Today can brings you "Higher Ground: Informal Arts, Cultural Policy and the Evolving Role of Nonprofits," a presentation by Tom Borrup from the June 2007 Americans for the Arts convention. Borrup wonders about the viability of the existing cultural infrastructure, including the nonprofit arts. Citing numerous new thinkers and researchers, Borrup says the predominant mode of 20th Century cultural participation – which involves sitting quietly as part of an audience consuming work created and presented by a discrete class of professional artists, managers and technicians – has ceased to be prevalent. Youth today are active creators of media content and hungry for interaction. He introduces the new terms that are characterizing this generation of informal creators: "prosumers" Pro-Ams, Next-Geners, all injecting a culture of openness, participation and interactivity into workplaces, markets and communities. In this new atmosphere, Borrup asks, what is the role or purpose of nonprofit art organizations, if there is to be one? [LINK] Posted by Linda Frye Burnham