Redux Contemporary Art Center has finally found its new executive director after an extensive search this summer.
Allan Bunch brings a diverse resume to the table: He started his career as a classically trained chef, spending years working in restaurant kitchens, after which he transitioned into front of house management, then worked as a private chef and household manager. His experiences after leaving food and bev include gigs in marketing, branding and franchising. When he and his partner moved from Palo Alto, Calif., to Lawrence, Kan., in 2017, Bunch transitioned into nonprofit work.
“I joined this very small nonprofit organization in Lawrence specializing in suicide prevention,” he told the Charleston City Paper. “And we grew that from a $250,000 organization with three full time employees to, when I left, we were about 20 employees and a budget of about $1.5 million. And they’re continuing to grow and flourish.”
Originally from Aiken, S.C., Bunch said a couple of cold winters in Kansas is what pushed him to move “back” to Charleston, where he spent a lot of time growing up.
“Charleston still kind of felt like home. I moved back to accept a job at Coastal Community Foundation, and after a couple of years there, I was ready to do something different. I started putting out some feelers. And when I saw this position, it just really excited me.”
His husband is an artist, which Bunch said opened up his own appreciation for art. Together, they visited Redux for the first time earlier this year during an open studios event. “After that experience, I just wanted this job so badly,” he said. “The people, the energy of the space — it just felt like where I needed to be.”
Bunch is also an amateur artist, but more than that, he said he’s an “art appreciator.” The expertise that Bunch brings to Redux is not in art, he said, but in nonprofit development and finding new paths towards fiscal sustainability.
“That’s the way my brain works, and I’m good at it.”
The first and foremost goal for Redux, Bunch said, is finding ways to achieve fiscal sustainability. “We can always use more income. There are so many programs that are ripe for expansion. But as far as those are concerned — I’m one month in — so right now, I’m focused on listening to the community and interpreting and advocating for those voices,” he said.
“So when [director of education] Carson Carroll tells me we have this great opportunity for education, we’re going to workshop that, and I’m going to advocate for that. As far as my actual vision goes, I say it’s not mine. As a nonprofit, we are bigger than any one individual or idea, and I think we belong to the community. It’s our responsibility to have the organization be what the community needs it to be.”
Big plans in store
The long waiting list to get a Redux studio space is another challenge Bunch hopes to tackle.
“We have a waiting list a mile long. I think that trying to answer the need for more studio space — it’s something that will always live in the back of my mind. What that means with that for the future — I would actually want to see where we could replicate a similar space at some point. I would like to evaluate how far our artists travel to come to Redux. Is there a market for a sister Redux somewhere else?”
And as he listens to the needs of the Redux community, a program that comes up again and again, he said, is the scholarship-based Lightning Residency, a six-week program which provides studio space and exhibition opportunities to emerging artists at no cost.
“I would like to see if there was a way that we could continue to support our lightning residents after the six weeks are over. And I definitely want to expand our education and outreach. I think that it’s important to be able to show work by historically marginalized communities, and finding new ways to outreach to these different populations, different communities, is highly important.”
Just one month into the job, Bunch is open to hearing what needs Redux should respond to: for Charleston artists, especially emerging and under-represented artists, and the downtown community surrounding the space.
“This is a very cool place that I wish more people got to experience. Art is this powerful source of healing, expression, coming together. Core to the Redux mission is having a place where everybody can come and feel welcome.”
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