Matt Freeman
Matt (he/him) majored in Theatre and Arts Administration (Muhlenberg College, B.A. ‘06) and got his M.A. in Arts Administration at Teachers College, Columbia University (‘08) before becoming the inaugural Assistant Director for the first M.A. in Applied Theatre in the U.S. at CUNY SPS. Matt was the first Education Director for Tectonic Theater Project, and held the same role at Wingspan Arts.
My involvement in the arts education community in New York City dates back almost 20 years. When in graduate school at Teachers College, Columbia University, I was the coordinator of the New York City Arts-in-Education Roundtable and helped plan its annual conference, Face to Face, for 5 years. My role at the NYC AIE Roundtable allowed me to make connections to arts organizations throughout the city, as it is the largest membership network of cultural organizations providing education and engagement services in the country. As the inaugural Assistant Director for the M.A. in Applied Theatre at the CUNY School of Professional Studies, the first such degree program in the United States, I again supported arts and community organizations by making partnership opportunities for our students, who were studying to be teaching artists in various community and school settings. When working as the Education Director of Wingspan Arts, I was in charge of the 200+ teaching artist cohort and their instruction of multidisciplinary arts after-school classes in our 15+ elementary school partners located throughout NYC. It was during COVID that I first realized the potential for how an online platform and marketplace could lead to greater access and support this special industry of arts education.
Find Your Art (FYA) aims to be the first-of-its-kind, subsidized online marketplace and platform for teachers to search for arts events and arts education services. Teachers use FYA by starting their inquiry with filters and key words that match their curricular goals and subject areas to find the most relevant arts content to complement their teaching. A dynamic, arts-rich classroom, allows visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and other types of learners a necessary entry point for learning. FYA aims to make arts-in-education more accessible and intentional, so we can promote arts organizations’ school-based programming and the work they produce on stages and in museums as a community resource. This will forge a stronger relationship between classrooms and cultural centers, reduce financial barriers to entry through subsidization, and allow art to be more regularly used for its proven impact for educational and school gains.
I'm excited to join the Neuroarts community to identify partners who can support this EdTech initiative which aims to serve this community by amplifying the understanding and practice of the arts as an educational practice.
Interests
CHANGE Arts (Challenging Hurdles to Access, Nurturing Growth and Empathy) aims to make arts access limitless for students in underserved areas, thereby nurturing the desire for lifelong experiences with the arts. CHANGE wants to see the arts-going demographic become as diverse as new work aims to be, in pursuit of personal, communal, and systemic change.
CHANGE’s flagship program, Find Your Art (FYA), is the first-of-its-kind, subsidized marketplace and platform for teachers to thematically identify and access the arts assets that belong in their classrooms. By enabling educators to choose the artistic resources (e.g., tickets to exhibits and performances, creating or promoting learning experiences led by teaching artists, collaborations with arts organizations, etc.) that best reflect the content they are teaching, CHANGE will sustainably bridge the education and cultural sectors, foster curious learners who may not have other access to the arts, and endow educators with the opportunity to devise creative curricula.
CHANGE’s Fund for Future Audiences (FFA) is the financial engine that drives the FYA marketplace, making any arts asset available to any school, regardless of their budget. The FFA helps CHANGE democratize cultural capital, so the arts are a resource for learning, growth, and empathy–and available to everyone. A school will be able to request a subsidy through the FFA for tickets and services based on its Tier 1 status that matches its budget.
CHANGE Arts operates as the liaison between arts organizations (as well as individual productions) and schools. For small arts organizations that don’t operate with in-house education staff, CHANGE will create bespoke in-person and virtual curriculum and programming based on the art the institution is producing. For larger arts organizations with engagement services, CHANGE will be the platform for them to market their services to new schools. For schools that might not have arts specialists on staff, CHANGE helps to foster the necessary cultural partnerships necessary to serve that need within the school. For teaching artists looking to gain additional work in and outside the arts organization which employ them, CHANGE will lead to expanded employment opportunities.
CHANGE Arts is the matchmaker for the arts and education!
