Participatory Art

A small area plan with big ambitions: Frogtown's illustrated SMAPL is a document of tactical urbanism

A "small area plan" is a very common development document for individual districts within a city. Typically the stuff of purely esoteric urban planner interest, these are documents containing focused…


Leon Wang designs posters with impact

It was the Philando Castile shooting in July 2016 that ultimately drove Leon Wang to action. "It happened in my community, on the streets I drive on, in the area my kids are growing up in," Wang…


Rosalia Torres-Weiner brings magic kites to children impacted by deportation

Rosalia Torres-Weiner is a multi-media artist, muralist, and activist, but she prefers to call herself an ARTivist. Through her Charlotte, North Carolina-based Red Calaca Studio, Torres-Weiner uses…


Connecting creative practice to healthcare through Ready Go tools at the People's Center Health Services

Amid all the uncertainty around health insurance, the fact remains that people need access to healthcare. Clinics and healthcare systems around the country have been seeking new and innovative ways…


ARROW Public Art welcomes one and all to Monroe...AND West Monroe

Brooke Foy is an artist and sculptor originally from West Monroe, Louisiana. She moved away from Louisiana for 10 years but came back when she got assistant professorship at the University of…


New Haven's Elm City Mosaic

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.…


Heidi Brandow documents definitions of "home" for Native peoples, refugees, and normalized residents

Santa Fe artist Heidi K. Brandow came by her creative practice somewhat naturally – on her mother's side, she comes from a long line of Native Hawaiian singers, musicians, and performers; and on her…


Chandler’s Downtown Crosswalk Beautification

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.…


Rural Arts & Culture Summit Videos

The Rural Arts & Culture Summit was held from June 6-8 in Morris, MN, and it was magical. 400 artists, community development professionals, leaders, and advocates from 22 states came to the town of…


The Arnaudville Experiment: Creative placemaking and economic development in rural Louisiana

George Marks moved back to his tiny hometown of Arnaudville in Louisiana prior to Katrina in 2005, after 15 years of living as a successful working artist in Baton Rouge. He left home in 1989, earned…


Citizen artist: Eric Liu on artists’ role in civic life

Artists embody what it means to be a citizen, says Eric Liu. But the co-founder and CEO of Citizen University is quick to explain that “citizenship” doesn’t refer to a person’s documentation status…


Santa Ana’s Calliotree

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.…


Ori Alon spreads positivity through paperwork

Ori Alon's inspiration for the Center for Supportive Bureaucracy began ten years ago when he was an art student in West Jerusalem. He started a performance project by sitting in outdoor markets with…


Spencer Merolla uses ashes and the visual language of mourning in her post-election art

Spencer Merolla says she has been interested in art for as long as she can remember, having grown up with a mother who was an artist herself. But when she attended Wesleyan University she pursued a…


Ian Trask transforms one man's trash into another's treasure

Ian Trask didn't study art in school. Instead, he studied science, with the intention of pursuing a career in research and being able to "pursue something novel and new every day for the rest of my…


Prairie Dreamers: Reflecting on Springboard’s 5 years in Fergus Falls

As a child growing up in Dundas, Minnesota, I learned more in school about the rainforest or the oceans than I did about the prairie and lakes that were in my backyard. I had t-shirts pleading to…


Springboard for the Arts announces new national Train-the-Trainer Intensive

Springboard for the Arts is excited to announce the first Train-the-Trainer Intensive for their Work of Art: Business Skills for Artists curriculum and award-winning artist-led community development…


Theatre artist Haley Honeman works to break the silence around suicide

Haley Honeman is a theatre artist who grew up rural Fergus Falls, Minnesota. She attended the University of Minnesota Twin Cities where she earned a degree in theatre arts with a minor in Spanish,…


Building Democracy in 'Trump Country'

This post first appeared on BillMoyers.com. A lot of people don’t believe me when I tell them Letcher County, Kentucky, is one of the most open-minded places I’ve ever lived. I might not have…


Roots of Rondo honors a neighborhood, looks to the future

America’s network of interstate highways is considered to be one of the most impressive infrastructure achievements of all time, a lasting symbol of the country’s postwar prosperity. But the…


Jaclyn Roessel is Grownup Navajo

For nearly a year now, members of the Standing Rock tribe located in North Dakota along with other supporters of environmental protection have protested the construction of the Dakota Access…


Join us in Denver for IdeaLab 2017!

Are you an artist, social entrepreneur or organizer? Do you want to connect to others to organize around racial equity and social justice? Do you believe in the power of creative storytelling? Join…


The Mexican Woman's Post Apocalyptic Survival Guide in the Southwest and other stories of life on the border from M. Jenea Sánchez

Photographer M. Jenea Sánchez grew up in Douglas, Arizona, a city that shares a border with Mexico. She remembers crossing the border to and from Agua Prieta multiple times every day as a child – to…


Announcing the 2017 Rural Arts and Culture Summit

The 2017 Rural Arts and Culture Summit will take place Tuesday, June 6, through Thursday, June 8, at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Organized by Springboard for the Arts and the Center for…


Storefront art programs reflect cities’ changes & challenges

During the Great Recession, as the U.S. retail economy suffered the effects of the market collapse and rising unemployment, public officials and arts administrators in cities around the country…


Philadelphia Poet Laureate Yolanda Wisher dreams while walking on the ground

Philadelphia might best be known as the City of Brotherly Love, but it could also be called the City of Poets for its dedication to supporting and promoting the literary form. With a citywide Poet…


Artists & Aging: Access, Storytelling & Change

The Artists & Aging pilot project was created by a partnership between the Citizens League and Springboard for the Arts in Minnesota, and supported by The Pluribus Project through their Narrative…


Place-based art project Water Bar addresses disparities in drinking water access

“Welcome to Water Bar, water is all we have.” These are the words that greeted me as I walked through the door. Immediately, Shanai Matteson, co-owner of Water Bar & Public Studio, offered me a…


Women-led Community Artists Leadership Initiative brings arts funding to the 99 percent

When Desdamona, Julia Nekessa Opoti, May Lee-Yang and Saymoukda Vongsay, co-founders of the Twin Cities-based Community Artists Leadership Initiative (CALI), are sitting at the same table, ideas fly…


Where to get your rural news

In the current media climate, there is a lot of conversation about urban-rural divide, and plenty of thinkpieces published and pundits willing to go on air and talk about what it means. We're…