Jan 22

You’re invited to the forum
featuring priya sircar!

January 22, 2025 at Community Matters Cafe

What’s next for art and culture in Charlotte? Just how creative is Charlotte? What is the state of art and culture in the city? What is the future of public-private support for the arts?

Priya Sircar has surprising answers. Priya Sircar is the Arts and Culture Officer of the City of Charlotte and Former Director of Arts at John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, charged with developing and implementing strategies to support the arts in Charlotte.

While many arts practitioners and supporters strive for positive change, our communities and leaders are often tied to existing methods, philosophies, and structures even when it’s clear those no longer serve the region’s artists, art, and residents/visitors. This conversation will address what holds us back and how we can help our communities envision new realities through bold, incremental advances.

Priya has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master’s in Arts Administration from Columbia University. She is a dancer-choreographer, poet and, now, filmmaker.

Moderated by David ‘Dae-Lee’ Arrington

David ‘Dae-Lee’ Arrington is a Grammy nominated producer, leadership coach, and creative entrepreneur. He is the owner of Bridge Building Consulting, co-owner of Hue House creative agency and host of the Bridge Builder Conversations podcast.

Connect. Consider. Ignite. The program runs from 6:15 PM to 8:00 PM including time for conversation, connections, and Q&A.

The Forum has a three-part structure:

• First third: Participants connect and build relationships in small break-out groups prompted by a question;

• Middle third: Participants consider a presentation that ends with the speaker posing a community-facing question;

• Final third: Participants discuss the question, igniting new ideas and interactions.

Participate in the important questions of our time. The Forum is a conversation and speaker series that brings people together to explore challenges and opportunities that affect human flourishing through the lens of the humanities and civic imagination.