Architecture/Design
Whithervanes track fear in the media
History will ultimately decide how future generations look back on the 2016 election cycle and general social climate of this time, but there is little question that one of the biggest antagonists in…
Renewable energy art helps us design a better future
The planet is getting warmer. Sea levels are rising. Climate change is being felt in disasters and shifting ecosystems around the world, in a way that’s often disturbing to individuals wondering how…
Friendly Streets: Bottom-up St. Paul project changes the way people look at their city
The following is excerpted from Jay Walljasper’s new book, “America’s Walking Renaissance,” which can be downloaded for free here. This excerpt was initially published by MinnPost. Laughter, lively…
New toolkits from the Leading Organizations!
Creative Exchange is driven by a principle that more is more - the more stories we can tell, the more resources we can share, the more connections we can make, the more we can show how important art…
Find An Artist Toolkit
Artists are everywhere, and have enormous capacity to shape the world around us! This toolkit was created by Springboard for the Arts as a tool to help organizations in finding, commissioning and…
Trabajo de Arte: Aptitudes de Negocios para Artistas
Gracias por su interés en Trabajo de Arte: Aptitudes de Negocios para Artistas. Esto fue hecho por Springboard for the Arts con la ayuda del Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana y las…
Artist-Designed Bike Rack Toolkit
Metro Arts is a city department responsible for arts and cultural policy & programming in Nashville, TN. Since 2010, Metro Arts has commissioned artist-designed bike racks, resulting in dozens of…
Design Studio for Social Intervention uses design to change the way social justice is imagined
Kenneth Bailey is one of the founders of Boston's Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI), an artistic organization that uses design to change how social justice is imagined, developed, and…
The business community comes together to support the arts in downtown Fresno
This story is supported by a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Knowledge Building grant supporting a partnership between Springboard for the Arts and the International Downtown Association.…
ArtVenture connects the dots between visitors and public art in downtown Cincinnati
This story is supported by a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Knowledge Building grant supporting a partnership between Springboard for the Arts and the International Downtown Association.…
Lessons from RARE: Engaging Artists in Real Estate Development
As real estate developers increasingly look for responsive models, many are seeing the value of incorporating art into buildings and spaces. In one current case study, the Richfield Artist Resident…
Newark's Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District embraces the transformative power of music
Lincoln Park is an 11-acre, four-block neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey. In the late 1990s, the area became a focus of conversation on redevelopment efforts, with a series of charrettes – planning…
Sara Daleiden focuses on cultural production and exchange in various roles of public arts leadership
In common use, "cultural exchange" tends to mean an exchange of ideas, customs, or practices between people of different countries. But "culture" isn't simply defined from one country to another; in…
The Akron Art Museum will make art an everyday experience with their art library lending program
We all know how libraries work: you find a book (or maybe an academic journal, magazine, DVD, even a music CD) that you would like to check out with your library card, issued for free usually with…
Urban Matter Inc. creates interactive installations that combine technology, design, and community
This story is supported by a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Knowledge Building grant supporting a partnership between Springboard for the Arts and the International Downtown Association.…
New Hazlett Theater offers a CSA for the performing arts
You're probably heard of community-supported agriculture, and if you're a regular Creative Exchange reader you have most likely also heard of community-supported art – you can even download our…
2 Years of Creative Exchange!
It’s hard to believe, but Creative Exchange just turned 2! The platform was launched in 2014 in response to the question, “How do we support a movement around the power of local art and artists on a…
Witt Siasoco uses art to create home
If you take Twin Cities artist Witt Siasoco's extensive body of work as a whole, a common theme emerges: home. Not home as a physical place, or even a symbolic one – "Home is where the heart is," and…
Alex Gilliam is Building Heroes
Public Workshop started in Philadelphia in 2009, but is really an outgrowth of the work Alex Gilliam has been doing teaching design and architecture over the past 17 years. With Public Workshop and…
ArtsWave Cincinnati is the oldest and largest united arts fund in the country
Funding sources for many arts organizations tends to be a hodgepodge of foundation, government, corporate, and patron support, which makes ArtsWave Cincinnati remarkably unique – it is the Greater…
Collaboration at the Heart of Real Estate and Community Development
In 2013, Springboard for the Arts launched the Artist Organizers (AOs) pilot program as part of Irrigate’s artist-led community development. Supported by the Surdna Foundation, the pilot planted…
City of Asylum/Pittsburgh offers writers in exile sanctuary alongside expansive creative placemaking
"Asylum" – A place offering protection and safety; a shelter. “Silence is death. If you are silent you are dead, And if you speak you are dead, So speak and die.” –…
Denver Urban Gardens: Growing a garden, growing a community
Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) has been serving the five-county area of Metro Denver for 30 years and manages about 150 community gardens. "Our mission is to create community one…
How artists helped keep 33 businesses in a Cleveland neighborhood open through construction chaos
This story is the first of THE REPLICATORS, a series highlighting artists and organizations that have used toolkits and programs offered on Creative Exchange to create new programming in their…
Lifting Off: Mike Wird Launching Earthship Movement in Denver
How to address the environmental cost of growth in a boom time, like the one Denver is experiencing? Mike Wird, a 33-year old Colorado-born writer, rapper, educator and environmental activist, has an…
Belonging: A Cornerstone of Placemaking in the Region
It is precisely because artists recognize the vision that precedes the creation of a work that emerges from a place we cannot locate or name, a place of mystery, that we stand before creation in awe.…
How can a designed civic plaza and public art increase downtown activity in a small, rural city?
These stories are brought to you by a partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the NEA’s Our Town program. Driggs, a small mountain town in Eastern Idaho, is set amidst the scenic…
HICCUP creates positive disruption to bring visibility to Hialeah
The souvenir is as much a time-honored vacation tradition as is taking photos standing awkwardly next to world-renowned historic landmarks and tuning out the kids in the backseat as they continually…
How can public art be used to give new life to aging infrastructure and build connections?
These stories are brought to you by a partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the NEA’s Our Town program. Like so many American cities, Greensboro, North Carolina is in the midst of…
The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh creates a world of immersive, interactive installation art
The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh is a museum dedicated to installation art. But to put it that succinctly doesn't nearly do it justice. More fittingly, the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh is a…