Giving arts a seat at the community development table

In December, the National Endowment for the Arts released a collection of essays titled How to Do Creative Peacemaking: An Action-Oriented Guide to Arts in Community Development. Jason Schupbach, the Director of Design and Creative Placemaking for the National Endowment of the Arts, came to Philly this week to discuss the new book, which he said he thinks of as “a primer on giving arts a seat at the community development table.”

Creative placemaking represents a wide array of work that ranges from public art projects confronting complex social questions to building artist live/work spaces in changing neighborhoods. It can mean development of new cultural institutions or simply using creative expression to foster community engagement.

Schupbach joined a panel*, hosted by Fairmount Park Conservancy, Mural Arts Philadelphia’s muraLAB, and Community Design Collaborative at the Center for Architecture and Design, on Monday night to discuss themes of the book, as well as strategies for creative placemaking in American cities and towns. Lyz Crane, Deputy Director of ArtPlace America, which funds creative placemaking work, and Anne Gadwa Nicodemus, Principal of Metris Consulting, who studies the field and co-authored of the original whitepaper about creative placemaking joined Schupbach to bring a national perspective. Representing Philadelphia’s rich community of creative placemakers were attorney and artist Rasheedah Phillips, founder of the AfroFuturist Affair; Kira Strong, deputy director of design and construction for the city’s Rebuild Initiative; and Aviva Kapust, executive director of the Village of Arts and Humanities in North Philadelphia. (Kapust and Strong both have essays in the new book.) PlanPhilly’s Ashley Hahn moderated the discussion.

ART’S ROLE IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

COMMUNITY COLLABORATION

Panelists emphasized that creative placemaking only works when the community is deeply involved. After all, creative placemaking is about strengthening community and addressing a challenge or issue within that community. Effective creative placemaking, as Hahn pointed out, is not a DIY effort, but DIT (do it together) — in part because the lives of those in the community make up a medium of a project.

“A collaborative practice is critical between the artist, community partner and community itself,” Crane said. “What is the conversation that’s happening? What is the expertise that’s being relied on? There needs to be a sense of reciprocity.”

Anne Gadwa Nicodemus explained that reciprocity and inclusion is necessary to ensure that no one is used and that nothing is done to a community—a project can’t be an imposition. Creative placemaking is about figuring out what’s at stake and who has skin in the game—the artist, developer, and residents of a neighborhood. Reflecting and addressing the needs and wellbeing of those most affected by creative placemaking efforts is a way to avoid projects that contribute to “art washing” or could signal inequitable neighborhood development. Instead, the success of a creative placemaking project is defined for and by the specific community. The best creative placemaking initiatives, according to Schupbach, “deeply engage with the culture of a place and honor people through the work.”

Phillips concurred, noting that those who want to engage in creative placemaking projects in an area must make sure they do their homework: “Go to community meetings, get to know people, get uncomfortable,” she said. “People aren’t going to automatically trust you.”

“When you’re an artist [from outside a community] working in a community, you must become part of the community,” Kapust said, explaining that building equity and empathy should be the goals as much as any resulting physical product. “Establishing shared values early on is really important, and you can’t assume it’s going to be easy.”

CREATIVE PLACEMAKING IN OUR POLITICAL CLIMATE

Without directly addressing the changes at the federal level, Schupbach squashed the notion that the National Endowment for the Arts was in any immediate financial trouble, reminding the audience that, like all federal agencies, the NEA is funded as part of a continuing resolution until April 28th. (Fiscal Year 2018 will be Trump’s first budget, and anyway, “Congress controls the purse strings,” he said.) 

Creative placemaking efforts can bloom even without a robust budget—scrappy Philly, which Schupbach called “one of the best creative placemaking sites in the country,” is no stranger to that.

“[In Philly,] there’s a culture where not everything is at your fingertips,” Strong said. The drive to figure out how to solve a problem or how to make an idea into a reality leads to partnerships and sharing resources—key ingredients when it comes to forging alliances and building solidarity among neighbors.

Creative placemaking, like political work, “is incredibly complex, and because it’s complex, it’s messy, it’s chaotic, it’s human scale,” Kapust said.

These days, stronger communities and more collaborative processes are more important than ever—but panelists maintained that the aims of creative placemaking haven’t shifted.

“What’s going on in the places that need this the most has been going on for a long time,” Kapust said. Crane, too, said creative placemaking’s focus on community and self-determination to be just as important as ever.

Gadwa Nicodemus, however, argued that, “ some issues we’re coping with have a greater sense of urgency than techniques of creative placemaking may be suited for.” While creative placemaking can be iterative, incremental work, she asked, “How can creative placemaking transition and be repurposed to meet the pressing needs of a civil society?”

*Disclosure: PlanPhilly was a media partner for this event and the discussion was moderated by editor Ashley Hahn.