Stakeholders in Washtenaw County’s arts and culture community will convene at “Convergence 2011: What’s Art Got to Do With It?” the Arts Alliance’s annual conference, on Sept. 20 from 11:45 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Eastern Michigan University Student Center. The conference will include a keynote address, breakout sessions, a panel discussion, and other activities on topics as diverse as the creative community itself.

Justin Fenwick, the Arts Alliance Community Outreach Manager, notes how “art touches every sector of society and business," he says. "It’s not just the artists and arts administrators. It’s much more expansive than that. The people and institutions that will be at “Convergence” run the whole gamut from writers, musicians, and artists, to business owners and entrepreneurs, large cultural nonprofits, and educational institutions. Artistic abilities can be applied to the worlds of business, healthcare, community engagement, everything.”

In her keynote address, Russell Willis Taylor, president and CEO of National Arts Strategies, will talk about “how we create and communicate value in the arts.” Fenwick expects her talk to touch on “how arts organizations and artists, now more than ever, must be strong in their statements about why they exist and what value they are providing to the community, and then present themselves as strong and highly differentiated entities,” he explains.

Fourteen breakout sessions on different topics will be presented in the afternoon; attendees will have time to attend two of them. To choose what topics get covered at each year’s conference, “we try to respond to what we’ve heard the community’s needs are throughout the year and at previous conferences. We get a pulse on the educational needs of the community and shape our programming around what's most pressing,” Fenwick says.

Learn more about the presenters or download the 2011 program online.

This year, Fenwick says that a lot of the pressing needs revolve around “survival tactics—getting funded, finding revenue stream, and supporting yourself as a creative business individual. A lot of the skills that we are talking about in the sessions revolve around practical skills that help you get organized and promote yourself or your organization,” he explains.

There will be a panel discussion at the end of the conference on the “Changing Landscape of Funding in Arts & Culture.” Funding is “a hugely important topic” to many in the creative community, according to Fenwick.

“We also try to feature art and artists at these conference experiences,” Fenwick says. Poet Chelsea Lonsdale will do a reading at the beginning. Around 17 artists will have artworks on display and conference attendees will be invited to respond to the art by writing poetic lines on note cards. Poet Chris Lord will put them together and read them aloud at the end of the conference.

Registration is required to attend "Convergence."