Participatory Art

Brenda Hernandez

Brenda Hernandez leads the HOMAGO way

Brenda Hernandez is a Program Coordinator for Yollocalli Arts Reach, an award-winning program of the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago offering free arts and culture programming to teens and…


Ready Go's mobile art projects capture attention and engage the community

How likely are you to sit and have a conversation with a stranger in a park? What if you could do so while playing a board game at a table under brightly colored flags, all of which popped up in your…


500 Plates Toolkit

Food brings people together - passing dishes back and forth, pouring drinks for each other, stacking plates, the act of sharing flavors and opinions is a great social leveler. Artist-designed…


Leslie Neal

ArtSpring's arts-based workshops for underserved communities promote self-esteem and understanding

Leslie Neal has been involved in the Miami dance community since 1981. In 1992, she held a tenured faculty position at Florida University as an Associate Professor of Dance with a focus on community…


Three human services organizations are within a few blocks of each other.

Arts with Purpose: Catalyzing Civic Engagement in Denver

Pay no mind to the woman in tattered layers with dirt caked onto the hands with which she holds a cardboard sign. Disregard the worn-out sleeping bags strewn across the sidewalks and trash-bag…


Shagun Singh and Rick Lin

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.…


DMC Youth

San Jose's MACLA engages a multicultural community

In early 2016, San Jose’s Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) opened the exhibition “Custom Lives: Rasquache Renaissance.” The show exhibited colorful, cartoon-like sculptures of…


Anna Metcalfe explores the intersection of craft and function, food and community, through ceramics

Anna Metcalfe's work in ceramics examines the intersections between public art and craft, specifically the intersections of her craft in people's daily lives. She leads community-based projects that…


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…


Kate Balug at Block Party

Department of Play uses temporary play zones to connect people through imagined urban planning

The Boston-based arts collective Department of Play first started as an inkling of an idea when co-founder Kate Balug was studying interrogative design with artist Krzysztof Wodiczko at the MIT art…


Brian Friedman

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…


Yarrow Mamout Archaeology Project

The Yarrow Mamout Archaeology Project unearths the history of a prominent 1800s African Muslim

Yarrow Mamout was an African Muslim born in Guinea, West Africa in 1736, where he was thought to have been a member of the nomadic Fulani tribe. He was sold into slavery at the age of 16 and was…


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…


Adrian Molina (a.k.a. Molina Speaks) is a Denver-based poet, emcee and educator.

Emerging Leaders of Color Connecting Communities with the Arts

Adrian Molina didn't get into the arts to work in politics. The Denver-based poet, emcee and educator, who raps and records prolifically as Molina Speaks, is motivated by a creative forces -- an…


Colette Fu

Colette Fu makes pop-up photo books that examine the self through photos of others

Colette Fu was a pretty typical teenager growing up in New Jersey: insecure about her looks and her identity, as so many teenagers are, Fu would peroxide her hair to alter her appearance. She was…


Witt Siasoco

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…


Dawn Posey, Larry Scott & Lavon Pettis

Overheard in the StoryBooth: Chicago's Lake FX Summit + Expo

It’s Thanksgiving this week, and StoryCorps has launched a new project and app, with The Great Thanksgiving Listen Project. Earlier this year, Creative Exchange partnered with StoryCorps at the Lake…


Susan Caraballo

FEAST Miami brings together the community to support new and emerging creative projects

Nothing brings a group of people together quite like the dinner table. Sharing a meal gets to the core of what a "community" is, a great social equalizer in ways few other everyday experiences can…


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…


Alex Gilliam

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…


Macon Roving Listeners

Macon Roving Listeners shares voice through listening

There is an art to listening, and that is the art practiced by the Macon Roving Listeners. A common struggle experienced by neighborhoods in the midst of change – "gentrification," if you want to use…


Elementz

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…


Bryce McCloud

Bryce McCloud wants all of Nashville to be neighbors

There is a tab for "Art Projects" on the Isle of Printing website where all of their various public art endeavors are listed. One is called the "Mr. Rogers' Sharing is Caring Project." The project…


Dickerman Park

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…


Jen Garlando

Verb Ballets is a dance company for the community

Verb Ballets is a contemporary ballet company based out of Shaker Heights – just north of Akron – and performing all over Northeastern Ohio. A repertory-based company without a…


Artify

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…


Be Bored

Play with Your Food! (And Other Ways Artists Help with Health)

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…


Katie Pearl

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…


Leap Video

Creating Moments of Personal Motivation in Education

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…


Creative Thinkers

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…