ArtPlaceAmerica

Hello and goodbye, ArtPlace Family. Today, we culminate a decade of work as part of an extraordinary community. For ten years, we have worked with our colleagues and partners to enlist artists as allies in cultivating equitable, healthy, and sustainable communities. Although we’re finishing our leg of the relay, the race is far from over. And it is you who are firmly holding the baton for the next leg and beyond. With our deepest gratitude and admiration, thank you for making the #creativeplacemaking field what it is today, and for the ways you will continue to shape it in the future. Visit our website to read our full goodbye post [https://bit.ly/3nJ48nz], acknowledgement [http://bit.ly/3hbet9z], cross-cutting analysis [https://bit.ly/38rsHiC], and to find out how to keep in touch.

As of this week ArtPlace has released research findings in all ten sectors of our Community Development Matrix! Our work is based upon the insights and lived experience of hundreds of visionary individuals and institutions leading creative placemaking work across the United States. Before we close our doors, we had one more surprise! ... Over the past few months, we have been quietly laying the foundation for one final resource that we are delighted to share today. "The Role of Arts and Culture in Equitable Community Development: A Visual Analysis" is a comprehensive analysis that cuts across all ten sectors, presented through an interactive infographic developed in collaboration with Studio MESH. Visit CreativePlacemakingResearch.org to access the analysis and more.

Food is going to get people to mobilize and come out, and then you serve them something else. Can we call you and talk to you about these ideas and these issues? We want to hear what you have to say about these things." Learn more about how Sipp Culture seeks to address healthy food access in rural Mississippi.

"Around the globe, communities have been responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by creating hyper-local 'mutual aid' networks. Volunteers find out what neighbors needlike a prescription pick up, groceries, or PPEand organize to provide that service. At a time of economic hardship for many, this is a way for community members to go beyond financial contributions and take care of people’s needs directly." Keep reading, below!

Here it is! Following closely on the heels of our community wealth building research published yesterday, ArtPlace is thrilled to release our tenth and final cross-sector field scan focused on arts, culture, and youth development. Authored by our partners at Creative Generation, Centering Creative Youth in Community Development: A Creative Placemaking Field Scan builds on the incredible depth and breadth of evidence that exists in the fields of arts education and creative y...outh development. In addition, Creative Generation and nine youth/adult teams worked with our friends at The Loop Lab, a nonprofit social enterprise specializing in media arts internships and digital storytelling, to produce a series of short explainer videos about their place-based, youth-led creative projects. Watch one of the videos below! Learn more about the field scan: http://bit.ly/3r9yEcv

We're thrilled to announce the release of our 9th ArtPlace field scan: "Building Community Wealth: The Role of Arts and Culture in Equitable Economic Development". In partnership with Common Future this paper describes the 6 ways arts and culture advance community wealth building including... - Facilitating collaboration for complex group decision-making... - Accessing imagination to bring new economic structures into being - Building power to strengthen movements that shift local economic conditions - Healing individuals and communities from extractive labor and economic practices - Making the case for holistic, people-centered financing - Creating new and sustaining existing forms of resource generation Learn more: http://bit.ly/3r3ViD7

We're excited to announce the relaunch of Communitydevelopment.art, with new briefs, videos, and new resources that examine the intersection of arts, culture, and equitable development! Where to start? PolicyLink commissioned photographer and artist Chris Johnson to develop a creative documentation project about the work of the six organizations. His video project captures the personal meaning that working with artists and arts and culture organizations have had for indi...viduals involved in the projects. Learn more: http://bit.ly/37niAMy The Strengthening and Connecting to the Social Fabric of Communities brief describes the changes, insights, and lessons when arts and cultural strategies are deployed in service of comprehensive community development and planning. Dive in here: http://bit.ly/3r16tMN Or check out the recap of all the resources available here: http://bit.ly/2WiIF9c

Only a few more weeks until ArtPlace closes shop, which means in true ArtPlace fashion, we have a few more announcements up our sleeve! Look out for those next week, but in the meantime let's spend a little more time with our ArtPlace family! At last year's #ArtPlaceSummit we asked attendees to complete the sentence: "ArtPlace Is..."... Here's what they had to say!

Most nights, the streetlights that illuminate Ashland, Massachusetts, are a uniform white. They shine down on typical small-town things: families getting dinner on Main Street, kids bicycling home from each other’s houses. But for a month in the summer of 2016, nighttime Ashland looked a little different. The town hall and its parking lot were tinted in green. The area around the Historical Society was bathed in purple. Learn how artist Dan Borelli's Ashland-Nyanza Project used light to reflect underground concentrations of toxic chemicals https://bit.ly/2IACj1G

As ArtPlace America continues winding down, we're taking a look through some of our favorite posts over the years. In 2019, we asked ourselves, Who are the people behind creative placemaking? That question led to other questions, like What drives them to do what they do? and How do they share the story of their community-based work? From these questions sprung a series of video and blog interviews and our #CreativityLivesHere storytelling campaign. In this round-up blo...g we took a look at the many voices behind creative placemaking. Meet these wonderful practitioners here: https://bit.ly/2JPpCAH . . . Featuring the The Loop Lab, First Peoples Fund, Las Imaginistas, Caroline Rutledge Armijo (The Lilies Project), Queen Muhammad Ali, Springboard for the Arts, Ekvnv-Yefolecvlke, Joseph Kunkel ( Sustainable Native Communities), Lywante Bonner, (ONE South Community Development Corp.), Doug Naselroad (Appalachian Artisan Center), Tawna Little (Ekvnv-Yefolecvlke), Elena Serrano (East Side Arts Alliance), Donna Neuwirth, (Wormfarm Institute), Randall Szott (Vermont House of Representatives), Pete Muldoon (Mayor, Jackson, Wyoming), Carlos Contreras (Director of Innovation & Marketing, Albuquerque, New Mexico), and Natalia Macker (Board of County Commissioners, Wyoming).

Many community-based groups have found arts strategies crucial in their efforts to stabilize communities who are particularly vulnerable to displacement, including those weakened by historic or ongoing neglect or uneven funding. Since the 1980s, Houston’s Project Row Houses has been integrating arts and culture to preserve and celebrate a mixed-income African American community in the historic but rapidly gentrifying Third Ward neighborhood. Learn more below!

VIRTUAL EVENT 12/15 at 3PM (est) from ICMA - International City/County Management Association! Can you remember a moment this year when sparks of creativity and community brought you some hope or joy during a dark time? Problem Solving Through #CreativePlacemaking Webinar will discuss the release of "Problem Solving with Arts and Cultural Strategies", a new guide to creative placemaking for local government managers.... This comprehensive resource demonstrates how leveraging the arts, culture, and community-engaged strategies can lead to innovative, creative, and more equitable solutions to challenges facing your community. How outside-the-box processes can offer new ways for government staff and community stakeholders to communicate, build trust, and collaborate. Learn more: http://ow.ly/R1OW50CzJFL

We have officially wrapped up our LAST artist interview for the ArtPlace blog! Georgia Silvera Seamans' Minetta Creatures project was part of the Artists Lead! ioby match program. Minetta Creatures is an eco-performance project that follows the historic flow of Minetta Brook, that used to run above ground in Manhattan and which was completely culverted by the mid-1800's. ... We spoke with Georgia about her project, how artists play a critical role in communities, and how she mapped the Manhattan landscape prior to Dutch settler colonization. Start reading: http://ow.ly/D4wP50CCS1d #ArtistsLeadioby