Emergency response and preparedness for performing arts organizations can be a difficult task for individual organizations. This free 90-minute webinar will demonstrate how working with multiple organizations in a network for disaster management can be accomplished. The history of networking for improved emergency preparedness in the cultural heritage, arts, and government sectors will be examined, with an exploration of existing networks. Case studies of the Pennsylvania Cultural Resilience Network and CultureAID in New York City will be presented to help guide you on how to start your own, or join an existing, cooperative disaster network. You will learn how to use the
Cultural Placekeeping Guide to direct your networking efforts.
Instructor: Samantha Forsko
Samantha Forsko is the Preservation Specialist at the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA), where she primarily works with institutions and their collections. She conducts on-site preservation needs and risk assessments and assists with preservation and emergency planning. She also develops and presents educational programs and provides technical information to libraries, archives, museums, historic sites, and other cultural institutions. Before joining CCAHA, Samantha worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as a collections manager. In addition to providing long-term care for the nearly 200,000 permanent collection objects owned by LACMA, she also served on the Emergency Preparedness Committee, responsible for writing, updating, and training the 300-member staff on the implementation of the institution’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan. She has previously worked as a conservation technician for the Regional Arts and Culture Council and Cascadia Art Conservation Center, both in Portland, Oregon, primarily providing preventive maintenance and care for outdoor public art collections. Samantha received her MA in Arts Management with a focus on Archival and Museum Studies from Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, California, writing her master’s thesis on Emergency Preparedness in Cultural Institutions.
Instructor: Amy Schwartzman
Amy Schwartzman has been working at the intersection of arts and disaster management since 2001, when she served as the Information Officer of the New York Arts Recovery Fund, created to help NYC’s artists and arts organizations recover from 9/11. While there, she authored two guidebooks developed by The NYC Arts Coalition, one geared toward artists, the other toward nonprofit organizations, about how to negotiate the response and recovery resources that had arisen. In 2007, she was hired by the National Coalition for Arts’ Preparedness and Emergency Response (NCAPER) to draft a Blueprint for a nationwide disaster safety net for artists and arts organizations. Her work for NCAPER includes principal authorship of “The Cultural Placekeeping Guide” (2017) and “Essential Guidelines for Arts Responders Organizing in the Aftermath of Disaster” (2011). After Hurricane Sandy, Amy served as the Community Planner for artists and arts organizations within the Natural and Cultural Resource Recovery section of FEMA’s New York Sandy Recovery Office. She is currently a consultant to PAR.
