Emil Kang

What the Work Does to the Body On illness, endurance culture, and arts leadership

open.substack.com/pub/emilkang...

Nobody in the arts sector talks plainly about what the work does to the body. Not burnout. Not capacity. The actual physical cost — the blood pressure, the arteries, the diagnoses we manage in private. I wrote about mine.

Link in the comments.

What Leaders of Small Arts Organizations Are Asked to Bear When people talk about “small” arts organizations, they often mean very different things.

Passion is not a substitute for infrastructure. Care is not a business model.

An essay on what leaders of small arts organizations are asked to bear — and why the system treats structural failure as personal burnout.

emilkang.substack.com/p/what-leade...

Institutional Erasure Author's note: This essay reflects my personal views, informed by three decades of work in the nonprofit arts sector.

"I need to say something before I implode.

Last night, while the Grammys celebrated artists, the President announced a two-year closure of the Kennedy Center.

This is not renovation. It is the final stage of erasure.

New essay: Institutional Erasure

emilkang.substack.com/p/institutio...

COVID Was The Rehearsal I was at an industry conference earlier this month when I overheard a familiar voice ask another colleague, with genuine puzzlement: “Why are you still wearing a mask?”

open.substack.com/pub/emilkang...

Stop Starting Nonprofits: A Case for Structural Choice I have spent my career inside nonprofit institutions, running them, funding them, and serving on their boards.

The arts sector treats the 501(c)(3) as a moral default rather than a strategic choice.

That assumption shapes who gets legitimacy, who builds assets, and who burns out.

I wrote about why it’s time to expand how we structure cultural work:

emilkang.substack.com/p/stop-start...