From left: Mary Gray, Riffe Gallery Coordinator, Robert Stearns, curator, Governor Bob Taft and  Nella Cassouto, curator at the Aspirations: Toward a Future in the Middle East opening reception.

WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE
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States. Cultural diplomacy programs can correct misrepresentations about who we are as a nation and contribute to international understanding. Lawson says Ohio's contribution is to represent the United States by sharing our state's cultural voice.

"Cultural exchange does not necessarily emanate from the east and west coasts," said Lawson, who oversees the Ohio Arts Council's International Program. "Ohio and its artists and arts institutions play a very important role in cultural diplomacy."

International cultural programs are conducted for the benefit of artists and audiences, but also for the good of the U.S. government. Cultural programming allows ambassadors to contact groups that are not easy to reach by other means. "Some people don't want to engage in political discussions with the United States," said Rick Ruth, a State Department official. "But they will turn out for a cultural performance a piano player, a jazz quartet or a choral performance of Porgy and Bess."

Today, the U.S. government spends less than a quarter of what it spent in 1993 to spread American culture abroad. State officials hope the conference will encourage the establishment of a private endowment to make up for money that Congress has declined to spend on cultural programming abroad. Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who chaired the conference, said our cultural diplomacy programs are central to American foreign policy and called for financing them more generously.

Information for this story came, in part, from the New York Times.

PHOTO EXHIBITION FOCUSES ON HOPE FOR PEACE IN MIDDLE EAST

Aspirations: Toward a Future in the Middle East, an exhibition of more than 170 images by 11 Israeli and Palestinian photographers, is on view at the Riffe Gallery through April 8. Curated by Robert Stearns and Neola Cassouto, Aspirations seeks to address a goal that seems impossible and inevitable at the same time peace in the Middle East between the Israeli and Palestinian people.

The exhibition reflects on the current political and cultural situation in the Middle East and provides a common ground for grasping the artists' very different messages. Images in this exhibition convey the realities and aspirations of the photographers. The artists desire peace, but in the face of the perpetual disappointments of the past, they view their world with a combination of optimism, skepticism and irony.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Aspirations Photo Project will bring together youth from diverse backgrounds to create a large-scale exhibition of their own photography that will be displayed in the Riffe Gallery. A special opening celebration for the Aspirations Photo Project will be held at the Riffe Gallery on March 20.

Aspirations: Toward a Future in the Middle East will travel in Latin America to Buenos Aires, Argentina; Santiago, Chile; Havana, Cuba; and Mexico; and will continue its United States tour beginning in Chicago in mid-2002. For more information call the gallery at 614/644-9624.