Diverse investments: How Boulder is pursuing equity through art

A 10-foot sculpture towers over guests, who wander around and beneath it, sipping tea made from the very mushroom that formed this structure. On the walls are speakers connected to bioacoustic devices, converting the electricity produced by the fungi into sound. Dancers move with slow and controlled motions, performing the Japanese art of butoh.  

This will be the scene at Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art for the Sept.19 opening of MycoMorphosis: Dancing with Fungi, a multimedia BioArt installation by Iván-Daniel Espinosa. The work was funded, in part, with a community project grant from the City of Boulder.

In 2024, the Office of Arts and Culture (via the resident-staffed Arts Commission) funneled roughly $1 million to individual artists and organizations for education, professional development, training and direct support of their work. Much of it will go to artists of color like Espinoza or to projects that align with the values of diversity, equity and inclusion, thanks to a guiding document that weaves those values into decision-making at nearly every level of the organization. 

Espinoza, a 33-year-old Latino artist who moved to Boulder two years ago, feels grateful for the community’s support of BIPOC creatives. In addition to the grant for MycoMorphosis, the city also paid for him to attend CU Boulder’s Theater and Dance PhD program.

He has produced two events here so far, both “extremely successful and well-received,” Espinoza said. 

“Most small cities don’t have such a strong, vibrant arts and culture sector. We can use cultural institutions to support BIPOC artists in a way other small cities can’t.”

Scoring art

The Arts Commission adopted its first cultural equity statement in 2015; it was updated in 2022 to better align with the city’s equity goals that emphasize racial and ethnic diversity. 

There is “a very clear line from the commission statement and their mission to how it comes out in practice,” said Lauren Click, recently promoted head of Arts and Culture.

Government allocations pay for more than just murals and sculptures: There are funds for rental assistance, fee waivers for performance venues, scholarships for organizational leadership training — even grants to help hire grant writers.

Applications are scored on how they contribute to cultural equity, including affordability, accessibility and the involvement of under-represented groups. Diversity is just one part of the scoring system: Applicants are also weighed on how well they fulfill other community priorities, how local they are and other factors.

“It’s tough to score art,” Click said. “It’s tough to score hearts and souls. The equity piece is important in our process and important to the arts commission and our work and the city as a whole and us as a human race, but it’s not everything. It’s a piece of a bigger puzzle.

“I’m frankly proud of the work that we’ve done.”

Art speaks louder

How well that work is going is hard to say. 

Applicants aren’t asked about their own race or ethnicity. (“As a government agency, it is a measure that we refrain from including,” arts and culture spokesperson Emi Smith wrote in response to emailed questions.)

But what data they do have looks good. The number of applicants overall grew 63% from 2022 to 2024, while 47% more people were awarded grants during that time. That includes a 21% increase in the number of first-time grant recipients.

Organizations who receive general operating support grants from the city report a 97% increase in programming focused on diverse groups. In that case, those 42 organizations define for themselves what “diverse groups” means. 

“What the data demonstrates is a substantial effort to expand and support programming for diverse audiences according to each organization’s perspective on DEI for their own mission,” Smith wrote.

Some outcomes are directly observable, such as the decision to translate applications into Spanish.

“That was a great support,” said Adriana Paola Palacios Luna, founder of Luna Cultura, a bicultural arts and maker education organization. Luna has received an arts education grant from the city every year since her initial Spanish-language application in 2019, and has produced programming for cultural events like Immigrant Heritage Month and Indigenous People’s Day, which also receive funding from the Office of Arts and Culture.

This year, Luna was one of two people to receive the inaugural Leadership Pipeline Fund Scholarship. The $8,000 allowed her to attend Harvard’s extension school for a graduate certificate in equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging leadership.

“That’s giving me the possibility to access more professional education in a more prestigious institution [so] I can improve what I’m already doing,” Luna said.

Click said that perhaps the best way to gauge success is not with numbers, but “the way art has changed how Boulder looks, your experience of Boulder. That says a lot more than scoring and grant programs.

“Art is going to speak louder than what we can say.”

‘I felt believed in’

Artists who have received grants say the city’s support extends beyond money.

“One of their guidelines [for grant applications] is that they try to support and embrace first-time applicants, and I was really happy to see that,” said Espinoza. “When I applied for other grants from other organizations, I didn’t see that. It shows they are not trying to be exclusive.”

Luna is grateful for the time and care Click took to walk her through the process.

“She was guiding me, explaining everything in detail, also speaking Spanish,” Luna said. Boulder is “doing a very good job. I always think they can do more, because we know there are still many other barriers for community members to apply for these grants.”

Like Luna, Empathy Theater Project has received a grant every year since its inception, said founder and director Cordelia Zars — for rental assistance, grant writing and two project grants for We’re Still Here, an original musical about an Arizona copper mine that “pits the preservation of Indigenous sacred land against the survival of a rural town.” 

The play, based on a true story, was produced and written with and by Indigenous people. It’s eight-show run at Dairy Arts Center in 2023 sold out. Now, Zars and co. are refining the production: editing the script, recording a soundtrack at eTown. The show will once again be at the Dairy in early 2025, this time on a bigger stage.

“When we received this grant, our biggest funding cycle, I felt so believed in by my city,” Zars said. “To have your own city invest in you feels really good.” 

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