Co-directing communities through design, art and culture
WHAT IS CREATIVE PLACEMAKING?
Celina Tchida has thought about this question more than most people. A graduate student in ASU’s School of Community Resources and Development, she’s worked with a nonprofit on “a few light creative placemaking projects.”
But, Tchida said, it wasn’t until a class she took with Maria Rosario Jackson that she realized that “creative placemaking is much more than murals and artistic bike racks — though they can count too!”
Jackson (pictured here) is one of the nation’s leading authorities on the practice known as creative placemaking, which is the strategic integration of arts, culture and community engaged design into comprehensive community planning and development. She is also an Institute Professor in the Herberger Institute, with appointments in The Design School and ASU’s College of Public Service and Community Solutions.
“The idea that designers and artists are critical assets for building more resilient and equitable cities and communities is the most important innovation in arts and cultural policy over the past decade,” said Steven J. Tepper, dean of the Herberger Institute. “Maria’s appointment will help ASU lead in this area, just like we have led in sustainability, biodesign and educational technology.”
Jackson is leading the creative placemaking initiative, and Greg Esser, associate director in the Herberger Institute, and Jason Schupbach, director of The Design School, are working with Jackson to develop a creative placemaking institute at ASU.
“As we build our national work in creative placemaking across the university, Jason’s experience as one of the founding leaders of the movement will solidify ASU’s growing reputation in design and arts-based community-led development,” Tepper said.
The Herberger Institute has received close to $900,000 dollars from the Kresge and Surdna foundations to design an initiative that will make ASU a center of applied research and activity around creative placemaking in support of more equitable communities.
“What is exciting about Herberger Institute is that it starts with thinking in a manner that puts design, arts and culture in a central position in how we think about the world and equity issues and places where all people can thrive. In my experience, this isn’t a common stance,” Jackson said.
Thanks to Jackson’s insights, Tchida said, she’s learned that creative placemaking “is about incorporating our diverse ways of seeing and understanding the world into the way we plan and make decisions.”
Jackson says good creative placemaking honors the cultural assets of a place, which are not limited to physical goods and features but also extend to intangible assets like a community’s culture and history.
“Placemaking at its best doesn’t start with a tabula rasa approach,” she said in an interview with the NEA. “It in some ways presumes that there’s something there already and something there that is potentially valuable.”
In 2017, ASU’s Herberger Institute and the Arizona Commission on the Arts, with guidance from Southwest Folklife Alliance, launched the inaugural AZ Creative Communities Institute — a program that explores how creativity can make a positive impact on communities.
Small teams from nine selected Arizona communities, made up of community and business leaders and local elected officials, received intensive training from local and national experts in creative engagement as they looked for creative solutions to address needs, challenges and opportunities within their communities. Each community is hosting an embedded artist residency to put what they have learned into practice.
The Herberger Institute was awarded a $250,000 Surdna grant to help fund the program, and Herberger Institute alum and theatre artist Ricky Araiza (pictured here) was tapped as coordinator senior to manage activities and functions of the program. An Arizona native who serves as artistic director at Teatro Bravo, Araiza said what drew him to the position was “the opportunity to engage with various communities all over the state. I wanted to expand my understanding of the place that I call my home.”
“What is exciting about Herberger Institute is that it starts in a place where a lot of other folks may need to catch up: thinking in a manner that puts the design, arts and culture in a central position in how we think about the world and equity issues and places where all people can thrive.”
Maria Rosario Jackson, Institute Professor, The Design School
Six policy fellows are working with the Herberger Institute as part of its creative placemaking efforts.
The fellows spend their time exploring and researching a range of topics, from the role of festivals in community to whether creative placemaking is a human rights movement or a property rights movement.
Maribel Alvarez, executive director of the Southwest Folklife Alliance
Roberto Bedoya, cultural affairs manager for the City of Oakland
Jules Rochielle Sivert, creative director at Nulawlab at Northeastern University School of Law
Carlton Turner, founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production
Chris Walker, independent research consultant specializing in community development
Laura Zabel, executive director of Springboard for the Arts
Read more about the policy fellows