Braxton Hare, Contributing Writer

Virginia Repertory Theatre hosted the Arts & Culture Mayoral Forum on Oct. 8 to discuss the importance of arts and culture in the Richmond community. All five mayoral candidates: Andreas Addison, Danny Avula, Michelle Mosby, Harrison Roday and Garrett Sawyer were present at the forum. 

The mayoral candidates shared their distinctive plans for how they would work to protect the creative community in our city at the event. 

“From our local artists and musicians to small businesses and cultural spaces, Richmond thrives on creativity,” Sawyer said. “As a local government, we need to ensure that artists have access to all the resources and spaces they need to create and share their talents.”

Avula said he feels that art and culture are the most powerful ways to promote community healing in our city today. 

“The affordability of our city is a key factor in the success of the Richmond arts and culture scene,” Roday said.

Mosby expressed that at the end of the day, we need leadership not only dedicated to making Richmond a better place to live, but willing to expand our arts and culture standing.

“My goal as mayor is to make sure every child can be inspired artistically, be able to create and explore who they can be as an adult,” Addison said.  

Richmonders were invited to engage with these potential leaders and voice their concerns on the subject matter. 

Through an online questionnaire, attendees asked questions about candidates’ varying stances on the intersection of arts and politics.

The forum was held by CultureWorks, an organization whose mission is to “strengthen artists and arts and culture organizations to increase their impact in our region,” according to its website. 

President of CultureWorks, Scott Garka, opened the event with statistics on Richmond being a distinguishably artistic city. 

“In 2023, USA Today ranked Richmond the No. 2 city for street art in the United States,” Garka said. “In 2024, CNN named Richmond its best town to visit in the U.S., due to the arts and culture present in the city.” 

With this in mind, Garka expressed his specific concerns about the need for the protection of arts and culture in the Richmond community. 

“The impact of COVID was significant on many of the businesses and retail spaces in the arts district specifically,” Garka said. “The racial justice movements and protests added another layer of complexity.”

Garka said he feels these challenges in conjunction with recent inflation trends continue to negatively impact the city, the arts district and disproportionately the artists elevating the city’s creative profile.

“I believe there are a plethora of things that the city government needs to do in order to help Richmond’s art and culture community to thrive,” Garka said. 

CultureWorks hosted a table at the event with information on all of the candidates and voter registration details. They hoped to successfully get those interested in arts and culture registered to vote. 

All City Art Club, a collaborative arts project focused on the improvement of the community in Richmond, also organized and hosted the forum. 

Founder of the All City Art Club, Silly Genius, said he understands the impact art can have on the community as a graffiti artist and mural painter himself. 

“We’ve spent the past few years shouting from the rooftops about the lack of support for the arts,” Genius said. “The momentum from events we’ve done has put us in rooms with a lot of different organizations that sympathized with us — so we decided to join forces for the forum as the issues we were raising affected every corner of the creative community.” 

All City Art Club bridges the gap between the community and citizens. Art makes people feel good about where they live, giving residents a sense of pride in their community, according to its website.

“‘Richmond, the little city that could,’ has kind of taken it as far as it can just on the strength of the community itself,” Genius said.

This forum is an opportunity for all of the mayoral candidates to speak about how they will take action as mayor to uplift and enable our creative community to continue doing the work they love to do, according to Genius.

Genius said he hopes that this forum will communicate to the incoming mayor and city council members that Richmond’s creative community needs substantial, tangible and continuous support.

“Right now it feels like all of the success of our creative community is in spite of the city, not because of it,” Genius said. “That’s not a relationship that can sustain the heights we’ve climbed to. I aim to walk away from this forum with city leadership committed to helping our artists flourish.”

People can help this cause daily by encouraging their elected officials to support the things the community loves, Genius said. If city leadership doesn’t step in, Richmond risks losing all the things that give it character.

Native Richmonder Lezza Jay said they came to the event to get the individual candidates’ thoughts on how they plan to protect the art community.

“Art has always been at the heart of Richmond — that is one thing that has never changed in all my time here,” Jay said. 

The creativity in the local area helps grow the community and brings people together who have shared interests, Jay said. 

“My favorite part of the city is all of the beautiful murals painted on the Victorian-style buildings near my house,” Jay said. “It reminds me that the city is full of art, new and old.”

Jay said it is important for Richmond to have people in power who have a solid, strategic plan in place to truly protect the arts and culture vital to the interconnection of the city.