Creative Placemaking
BOOM Concepts is a creative hub that reflects the faces of the community on Pittsburgh's Penn Ave.
D.S. Kinsel, co-founder of Pittsburgh's BOOM Concepts, is a painter, installation artist, event maker, and art curator. He says he is always trying to make sure that his art is relevant to and a…
Ballot Box puts public art to the vote
Perhaps you've already heard: this year is a pretty big election year. And while you are going to hear a lot of folks encouraging people to get out there and vote this year, the folks at Northeast…
The Macon Arts Alliance, Leading Through Transformation
This story is part of a series of features on the members of the Leading Organizations pilot program, featuring organizations across the country working with artists in new and innovative ways. Learn…
Corner Concerts promotes Macon's local music scene with a placemaking agenda
Macon's Corner Concerts exists in a unique creative space where placemaking meets urban exploring meets pop-ups meets professionally-produced live concerts. If that sounds difficult to define,…
Metro Arts in Nashville - a leading organization and a learning organization
This story is part of a series of features on the members of the Leading Organizations pilot program, featuring organizations across the country working with artists in new and innovative ways. Learn…
Ivar Zeile has seen the future of public art, and it's on 25' x 60' screens
Before launching Denver Digerati and becoming a national leader in digital placemaking, Ivar Zeile founded the contemporary arts gallery Plus Gallery in Denver in 2001. He had previously worked in…
Radiant Hall creates co-working spaces for artists in need of studio space
Sculptural painter Ryan Lammie grew up in Pittsburgh and went to school at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, living there from 2007-2012. During that time he saw the Borough's rapid development, and…
Laura Zabel leads the way for Springboard's goals of system change
Saint Paul, Minnesota's Springboard for the Arts has existed in some form for over 35 years, transforming as an organization several times over before its latest incarnation as Springboard. Executive…
1xRUN is the future of art
In November 2015, 1xRUN (one-time-run) celebrated its fifth anniversary of delivering limited-edition time-released prints through its e-commerce store. 1xRUN is the world's leading publisher of fine…
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…
World Dance Party
Are you looking to build connections between elders and young people? Do you want to strengthen ties between neighbors of different ethnicities? Do you want people to have a space to have fun and…
Digital Placemaking Sparks Human Connections in Denver
Working in large-scale public art in Denver has changed the way Ivar Zeile experiences other cities. "Whenever I travel, I'm always looking for the LED screens," he says. "In places like Minneapolis,…
Bringing People to Play in Urban Green Spaces
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…
Making Home Where the Community Is
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…
PearlDamour sees the way home in the stars over Milton, America
The North Star is how travelers have found their way home for thousands of years. Located on the handle of the Little Dipper, the most recognizable constellation in the sky, the North Star points…
Transforming the Kirkbride: Fergus Falls faces mental health issues & historic preservation with art
In Fergus Falls, Minnesota, one structure dominates the landscape more than any other. Spanning the length of eight football fields, the 700,000-square foot building with its red-tiled, turreted…
Rapping in Vacant Lots, Repping the Neighborhood
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…
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.” –…
Swim Pony uses science-minded experimentation in artistic exploration
It might seem that science and the arts are at odds with each other – "left brain" vs. "right brain" thinking, facts and stats vs. thoughts and feelings, lab coats and calculators vs.…
Arab American National Museum is the first and only museum of its kind
The metro Detroit area is an area rich with cultural institutions that celebrate the heritage, history, legacy, and continued contributions of artistic, cultural, and intellectual…
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…
The People's Creative Toolkit
Your story has to be told, and a lot of people have to listen. But how do you tell your story to get them to listen? And who is “them,” anyway? These are questions we have to address with every…
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…
Photography & Participation: How Photovoice Engages and Rebuilds Communities
What is the role of photography in community engagement? How can increased engagement lead to effective community rebuilding and development? Photovoice, a participatory research process, provides…
From the Ground Up - Shaping the New Rural Narrative Through Arts and Community
Even if you have not spent a lot of time in a rural community, you’re probably familiar with at least one of the common narratives of small town America. One paints a bleak landscape of “brain…
Little Free Library has big ambitions for literacy & public art
If your neighborhood is home to a Little Free Library, you might be lulled into thinking that it’s been there forever — or for several decades, at least. The small sidewalk libraries’ “take a book,…
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.…
Valuing Artists, In All Senses of the Word
You may have read that the rise of the creative entrepreneur is leading to the death of the artist. That’s not our experience. We’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with people in communities…
Open-air Social Dance Series
"How come there is no public dancing in Chicago?" That was the question in 1997 that prompted the creation of the first SummerDance, an outdoor, public, free dance series in parks in Chicago. Since…