Bruner Loeb forum

RACE AND DIVERSITY Art is a tool for valuing and preserving culture, for bringing people together across racial and income gaps, for educating and inspiring youth and children.
	It is not possible to discuss Transforming Community Through the Arts without affirming the power of all art forms to bring disparate groups of people together. The language of art is our most universal language, giving form to questions and issues relating to our humanity, as well as to cultural and ethnic identity. All of the projects featured in the Bruner Loeb Forums provide a place for people to celebrate their own rich histories as well as to consider many complex social issues embedded in artistic expression.
		Maybe in our corner of the world, the Arts Center can help to restore a sense of common humanity--the desire to live for something beyond ourselves, the longing to take something from previous generations and pass it on to generations to come, the recognition that everyone has experienced beauty, pain, pity, fear, joy. There ought to be at least one place in this society where you can check your sense of difference at the door and begin to discover what is universal. Lawrence Goldman; New Stage for a City: Designing the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Images Publishing Group, 1998
	NJPAC has been tremendously successful in this endeavor. Prior to its opening in 1994, Newark suffered not only from pervasive poverty, but from a reputation associated with the race riots of the 1960’s that reinforced an image of the city as a dangerous place. Recognizing the rich cultural diversity of the city, and the depth of artistic activity in the region, Chairman Lawrence Goldman set about creating a place that would celebrate the diverse cultural identities of Newark’s residents and that would offer world-class performance art to all income levels and ages. Combined with its extensive art education program that touches most New Jersey school children, NJPAC has reached out to its community, restored a sense of pride, and created a place that brings diverse audiences together to enjoy multi-cultural and accessible programming.
	NJPAC demonstrates that in cities that are suffering from the pervasive urban ills of poverty and crime, the arts can play a particularly important role in unifying people and celebrating difference. They can celebrate the cultural traditions of city residents; they can give voice to universal human issues and struggles; and they can introduce beauty and joy into communities where they have been in short supply.
	Project Row Houses in Houston has had similar results. PRH grew out of founder Rick Lowe’s search to make art that would reverse the negative stereotypes of African Americans, and that would relate to the social issues pervasive in his city. Lowe found inspiration in the images painted by John Biggers showing shotgun houses as lively, safe, social spaces where wisdom was passed between generations, contradicting the prevailing image that the design was developed by slave owners to make it easier to shoot a fleeing slave.
	Project Row Houses set out to transform 22 abandoned and decrepit row houses in the predominantly African American Third Ward into a visible and tangible demonstration of the dignity and cultural richness of African-American traditions. By restoring the shotgun houses to their natural beauty and simplicity and using them for gallery space to showcase the work of African-American artists, PRH truly builds bridges among diverse populations.by attracting people from throughout Houston to art shows and installations.
	As part of their commitment to a PRH show, artists make themselves available to the Third Ward community for discussions and workshops relating to their work, further deepening the experience and understanding of the art. Individual gallery houses are sponsored by the mainstream art world as well as by businesses and individuals across Houston; PRH has brought all of these groups together, bridging long-standing racial and social divides.
		Informal arts activities help people bridge social boundaries of age, gender, race/ethnicity and occupational status, boundaries that through historical processes have often been used to sustain structures of inequality. “ Chicago Center for Arts Policy: Study of Informal Arts, Exec summary, p10)
	In San Jose, CA, a city with a large Hispanic population, The Mexican Heritage Corporation celebrates Hispanic art and culture, drawing from the Hispanic populace, but from white and other racial groups as well. Similarly, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, located in an African-American neighborhood in Pittsburgh, PA, draws kids from across the racial spectrum to workshops and performances by nationally known jazz performers, as well as to their ongoing program of art classes and workshops. At MCG, the African-American jazz tradition is nurtured and preserved, involving not only African-American youth, but inner-city youth from various Pittsburgh neighborhoods.
	Arts activities are a setting for people to discover they are not strangers after all, and that we have more in common than we usually recognize. Art brings people to new places and causes them to return. The depth of activity in the informal arts sector is especially fertile ground for cultural and social communication.
	OTHER TOPICS: Art is Essential Impacts Measuring the Impacts Sense of Place Race and Diversity Collaboration Helps Seizing Opportunity Art and Education Challenges of Success Leadership and Transition Adapting the Models