On October 17th and 18th I had the pleasure of attending Plan NH’s annual conference, which focused on Placemaking. I was invited to lead the closing session, which was a hands-on activity to explore personalities and processes of creative placemaking. Leading up to the closing I had an incredible learning experience with some high-powered movers & shakers in the creative placemaking world - Leo Vazquez, the Executive Director of the National Consortium for Creative Placemaking; Alexander Goloub, a dynamic artist who leads projects that transform communities and spaces; and Ben Stone, the Director of Arts and Culture at Smart Growth America. Below are some resources, responses, and reflections to my two days away from the office at this fantastic conference.
Jessica Gelter, Executive Director, Arts Alive!
Response to keynote session given by Leo Vazquez, National Consortium of Creative Placemaking
I learned a new and stunning definition of Creative Placemaking from Leo, who was drawing from thought leaders Anne Gadwa Nicodemus and Ann Markusen:
Creative Placemaking is the development of a decentralized portfolio of spaces acting as a creative crucible.
This definition moves us away from plopping down an arts center in a neighborhood, touting the impacts of audience spending, and calling that creative placemaking. Instead, it moves us toward the idea that a panoply of places can be a hub for creativity, and their connection and collaboration with each other and their reach into the community defines the success of developing a creative and thriving community.
It is more diverse and more democratic.
Siloed hubs are not the goal - the goal is to develop an interconnected web of co-supportive organizations, spaces, and creatives passionate about sharing the experience of creativity, art, aesthetics, storytelling, and connection. We are working hard at that here in the Monadnock region - being regional, staying connected, working to accomplish goals together.
There is a connection I want to mention - a strong correlation between patent holders and arts participation. Creativity is key to innovation and invention, true, but is that what is going to drive the development of 21st century communities?
Skills creatives have, often go under appreciated. Creatives often have a holistic way of examining something - they can look minutely at technical detail and then much more broadly at societal impacts. Creatives have interpretive skills that rely on strong abilities in empathy and critical thinking. Creatives are open to exploration and failure - with a much higher tolerance for taking risks. And that means they are uniquely posed to both understand our communities and envision where we are going.
At the same time, we have news! Richard Florida recanted, basically. His much touted theory on how investments in attracting “The Creative Class” to a community would bring economic fuel for the community development fire, is falling short. Similar to trickle-down economics, the theory hopes that investing in those with privilege (those able to get the education and to be flexible enough to choose a creative profession) will in the long-term create more jobs and impact economic vitality in the greater community. (Read more here.)
A rich cultural community increases property values. But what is the cost to the community when those property values increase? Who pays the price and who is priced out?
There is a connection between investments that support “creative class” institutions and gentrification - displacing local working class individuals, struggling creatives, and so many other marginalized populations that did not benefit from the increased vibrancy that this investment brings, but in fact, were priced out of the communities they helped build.
So what is a key to developing nongentrifying creative crucibles of innovation and creativity? Investing resources to bring in creatives into Creative Placemaking.
It means involving creatives in the community master planning process, a public space design process, an organizational visioning process, or simply addressing a community challenge.
Side note: it is also a great argument for the support of organizations like Arts Alive! that advocate for and bring the creative community together.
One important step to making this possible is working with the greater community leadership to practice openness to and build comfort with creativity and a non-linear, iterative processes - which go against the standard practices of many risk-averse planners, elected officials, and municipal and business leaders in communities.
Another important step is to build skills in the creative community to facilitate big conversations, and to go beyond institutional walls to reach all voices.
So, maybe a great first question for the creative problem solvers in our community to tackle is how can artists and cultural institutions be part of the conversations to mediate potential displacement that in other communities is a result of creative, vibrant, and beautiful work?
I am excited to think about how this might play into some of the programming we offer next year at Arts Alive!
Key takeaways from How and Why Arts Have a Unique Role in Supporting Communities presentation by Alexander Golob, Golob Art LLC
Alexander was a phenomenal speaker and shared a bevy of public art and creative placemaking projects. Key takeaways from his presentation included:
Alexander speaks to a table of conference participants.
Bring artists in from the beginning to plan the process and lay the groundwork for introducing creative ideas from the inception of the visioning process.
Understand and make explicitly clear the goals of a public art or creative placemaking project related to technical finesse and expertise; and related to expression of the artist and expression of community voice.
The difference between an RFP for a public art or creative placemaking project and an RFQ: Put out an RFP for a specific small project, potentially for a local or emerging artist, with more clearly outlined deliverables. Put on an RFQ for a bigger-investment project, expect research and community outreach are a part of the services you will be paying for - and understand that the project will need to have more flexibility in what the deliverables are due to the input from research and outreach.
How can arts service organizations develop the value proposition and market for artists who can work with architects and developers.
Check out Alexander’s work here: https://alexandergolobart.com/projects/public-art
Reflections on Placemaking in Transportation Planning presented by Ben Stone, Smart Growth America
Ben had a slightly different definition of creative placemaking: It’s all about making places creatively. If you just build it, they won’t necessarily come, no matter how great you think it is. It’s about how to engage people in caring about space through a creative process of working together to understand and build out a meaningful space for those who use it.
He acknowledged the first step is to ask WHY a space is unloved and in need of redesign and love. Artists are great at asking questions, and being genuinely curious about how all the answers can fit together.
He shared how Springboard for the Arts’s Irrigate program dives into this: When you mobilize local artists to connect and invest their energies in their own communities and neighborhood, you can impact:
-Neighborhood vibrancy and livability
-Neighborhood identity and community narrative
-Engagement among diverse members of the community
-Local economy and business visibility
-Transit-oriented development
-New, lasting approaches for creative problem solving
There’s a great argument to engage artists, AND a toolkit communities can use located on their website: https://springboardforthearts.org/programs/irrigate/
After many years working in the field, Ben’s advice on working with artists is summed up like this:
Use an intermediary (like Arts Alive!) to find an artist to work with.
Artists are not all the same - they work in very different ways and are some stronger in some skill sets than others.
Artists will always have their own goals, language, and measures of success.
Artists can be involved in developing the process for design. They don’t have to make a sculpture or installation or mural for a project.
This is a fantastic resource - a field scan of creative placemaking transportation projects:
http://t4america.org/maps-tools/creative-placemaking-field-scan/
Some fun materials from Arts Alive!’s hands on workshop!