WBAI State of the Arts NYC Host/Producer Savona Bailey-McClain will ask artists, academicians and museum directors in the coming days, to talk freely about the direction our nation needs to travel before the incoming administration on January 20th. The show will address demographic shifts, views on contemporary and American folk art, architecture and performance art.

Artists Mel Chin, Sue Coe, and Dread Scott are well known for their dedication to the public sphere and for advocating progressive change. State of the Arts NYC talks with the artists before they engage in a panel discussion ART AND ACTIVISM TODAY – WHAT ARTISTS DO TO PROVOKE CHANGE at Galerie St. Etienne in NYC on January 18th.

Then the show will talk with Catherine Sweeney Singer, Executive Director of the Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory and curators from Colonial Williamsburg.  The Winter Antiques Show’s 2017 loan exhibition commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum (AARFAM) in Williamsburg, Virginia, one of the art museums of Colonial Williamsburg.

The objects featured in Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum: Revolution & Evolution are artifacts of 18th, 19th and 20th century material culture; they were made and used by everyday people and they make strong aesthetic statements, a guiding principle in American folk art appreciation.

“State of the Arts NYC will feature a conversation with John Biewen, host and producer of the Scene on Radio podcast from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. We’ll discuss and hear excerpts from Scene on Radio’s documentary, El Nuevo South. The documentary takes us to Siler City, North Carolina, and explores this small town’s response, over two decades, to the cultural change brought on my large-scale Latino immigration — leading ultimately to a degree of acceptance and embrace

State of the Arts NYC airs Friday night LIVE at 5 p.m. on WBAI FM 99.5 and live stream on wbai.org and tunein.com