National Endowment for the Arts  
NEA Initiatives
  Our Town  
 

Creative Placemaking Now: Our Town Panelists Speak About Current Trends, Challenges and Policies in the Creative Placemaking Field

In July 2012, the NEA is hosting three webinars to talk with experts in creative placemaking about current trends, challenges and policies in the field. These experts all served on the Our Town program grant review panels. The webinars begin with a brief presentation by NEA Design Director, Jason Schupbach, followed by the discussion with the panelists and Q&A with the public. The webinars are being archived below.

Please see detailed information on the Our Town program.


Archive

July 17, 2012: Creative Placemaking in Rural Communities

Panelists:
Brent Leggs, Field Officer, National Trust for Historic Preservation
Donna Neuwirth, Executive Director, Wormfarm Institute
Kennedy Smith, Principal, Community Land USE + Economics Group, LLC

Opening Presentation: Jason Schupbach

Play video[7:02]


Discussion with Panelists and Q&A (audio)

 
[55:21] [transcript]


July 24, 2012: Creative Placemaking through Design and Cultural Planning

Panelists:
Terrian Barnes Arts Patron, Community Volunteer, Retired Chief Diversity Officer,
  Louisville, KY
Daniel Hernandez, Director, Jonathan Rose Companies' Urban Solutions
  Planning Practice
Amy McBride, Arts Administrator, City of Tacoma, WA

Opening Presentation: Jason Schupbach

Play video[7:27]


Discussion with Panelists and Q&A (audio)

 
[50:17] [transcript]


July 31, 2012: Creative Placemaking through Arts Engagement

Panelists:
Adriana Gallego, San Antonio, TX, Deputy Director, National Association of
  Latino Arts and Cultures
Victoria Hamilton, San Diego, CA, Executive Director, City of San Diego
  Commission for Arts and Culture
Leslie Koch, New York, NY, President, The Trust for Governors Island
Andre Perry, Iowa City, IA, Executive Director,  Englert Theater, Co-Founder
  and Director, Mission Creek Festival

Opening Presentation: Jason Schupbach

Play video[7:30]


Discussion with Panelists and Q&A (audio)

 
[50:49]


About the webinars

What is Creative placemaking? It's when partners from public, private, nonprofit, and community sectors strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, tribe, city, or region around arts and cultural activities. (Ann Markusen, Markusen Economic Research Services; Anne Gadwa, Metris Arts Consulting From Creative Placemaking)

In the past year, a national conversation about how to do creative placemaking successfully has been re-invigorated. In a proactive effort to acknowledge suggestions and lessons from the field, the Arts Endowment made changes to the guidelines for 2012. In that revised process, three panels were held:

A Non-Metro and Tribal Communities Panel included applications received from non-metropolitan and tribal communities with arts engagement, design, and cultural planning activities. A community was determined to be non-metro by both population size and proximity to a metropolitan area. Hence, small suburban communities located within larger metro areas were not included on this panel. The determination to hold this panel enabled small, more isolated communities to compete only against each other and not against larger communities that may have better access to resources.

A Design and Cultural Planning Panel reviewed projects from metropolitan communities that are developing the local support systems and places necessary for creative placemaking to succeed, including creative asset mapping, master planning for cultural districts, creative industries, and creative entrepreneurship. Design projects reviewed by this panel involve the design of artist space, cultural facilities, public spaces for cultural engagement, and wayfinding systems.

An Arts Engagement Panel included projects from metropolitan communities where artistic production is the primary method of creative placemaking. These projects include a wide variety of artistic programming that fosters interaction among community members, arts organizations, and artists, or artistic practices that activate existing cultural and community assets. Festivals and public art commissions, for example, fall into this category.