunt his knowledge of, and fascination with, the golden ratio. Used by many of the greats in the centuries before him, I often felt it must have been his way of claiming territory among their greatness. The golden…

In this issue of Learning with Experts, we invited Kristina Newman-Scott — President of BRIC — to discuss her experience driving institutional advancement through periods of uncertainty. — By exposing the limits of traditional strategic planning processes, we reveal the hidden value of institutional frameworks that respond to emergent challenges in real time. …

Nico Wheadon surveys two experimental designs for Black social institutions — a guild and a school — offering insights into what cultural institutions might learn from their organizing principles and values-driven approach. She asks: Who might teach us to value process-based practices over perfection-driven outcomes? What can be learned from radical approaches to modeling institutions that privilege people over profit? And, how can operationalizing love yield connection and collaboration in lieu of competition?

In this issue of Ear to the Ground, Jeffreen M. Hayes — executive director of Threewalls in Chicago — interviews Meg Duguid, a Chicago-based artist and fellow arts administrator. Together, they discuss the nimbleness of artist collectives and smaller NPOs, and articulate a set of community agreements for collaboration that value process over perfection. — Jeffreen Hayes: In a moment when our worlds are crumbling, many responses are framed in the outdated notion of “perfect,” which really is about shiny veneer. What are your thoughts about this way of moving in the Chicago art community? …

Shaun Leonardo — artist and Co-Director of Recess — considers what midsize to large cultural institutions can learn from smaller NPOs and grassroots organizing principles. How can resisting exactness and perfectionism, in both our work process and our work product, yield valuable insights and new modes of working? — Might it be too much to start with the word “love”… too cliché to begin with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? Well, I will still offer the paradigm below.

Malik D. Lewis, founder and principal of bldg fund, explores the notion of “unrelenting standards,” a form of perfectionism, and the comorbid occurrence of “respectability politics,” as a sociopsychological framework for introspection by cultural institutions. — I first learned of unrelenting standards a few years ago, although I had been essentially aware of them my whole life. There I was on the Upper West Side in a mostly barren apartment operating as a psychologist’s office. …

Edited by David van der Leer — 2020 is keeping us on our toes. Between COVID-19, dropping economies, important fights for social and racial justice and failures of political systems — along with anything else going on in our work and home lives — it all deeply impacts our collective mental health. As cultural forecasters and strategists…

In this installment of #inspiredby, Greg Barton looks into museums and cultural institutions that have already made mental health a key factor of their programming. These institutions highlight the community level benefits, while breaking stigmas associated with various forms of mental health issues. — In 2013, the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) published a adding “healthcare provider” to the long list of a museum’s public functions and values, including: educational supporter, civic asset, cultural steward, tourism generator, and job creator. Upon its release, then-President of AAM Ford Bell pointed out, “For too long, elected…