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marmar

(76,985 posts)
Tue May 21, 2013, 06:49 PM May 2013

How Artists Strengthen Communities


from OnTheCommons.org:


How Artists Strengthen Communities
The rise of creative placemaking raises interesting questions

By Camille Gage


The creative community is experiencing an unprecedented interest in the arts’ ability to impact public life. Just one example is ArtPlace, an Obama administration catalyzed collaboration of thirteen leading foundations, eight federal agencies—including the National Endowment for the Arts—and six of the nation’s largest banks. ArtPlace focuses primarily on creative placemaking, or “investing in art and culture at the heart of a portfolio of integrated strategies that can drive vibrancy and diversity so powerful that it transforms communities.”

These are strong and welcome words; however, this exciting development bumps up against at least three other opposing cultural trends.

* Artists are being called on to play a deepening and central role in the revitalization of our nation’s communities at the same time as art and music education have, due to budget considerations, been cut from many public schools. How do these two realities co-exist?
* “Creative placemaking” and “social practice art” may be the buzzwords du jour, but these practices are not new; indeed many artists have been employing interactive public methods for years in both their personal art making and activism. Despite interest within certain circles of influence, these forms continue to be considered non-traditional, and often marginal, practices by many. They are often rooted in activism, and therefore plagued by “But Is This Art?’ eyebrow-raising.
* Access to the traditional avenues on which artists make an income and pay for supplies, a studio, and maybe their rent can be problematic for the social practice artist. This art not always easy to document, which can be crucial for grant funding. Often you can’t sell the art that evolves from these genres—it is temporal, living only in the moment of making and in memory, in the heart of the artists and their co-creators.


Does Creative Placemaking Result in Gentrification?

ArtPlace has awarded 80 grants totaling $26.9 million—a staggering investment rooted in the belief that art and creative placemaking has the power to fundamentally, and economically, impact community. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/magazine/how-artists-strengthen-communities



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How Artists Strengthen Communities (Original Post) marmar May 2013 OP
thank you! lovemydog May 2013 #1
Gentrification always seems to follow close on the heels Warpy May 2013 #2
Du rec. Nt xchrom May 2013 #3
DU Rec Tuesday Afternoon May 2013 #4

lovemydog

(11,833 posts)
1. thank you!
Tue May 21, 2013, 06:58 PM
May 2013

I just returned from hanging with some artists who are doing a tremendous show involving 60 other artists - they all do so much for our community!

Warpy

(110,913 posts)
2. Gentrification always seems to follow close on the heels
Tue May 21, 2013, 07:24 PM
May 2013

of artists barely making a living who partially rehab ugly factory lofts for living and studio space. Soon the neighborhood is described as having a "funky, artistic vibe" instead of being a district of abandoned warehouses and factories and the yuppies who want to prove they're still hip move in.

If the artists are lucky, the neighborhood is undesirable enough for the whole process to take a decade or so. More often, it happens in just a very few years.

Here in NM, if you want that "funky and artistic vibe," you have to go to defunct and abandoned mining towns where starving artists have repaired and moved into old miners' housing. The former artistic centers of Taos and Santa Fe have priced the artists out of the market completely.

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