Operating Support
ACHF Arts Access
The Walker is a leading contemporary, multidisciplinary arts center committed to the creative expression of artists. Outcomes: support artists, present programs across the visual, performing, film/video, and design arts, and advance interdisciplinary initiatives. Strengthen connections with the local and regional arts community through enhanced support and involvement of partners, artists, and programmers. To support the Walker's Strategic Plan, regular assessment remains critical to all program and business functions, and ensures broad-based understanding of artist and audience engagement amongst all staff. To quantify annual accomplishments beyond financial measures, the Walker documents key Measures of Success within the areas of artistic leadership and innovation, audience engagement, civic commitment, and stewardship. In the area of artistic leadership and innovation, the measures track artist engagements across the disciplines, Walker-organized exhibitions and presentations, publications, commissions, premieres, artist residencies, traveling programs, interdisciplinary collaborations, and awards. These achievements are shared publicly each year through the Walker's online Annual Report. 2: The Walker is dedicated to advancing participation in the arts and active audience engagement. Outcomes: broaden, deepen, and diversify engagement with audiences. Using Google Analytics, Walker staff measures growth in mnartists.org membership, the number of active members, artworks uploaded or linked, visitors, page views and visit length, and visitors' specific interactions with the site features. Member and artist surveys are also conducted through email, community forums, and in person to hear how well mnartists.org serves them. The staff tracks how well mnartists.org spurs critical conservation about the arts in Minnesota and increased exposure for its artists via the press. For programs like Artist-Designed Mini Golf, performances, and film screenings, the Walker interviews the artists involved to gain their feedback, and conducts visitor surveys. It also tracks media attention, program attendance, and admissions/ticket income when applicable.
The Walker presented contemporary art and artists across the disciplines through nine exhibitions; more than eighty five performances; 170 film/video screenings; artist residency activities; and hundreds of artist talks, lectures, workshops, tours, and panel discussions. The Walker organized the first major United States survey of Mexico City-based artist Abraham Cruzvillegas and presented the first retrospective in fifteen years of work by American photographer Cindy Sherman. Four Walker-organized travelling exhibitions were viewed by more than 190,000 people in nine museums in seven cities in the United States. The Walker's Performing Arts program commissioned six new performances and presented three world premieres, including new work by Minneapolis-based BodyCartography Project. Seventeen Walker-commissioned performances toured to thirty nine venues in twenty cities in the United States, and eleven countries. The newly renovated Walker Cinema featured several regional premieres as well as the British Arrows Awards with record-breaking attendance. 2: The mnartists.org Web site served more than 21,840 artists and organizations statewide, hosted 933,050 user sessions, and connected more than 900 Minnesota artists with 60,000 people through partnerships and outreach programs. The site featured extensive arts writing commissioned from fifty nine Minnesota writers. It also shared content with national arts sites and collaborated with Grand Rapids-based ArtPrize to broaden recognition across the Upper Midwest. The Walker's Artist-Designed Mini Golf course, created as part of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden's 25th anniversary during the summer of 2013, was created by forty eight Minnesota artists and garnered national media attention. The Walker also commissioned Minnesota artist Andy Messerschmidt for his first major museum installation. In partnership with Twin Cities Public Television, the annual MNTV series of short films featured eighteen Minnesota filmmakers. In addition, the 40th annual Choreographer's Evening showcased fifty one Minnesota dance artists.
Other
local or private