EVE MOROS ORTEGA
Eve Moros Ortega is a consultant at Lord Cultural Resources, a consulting and planning firm exclusively devoted to art and culture. After an early career in writing and film production, Eve helped build and lead Art21, a nonprofit dedicated to democratizing access to contemporary art through media, public programming, and educational resources. Eve went on to consult for organizations including the Bronx Museum, Montefiore Medical Center’s Fine Art Program, Residency Unlimited, and Arts Gowanus. All of Eve’s work is about connecting art and culture to other sectors, and the world at large, and is grounded in the conviction that art and culture are not a luxury, but an essential right. Most recently, Eve created The Plywood Project, an innovative consortium of public, private, and governmental partners to create public art to empower communities and inspire transformations in response to our current crises.
Eve joined Lord Cultural Resources as a National Urban Fellow, while earning her MPA from the City University of New York (CUNY) and applying policy tools to the field of cultural advocacy. Her award-winning CUNY Capstone “Creative Placemaking as a Tool for Cultural Equity” centered around her work at Lord on a Cultural Plan for Macon-Bibb, Georgia. Eve also holds a BA in Art History and Political Science from Barnard College, and MA from New York University in Cinema Studies.
Which are your three favourite cultural destinations (established or new ones)?
my list is united by the concept of perspective -- how important it is for art and culture to connect us to worlds beyond our own;
In my early days at Art21, I was very lucky to get to visit James Turrell's Roden Crater in Arizona's Painted Desert, an amazing and utterly unique cultural destination which really brings alive our relationship to the universe and celestial events.
I am a French-American dual citizen, and Paris is definitely one of my great loves. As with New York, there are so many cultural riches there, but one of my favorite is the Institut du Monde Arabe. Beyond the spectacular architecture, I love the vastness of its collections and exhibitions, truly revealing the richness of the Arab world and its many gifts to the rest of world in art, culture, and science.
I'm originally from Massachusetts, and Mass MoCA is an absolute treasure, and a wonderful example of the kind of adaptive reuse I frequently encounter in my cultural planning work. They have done a great job of both adapting their massive spaces to the needs of contemporary art and culture, while allowing visitors to imagine the vivid history of the industrial setting.
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE EMERGING CULTURAL CITIES IN THE WORLD AND WHY?
Emerging is a tricky word for culture. Every place has its own culture - it's a question of how well others know of it. Tokyo is one of my favorite cities which I recently experienced anew after visiting with my family last year. My kids fell madly in love with it - they were dazzled by the sheer size, bustle, variety, and dizzying juxtapositions of ancient and state-of-the-art, from the Meiji Shrine to the Mori Museum. I'd spent a lot of time in Asia when I was single, living in Bangkok to make a documentary film, and traveling throughout the region, so it was wonderful to rediscover a place through their eyes. Our plans to visit Vietnam (another favorite) this past summer were canceled due to the pandemic, but we are hoping to visit South Korea next year. Like many, we've become huge fans of South Korean cinema and K-pop, and there are so many fascinating Korean artists.
Tell us about a cultural project with great potential for social impact.
I recently launched the Plywood Project, a collaborative public art initiative in response to this moment of acute crisis. The Plywood Project aims to direct resources - funding, space, promotion - to artists and community art organizations of color. The inspiration for the project was the plywood on boarded up storefronts that filled New York City this summer. This material was both a symbol of fear, but also of resilience. It also represents possibility - a literal blank canvas, a site for potential TRANSFORM-ation, which artists model par excellence.
What has been your most memorable recent cultural experience?
Seeing the Theater of War present King Lear on Zoom this summer, in the height of the pandemic, was incredibly moving. I'm a huge fan of the Theater of War, which presents classic Greek tragedies and other seminal plays in conjunction with town-hall style discussions which are as essential to the experience as the performance. I first saw them perform Antigone in Ferguson live, featuring a gospel choir and post-performance discussions by mothers who had lost their children to gun violence, highlighting the resonance of this ancient story to contemporary tragedies such as the killing of Michael Brown and so many others. With King Lear, Theater of War honed in on aspects of caregiving for aging loved ones, inviting front line workers to the post-show discussion. After months of isolation, it was so powerful to connect to this story which felt absolutely of our moment, deeply personal, and cathartic for all of us in the audience.
Describe the perfect cultural day of the city you live in.
Living in NYC, there is always so much to do! I live in Brooklyn, so a perfect day might be biking to see a show at the Whitney, followed by lunch at Chelsea Market, and a stroll along the High Line before heading back to Brooklyn for a dinner in Gowanus or a movie at Nitehawk. Of course, the pandemic has created a dramatic shift in our normal cultural routines like BAM's Next Wave. But it's been incredibly inspiring to see New York's resilience -- with Outdoor Streets, avenues have been bustling with diners, parks are bursting with impromptu culture, and concerts are happening on people's stoops. I can't wait to revisit museums once I can get tickets since demand is so high! A recent perfect day was walking through Prospect Park and hearing a wonderful mix of music from so many different cultures, and having Thai food at SmorgasBurg at Lakeside rink. There's a narrative in the media about people fleeing New York City, but it's totally overblown - New York City remains great, and I'm confident it will only become greater after the pandemic is over.