Bruner Loeb forum

Overview
Art-based places are transforming cities and neighborhoods across the country by building bridges among disparate groups of people; enlivening neighborhoods; creating well-designed places, attracting activity and investment; and changing the perception of neighborhoods and even of entire cities. The Bruner Loeb Forum, a new collaboration between the Bruner Foundation’s Rudy Bruner Award, and the Loeb Fellowship Program, recognizing that art-based places are becoming an important new tool for community revitalization, chose Transforming Community Through the Arts, as the subject for their first forum.
“Art-based place” isn’t found in the dictionary or in a Google search. However, the rich discourse of the Bruner-Loeb Forums reveals abundant energy centered around the arts, and effecting tangible change in communities across the country. These centers of creative activity, often non-traditional in nature, are becoming catalysts for community revitalization, and social change in a number of ways. The emerging role of these places, and their transformative effect on communities was the topic of the first Bruner Loeb Forums.
In the course of four day-long events in Cambridge, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Chattanooga, the leaders of outstanding art-based places from around the country joined in discussion and debate with over 300 artists, developers, community activists, funders, and policy makers to explore the impacts of art-based placemaking on communities. Case studies and individual experiences illuminate different models of placemaking that can often be adapted to a variety of urban settings and, just as important, highlight important unanswered questions.
The presenters, drawn in part from winners of the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence, described a range of art-based places, from Project Row Houses in Houston, to WaterFire in Providence, to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. The range of impacts and challenges is broad, but consistent themes were interwoven through conversations and presentations at the four events.
These themes capture lessons that individual projects and their collective wisdom offer to the community of art-based placemakers, policy leaders, and funding institutions. The major themes are identified in the bullets below. (please click on the highlighted title for a longer discussion)
	Art is Essential There is a consistently expressed urgency about the need to change the perception of art as a luxury to art as an essential aspect of community life. This concept needs to be cemented into policy and planning discussions to assure that arts funding and land-use regulations support the long-term health of art-based places and programs.
	Observing the Impacts Large or small, institutional or grass roots, every art-based place presented in the Bruner Loeb Forums has had an impact on its community. The impacts vary. Many have sparked new neighborhood investment, others have built bridges among disparate groups of people; and others have exposed participants to the universal language of the arts, and brought them to the discovery of their own talents. Discussions at each forum explored the many types of impacts associated with successful art-based places.
	Measuring the Impacts An ongoing challenge for art-based places is to devise accurate and complete measures of the impacts associated with their work. Anecdotal evidence makes compelling stories, but the “case” for the importance of art-based places as a tool for community revitalization will be strengthened by more empirical data. Many entities are working toward developing that data. MASS MoCA is looking at changes in occupancy rates, property values, and turnover in their community; other organizations such as the Mass Cultural Council and the Urban Institute are finding systematic methods of exploring impacts. Holly Sidford and Maria-Rosario Jackson addressed the issue of measurement in their remarks (Speaker Remarks) and discussants explored its importance..
	Sense of Place Art-based places offer a new identity in neighborhoods and communities. In some cases, such as New Jersey Performing Arts Center, the place itself becomes an icon for a renewed sense of pride in a beleaguered city. In other cases, grass roots efforts (Project Row Houses, Village of Arts and Humanities) foster personal involvement and attract investment, first at the neighborhood level, and then in the community beyond. The nature of a community’s relationship to the physical place was explored again and again in the discussions.
	Race and Diversity Art-based places are often catalysts for bringing diverse racial and cultural groups together. Project Row Houses showcases the work of African-American artists whose art explores racial identity, and attracts people from different ethnic groups and neighborhoods to the discussion. Village of Arts and Humanities Village Theatre deals with community stories of loss, and renewal common to poor communities. New Jersey Performing Arts Center presents multi-cultural programming geared to the diverse cultural landscape of Newark. Race and diversity figure significantly in any conversation relating to the transformative effects of art-based places.
	Collaboration and Partnerships Many successful art-based places have discovered that strategic partnerships with government, philanthropy, corporations, and community organizations are essential to their health. Whether from a funding point of view, to better define programming and market, for policy support, or for volunteer support, not many art-based places can go it alone. Many imaginative models of partnership have been developed to support these places, and were explored in the discussions.
	Seizing Opportunity Art-based placemakers have to be opportunists, in the best sense of the word. Despite well-crafted goal statements, unexpected conditions arise. Organizations need to take advantage of opportunities and to be flexible when faced with insurmountable challenges. Circumstances may change or modify project direction; sometimes they divert scarce staff time and energy. How best can an art-based place take advantage of the opportunities, and stay “on task”? Or is it “ok” for a project to change its goals and mission as it develops?
	Art and Education The invaluable nature of art education was recognized in every forum. Art education is widely viewed and experienced as an important tool for bringing diverse groups of children together; for teaching creative thinking and problem solving skills; for exposing people to a world of creative thinking that challenges their imagination; and for leading young people to the discovery of their own interests and talents. Forum participants described some of the most successful art education programs in the country
	Challenges of Success Many art-based places have been successful beyond their original imaginings. Organizations and individuals find themselves coping with unexpected circumstances that come with that success. Increasing land values that threaten neighborhood character; demand for programs that exceeds project capacity; pressure on project leadership for public appearances that divert energy from program operations are all byproducts of great accomplishments. They require a new kind of creative energy and management.
	Leadership and Transition Successful art-based places are often launched by the extraordinary vision of one individual. The energy and commitment of these visionary leaders may be essential for the initial launch of the project, but inevitably these leaders will need to move on. A common challenge for art-based places is to build in capacity for leadership change, despite the upheaval these transitions present.
	Adapting the Models The Bruner Loeb Forum presents different models of art-based places so that the learning and experience of these places can be shared by placemakers across the country. But there is an important distinction between adapting the seminal ideas from these places, and attempting to replicate them. Common pitfalls were explored, and several critical concerns were identified
All of these questions and themes were explored at the Bruner Loeb Forums, and many important ideas were generated in discussion. Hopefully these ideas will both promote learning, and assist placemakers and communities in creating successful art-based places where they live.
Links: (click to open new window)
Leadership for Change Massachusetts Cultural Council Urban Institute Richard Florida MASS MoCA Creative Economy Initiative