The Cultural Producer: Kristen Kaza
“Cultural producers are tasked with bringing art and experiences to communities. We have a choice of which voices and causes to amplify.”
5 QUESTIONS WITH Kristen Kaza
Cultural Producer: No Small Plans Productions, Slo 'Mo Party, Reunion Chicago
Chicago, IL
Kristen Kaza is a Chicago-based event producer on a mission to foster community connection and activate joy through the power of parties. Kristen has produced hundreds of “parties with a purpose” with No Small Plans Productions, which collaborates with brands and institutions on events designed with an intersectional framework. Partners have included the Chicago Reader, Museum of Contemporary Art, Nike, Navy Pier, Chicago Community Trust, United States Artists and many more. She is the Co-Founder of the legendary party series “Slo 'Mo: Slow Jams for Queer Fam,” connecting queer community on the dance floor for nine years. In response to social distancing with COVID-19, Slo ‘Mo moved their signature party online with “Slo ‘Mo From Homo,” featuring DJ sets & dance lessons and the inaugural event garnering over 5,000 views and features in TIME, Forbes, ABC, Thrillist and more.
Kristen is also the Co-Founder of Reunion Chicago, a sliding scale event space and project incubator centering women, non-binary, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC creatives, and teaches communications at her alma mater Columbia College. Whether partying, producing, listening or leading, Kristen is continuously working to help build a culture of belonging.
1. You and Elijah McKinnon of Reunion launched the Reunion Relief Fund to support LGBTQ & BIPOC cultural producers with micro-grants to make work during and early post-pandemic. Talk to me about this.
Cultural producers are almost always boxed out of arts funds either explicitly or because the nature of our work is multi-disciplinary. Not to mention, we are contract workers often with mixed W9 and 1099 income, and garnering unemployment has been a tremendous challenge for many. Getting paid as a cultural producer is extremely difficult right now.
We believe that artists are not only suffering financial, but also creative losses — experiencing the depression of work that never got to be realized and the continuation of not being able to cultivate public engagement. So these grants are to fund projects using the Reunion platform so that artists get to make work, and get paid for it too. With the $5,000 goal of funds to raise, we offer budgets of $200-500 for artists to make small online projects via the Reunion platform. The first three grantees are Black creatives looking to empower and help educate their communities as a direct response to the ramifications of COVID-19, which feels hyper-relevant. We want to encourage communities speaking to each other to fortify, grow and build. This effort is a very small contribution, and an evolving one. We are grateful to the community who contributed to make these seeds possible to plant.
2. Your work focuses on creating “welcoming spaces for people of diverse identities and expressions to experience entertainment in a locally-supportive, intimate, and authentic format.” We need this now more than ever. How have you and do you approach this during this social-distanced era?
The internet is a whole world in and of itself. I definitely struggle with this as I’ve always used public assembly as an opportunity to connect communities and amplify artists and causes. But the internet is great at that; we are seeing tectonic shifts happening in politics, culture and personal beliefs because of how people are mobilizing online. Right now, my lane is to amplify the work that is already being done - especially by Black creatives, artists and activists. Historically, my approach has been to share the mic, platform, and money with underrepresented people, particularly LGBTQ+ BIPOC. Using parties as a platform to raise funds and awareness and create more of a culture of belonging has historically been my approach. Now that we are seeing the cultural uprising and urgency for advocacy for Black lives, artists & communities, I am, and I am urging other white creatives to think about our role in that. Not just with sharing a platform, but also making decisions that de-center ourselves to make room for other voices, and recognize the myriad of privileges we’ve had as white creatives. There is a continuum of experience with this but I’m encouraged by the shifts I’m seeing.
3. The virus, the pandemic-induced recession, and the growing, necessary social justice movement are starkly exposing all the inequities in our society, perhaps finally getting the attention of those that previously refused to look. You partner with organizations that “work to create positive change and strengthen communities.” How can cultural producers most effectively drive this discussion now?
Cultural producers are tasked with bringing art and experiences to communities. We have a choice of which voices and causes to amplify. It’s always been crucial, but now there is great momentum around working to elevate Black art, culture and causes. Creatives have platforms and it’s crucial we use them. There are a lot of ways to do this: literally sharing your platform with what content you’re producing, mobilizing your audience or community to take direct action, donating a percentage of sales to community-driven causes, and more. It’s really important we move from optics to impact; throwing up a #blacklivesmatter statement that lacks accountability and direct action is empty and performative. It’s my deep hope that organizations and cultural leaders can do the work to shift their approach and responsibility in this movement.
4. Talk to me about working in Chicago.
I love Chicago and have been privileged to work in arts & culture here for 15 years. What I love about the city is also what I feel conflicted about it: It can be industrious, practical, and humble. But I believe rate integrity is regularly compromised because we want the work, and then we create a culture of normalcy around underpaying creatives for their labor. Especially in music, which is the discipline I work in most frequently, it’s a constant battle to get artists the fees they deserve. I realize this is a problem nationwide and across sectors, but I believe we have an issue here in Chicago with how we show we value artists with our dollars. Artists and freelancers have to fight like hell for equitable pay here; creative labor is just not viewed on the same value plane as other industries perceived to be more practical.
5. I am obsessed with the issue of relevancy, and how the cultural sector has not made the case for its existence; the allocation in the CARES act was an example of this. From your vantage point, what’s not clicking? How can we make a better case for the necessity of a strong arts sector in America?
As always, it seems that there is a real lack of attention to and understanding of the needs of what some might call the “creative working class” or freelance economy — those who don’t have the security of salary, and who rely on multiple forms of income to sustain themselves and their families. We saw the PPP loans in the millions going to giant corporations, while small businesses that are barely hanging on were denied; they are now jumping through amazing hoops to allocate funds to support their business or practice. In Illinois, it took two months to make unemployment open to freelancers, and then immediately many hopeful applicants couldn’t access funds because they have mixed income (W2 and 1099) and other complications. In Chicago, there was a small immediate relief fund for businesses of five people or less which is where a lot of the need is, but those funds were allocated for immediately.
There has been a real lack of effort to make these funds and loans accessible, which is why we are seeing so many community funded efforts. I am encouraged by all the support people are giving to lift up and support causes and communities in need, but equally frustrated and depressed that we have to step in like that when corporations are literally profiting off the pandemic. Nonprofit institutions are not absolved of this: many use the cultural cache of artists and their communities and directly profit from their work without an equitable compensation or credit. It’s a huge problem.
We need more community members and artists at the decision making table for accountability. In the same way that in Chicago there is demand for CPAC (Civilian Police Accountability Council), we should have the same civilian input on decision making at government and civic institutions. I think if there were more transparent and balanced boards, councils, and decision making panels in our institutions, corporations, and government we would see more decisions directly benefiting communities in need of investment.
Kristen Kaza is a Chicago-based event producer on a mission to foster community connection and activate joy through the power of parties. Kristen has produced hundreds of “parties with a purpose” with No Small Plans Productions, which collaborates with brands and institutions on events designed with an intersectional framework. Partners have included the Chicago Reader, Museum of Contemporary Art, Nike, Navy Pier, Chicago Community Trust, United States Artists and many more. She is the Co-Founder of the legendary party series ‘Slo 'Mo: Slow Jams for Queer Fam,” connecting queer community on the dance floor for nine years. In response to social distancing with COVID-19, Slo ‘Mo moved their signature party online with “Slo ‘Mo From Homo,” featuring DJ sets & dance lessons and the inaugural event garnering over 5,000 views and features in TIME, Forbes, ABC, Thrillist and more.
Kristen is also the Co-Founder of Reunion Chicago, a sliding scale event space and project incubator centering women, non-binary, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC creatives, and teaches communications at her alma mater Columbia College. Whether partying, producing, listening or leading, Kristen is continuously working to help build a culture of belonging.
(Photo by Stephanie Jensen)