On September 30th, Blueprints for Arts and Policy founder Christina Lessa hosted an inaugural salon at Harvard University, sponsored by Cultural Agents and Art Life Lab. Revolving around the intersection of the arts and the concept of soft power pioneered by Joseph Nye, this salon brought together luminaries from many fields, including Prof. Nye himself, Doris Sommer, James A. Robinson, Pier Luigi Sacco, Saladin Ambar, Antoinette Torres, Phil Chan, Abdulnasser Gharem, Halla bint Khalid, Rafal Niemojewski, Deborah Abroal, and Mike Pell (See bios). The discussion focused on how the arts and humanities can draw people together, internationally across borders or within nations to create resilient and flourishing democratic communities. It’s imperative that we recognize the arts as a fundamental part of governance, these salons will act as a transformative catalyst of actionable discourse in this regard. Blueprints for Arts and Policy is working on further salons focused on the arts as a scaffold for change, and will be posting updates at blueprintsartpolicy.com
