Anna Kojevnikov
Title or profession: Community Development Manager, Acadiana Center for the Arts.
How long have you worked for the AcA? 3 years
Any other community involvement? Boards, memberships, etc.? Co-founder and Board President of Lafayette Tool Library
What is your role at the Acadiana Center for the Arts, and what does a typical day look like for you? The Community Development Department is essentially the Regional Arts Council arm for the Acadiana Region. This means that it’s my job to provide artists and arts & cultural organizations, and the general community, with support and resources when it comes to their artistic practice or organizational sustainability and to make connections between community groups.
On a more granular level, I do a lot of administrative work! We administer 6 grants so there is a lot that goes into planning each cycle – timelines, marketing, grant panels, approvals, contracting, site visits, etc.
I also run a professional development series called Creative Acadiana which includes workshops, networking and artist talks. I usually program 2 seasons a year (Spring and Fall) which means I have to come up with workshop ideas, have all presenters, facilitators, artists confirmed up to six months in advance! And then I attend each of the sessions and where appropriate I will set up a way to stream and record the sessions so that we can be sure that people with disabilities or people who live rurally or have weird work schedules can still attend these sessions.
I also work with a lot of community groups and am starting to really get into how to coordinate large public art projects. There is a lot of collaboration that goes into these types of things.
What do you enjoy most about working at AcA? Probably the collaboration! You can’t work in a silo. The biggest impacts come from strong collaborations. The more you collaborate, the more buy-in you have from your community.
What project or accomplishment are you most proud of during your time here? ArtSpark, a really wonderful program that was established by AcA’s Gwen Richard and Lafayette Economic Development Authority in 2014, became a federally funded program earlier this year through a competitive grant process. Now, when an artist receives this award, they can write in their resumes that they have a project funded by the National Endowment for the Arts! It really elevates the artist and our region. LEDA is thankfully still one of the major sponsors of this program and with their support we have made it possible for the application process to be more accessible by our growing Latinx/Hispanic community by having it translated into Spanish and we continue to work with underrepresented rural and cultural groups to ensure that this opportunity is easily accessible.
How do you stay inspired and motivated in your work? My community inspires me and motivates me to do good work. I can see the impact that I can make on someone’s life through the programming I create. It’s so fun to see artists thrive in their practice and if I can have made even a small contribution to that, it makes me so happy!
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone looking to get involved in the arts? Just do it. There are so many ways to get involved, whether you believe yourself to be creative or not. We have some really low barriers to entry at AcA – come along to an Artist Round Up to meet other creative types and do some crafts; attend a workshop if you’re looking to elevate your understanding how to be a creative entrepreneur; apply for a grant to make a new work of art; come and see an exhibition or a show; become a teaching artist; contribute your memories to the Louisiana Music Museum; join one of the local art collectives; volunteer on a committee; volunteer as a grant panelist; volunteer on show nights…. What did I miss?
