Many parts of Kentucky have been devastated by flooding and tornadoes in the last few years.

And artists and art groups in these areas have been a big help with these communities and healing.

But they've also taken a big hit.

A conference at the University of Kentucky last week brought together arts leaders and emergency responders to discuss ways to minimize damage to art caused by these disasters.

We hosted our first conference in 2024, and this is the second time we have offered this gathering.

This time it has expanded from 17 proposals that we received in 2024 to over 80 speakers over two days, which really speaks to the demand that is out there for this type of information.

This is a two day conference that is bringing together leaders from different sectors to talk about readiness.

And when we say readiness for, we're talking about how can arts companies, organizations, how can artists with their workspaces better prepare their workspaces for disruptive events, anything that could impact their normal operations?

And the big question is who do you call?

And so what's great about this conference is that we have individuals from the emergency management sector, arts leaders, community leaders.

We have those from different disciplines, from design, with architects talking about rebuilding their community in Mayfield, Kentucky.

We also have at the federal level, we're talking about a new pilot of a disaster recovery toolkit.

How the arts can be a catalyst for a community in disaster recovery.

If we think about the full scope of a disaster.

Often we look at the recovery and we see that the arts are a key catalyst for a community to process their grief and their trauma, whether it's through art making, through music.

And what this conference also looks at outside of.

Okay.

Yes.

We we need these artistic experiences and we have great presenters today talking about, the, in hazard, Kentucky, the Appalachian Arts Alliance and their art shine boxes and how those, those were sent to children after the flooding event and how much that allowed them to process the trauma from the flooding events.

But also, we're talking about these arts organizations can only provide those services if they themselves are prepared.

So arts organizations where people attend say they're going to perform in a concert or they're going into a museum.

Wow.

Arts administrators or the arts workers who are the ushers?

The ticket takers?

The front of house staff?

The docents in the museum.

They end up becoming the first responders to any kind of emergency event that might occur while you're there.

So it's critically important that they are well prepared to deal with any kind of disaster crises that may happen.

The biggest takeaway I hope attendees have from this conference is that the arts are an integral part of emergency preparedness, response and recovery.

So how these various sectors that are represented can consider the arts, how they can be at the table, how they how they can be a catalyst for change in terms of how communities think about risk and how they think about recovery.

The University of Kentucky has the only department in arts administration in the country that offers a curriculum in arts emergency management.