ISALTA and Navigating Global Cultures

ISALTA (International Society for Advancement of Living Traditions in Art) was born in the imagination and vision of David Ecker. Almost three decades ago this organization grew from a need to focus the research of serious artists who went to New York University from all over the world. In the past few years, the art department at NYU has become a more traditional studio art program and the ground-breaking research characterized by artists in that department dwindled to practically nothing at the turn of the century and is now full dormant. Although the program has become a respectable MFA venue for the terminal degree, the Ph.D. that brought innovative artists with a world vision no longer inhabit that art department.

A recent post by Wyzard challenges ISALTA to renew its vision, but it is not likely to emerge in the context of the new, sleek, streamlined Steinhardt which has replaced the the multi-headed School of Education, Health, Nursing, and Arts Professions at NYU. Instead, ISALTA needs to become its own institution through a more dynamic interactive web presence as suggested by Web Arts Collaborative. Perhaps members can work together to create opportunities for fundraising through mutual efforts in writing proposals for activities of their common cause. Such efforts might renew projects such as Navigating Global Cultures.

Navigating Global Cultures emerged as a web presence in the early days of WWW. It was born through the efforts of Sandro Dernini of Plexus, David Ecker of NYU Art, Carl Schmidt of NYU Humanities, and John Gilbert of NYU Music. It emerged from cross cultural and interdisciplinary initiatives in celebration of the 500th year of Christopher Columbus' discovery of America.

NGC was intent on linking children in different cultures throughout the world and succeeded in establishing projects in China, South America, Italy, Upstate New York and Harlem. It was ambitious and daring and worked under the primitive conditions of the early Internet, but it was creative, compassionate, and visionary.

NGC has disappeared in the ephemeral vagaries of the WWW, the graveyard of good ideas that went unsupported in the new political atmosphere that often characterized institutional WWW publishing as the web grew in popularity and authority. It is clear that such projects need adequate funding to be successful. NGC had no funding, but it had the commitment of imaginative students and faculty.