TRANSCRIPT

Welcome: VCU President Rao

MICHAEL RAO: Welcome to what I hope will be one of your many many visits to the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Contemporary Art. It’s a gateway of sorts, of course, into Virginia Commonwealth University, and certainly into the arts district; but it’s also a gateway for anybody in Richmond to understand that VCU is theirs; this opportunity really to forever connect all of our students from any one of these disciplines that we offer among two hundred and some different programs to the world of contemporary art. That’s one of the reasons that the location became so important to us. It’s a real crossroads. It’s an opportunity to bring everyone together. And so if indeed the college experience – whether you’re getting a degree in medicine or engineering, social work – or really any discipline, is to become someone who really has the ability to fulfill their lives, and the lives of others, through human expression. And art is of course one of the most important forms of human expression that we have.

Public Transportation

MICHAEL LEASE:  Ross Catrow is the Program Manager for RVA Rapid Transit – the grassroots organization for public transportation here in Richmond.

ROSS CATROW:  The real impetus of our work is the GRTC Pulse, which is a bus rapid transit line that runs right down Broad Street. And there will be a station just a block and a half from the ICA. And there’s bike share all around. So I can easily see it being a place where people say ‘Alright I’m coming from the North Side, I’m coming from the East End, let’s just meet at the ICA,’  because it’s in the middle there where all those things collide, and it’s a big giant landmark where it’s easy to find folks.