NETWORK GATHERING AT ALLIED MEDIA CONFERENCE
Thank you for rsvp’ing to our Strategies for Staying Power Network Gathering. Our network gathering is slated to go from 9:30am-5pm on tomorrow Thursday, June 16th at the Allied Media Conference.
In preparation for the gathering we suggest that you watch the US Department Arts and Culture Webinar on place-keeping. You can access the webinar here. If you prefer reading, we suggest you read, Roberto Bedoya’s Placemaking and the Politics of Belonging and Dis-belonging.
Also feel free to join our Facebook event page for updates and to share articles or any other warm ups to get our minds in gear for our gathering.
We’re so excited to join us for a day of inquiry, learning, and creation. We’re still working on the agenda and as a heads up we’ll be asking folks to share about their work.
The Place Action Area formed at ACSJN’s first network meeting in 2013. Then, as now, major national public, private, and collaborative philanthropies distribute significant funding through programs often generally referred to as “creative placemaking.” All link geographical places with arts and culture-based development, but in different ways.
Creative placemaking provides new opportunities and resources but also raises questions about the relationships among arts, culture, equity and community-based social change. ACSJN Steering Committee Member Roberto Bedoya speaks nationally about the need to balance racial, economic and spatial justice and the importance of placekeeping as well as placemaking.
Inspired by Bedoya, the Place Action Area formed to highlight and foster community revitalization strategies that are just, ethical, and authentic. Through public writings, convenings, and discussions with funders, the Place Action Area aims to build knowledge and strategies for increasing inclusion of local artists and creative people of all backgrounds into decision-making about place-based community development.
The Place Action Area worked with the 2014 Allied Media Conference to co-organize a track called Creative Place-making / Place-keeping which contained 11 workshops, panels, and strategy sessions about just and ethical development. Participants in the well attended sessions called for more collaborations and skill sharing. One participant commented that the sessions showed that “gentrification is not inevitable.”
The Place Action Area is currently focusing on knowledge building about federal and private placemaking funds and policies relating to community-based development. The Action Area includes Stanlyn Breve of NPN in New Orleans, Jenny Lee of Allied Media Projects in Detroit, and Whitney Coe of the Center for Rural Strategies in Kentucky. The group is especially interested in identifying common strategies for urban and rural areas, like developing green spaces and community gardens to improve access to fresh foods.