October 8th, 10th, 15th (virtual) & 29th, 2026::

Antenna is inviting our community into a Critical Response Process (CRP) around our emerging Values + Pathways Framework, a framework for articulating who Antenna is, what we value, how those values guide our work, and the pathways we want to build toward Antenna’s future(s). The goal of these sessions is not to reach consensus or finalize the framework in the room. The goal is to listen, learn, document what we hear, and use the community’s responses to inform the next stage of Antenna’s Values + Pathways Framework.

Free books and light refreshments will be available at every session. You are welcome to attend one session, several sessions, or all of them, depending on your interest and availability.

Feedback gathered through these sessions will be documented, reviewed, and shared by Antenna as we continue developing the Values + Pathways Framework. Come read about the framework, respond with Statements of Meaning and Neutral Questions, and help us think about & shape what Antenna will become!

SCHEDULE::Antenna’s Critical Response Process Sessions

Over the last two years, Antenna’s Team, advised by the Board, has been engaged in a process of listening, reflection, and visioning about the organization’s identity, values, responsibilities, and future direction.

The emergent Values + Pathways Framework grew out of more than 100 meetings held through Antenna’s Office Hours with culture bearers, artists, writers, organizers, and other participants across our creative ecosystem. These conversations helped us better understand the larger New Orleans’ arts community needs and histories, what they value about Antenna, and what role Antenna might play in supporting a changing creative ecology.

Rather than functioning as a traditional strategic plan, the framework identifies the values that ground Antenna and the pathways through which those values can be put into practice. It asks us to consider not only what Antenna does, but why we do it, who we do it with and for, and how we can best leverage and share organizations resources (space, funding, professional support, digital and print production, publishing infrastructure, knowledge, relationships, and networks) for collective gain.

In this way, the framework connects values to action. It asks how Antenna’s resources can be shared, activated, and made more accessible as well as how our organizational practices can remain responsive to the communities we are part of.

Having recently reached our 20 year anniversary, Antenna finds itself considering what’s next. We’re not only thinking about short & long term organizational sustainability, we’re considering how to keep evolving beyond our roots as a collective & exhibition space as we continue to grow. At the end of 2026, Antenna will transition it’s collective model as it continues its shapeshift into an arts incubator where artists, writers, culture bearers, and cultural workers can experiment, take risks, build relationships, access resources, and develop new work and ideas.

We are also operating within a cultural landscape that continues to change. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated shifts in how people gather, participate, and experience culture leading to different patterns of attendance, engagement, collaboration, and use of cultural spaces. At the same time, shifting philanthropic priorities, reductions in public and private funding, rising costs, and greater competition for limited resources are reshaping the conditions in which artists, culture bearers, and cultural organizations work.

Inviting our community into co-creation of the Values + Pathways Framework using the Critical Response Process gives Antenna & our larger community a way to be present with these realities while planning intentionally for the future. We are asking::

• What does our creative ecology need from Antenna now and in the years ahead?
  • What does it mean for Antenna to remain an incubator for its next 20 years?
• How do we want to gather?
  • How can our spaces and resources be activated differently towards this aim?
• What relationships do we want to deepen? What resources are needed in order to do so?
  • How can we leverage and share the networks & resources Antenna already has?

As we move into Antenna’s next chapter, we want to develop shared language and understanding around what remains essential, what can/should evolve, and what new possibilities we can co-create. The Values + Pathways Framework connects our values to these choices and helps us imagine pathways that keep Antenna experimental, accessible, responsive, and sustainable.

We do not want the Values + Pathways Framework to be finalized behind closed doors. Antenna exists within a much larger ecosystem, their experiences with Antenna—and their perspectives on what Antenna might become—are essential to this process. To support this conversation, we are using Critical Response Process (CRP), a facilitated feedback method developed by artist and choreographer Liz Lerman. CRP provides a structured way for people to respond to work in progress through listening, reflection, questions, and dialogue.

Rather than simply asking whether participants “like” or “dislike” the framework, CRP gives us tools for understanding what resonates, what raises questions, what needs greater clarity, and what we may not yet be seeing.

Each session will begin with a brief introduction to the Values + Pathways Framework, the work that has brought us to this point, and an orientation to Critical Response Process. Participants will have time to read, review, and reflect on the framework before moving into a facilitated conversation. We will focus primarily on two CRP practices:

STATEMENTS OF MEANING:: Participants identify what feels meaningful, resonant, important, or worth carrying forward in the framework.

NEUTRAL QUESTIONS:: Participants pose questions that do not contain an embedded opinion or proposed solution. These questions can help Antenna think more deeply, recognize assumptions, and consider perspectives that may not yet be represented.

Together, we will consider:: What feels meaningful or essential? What questions does the framework raise? What needs greater clarity? Whose perspectives or experiences might be missing? What should Antenna continue thinking about as the framework evolves?

Your participation will help us think more deeply about what Antenna carries forward, what can evolve, and what pathways we build together.