Creative Conversation reCap: Arts as Community Development

On Tuesday, July 27, Arts Leadership Lab Seattle and Great City hosted the first of ALL’s Creative Conversations series at Canoe Social Club at Theatre Off Jackson in the International District. (Big ups to Canoe for opening up their space for dialogue!). The topic: how can the arts drive equitable community development? (A mouthful, as noted by panelist K. Wyking Garrett, founding director of UmojaFest P.E.A.C.E. Center).

Before the conversation got underway, we were treated to a candid short video made by ALL Core Members, which we highly recommend you view:

Arts Leadership Lab Presents: How Would You Spend $1 MIL on Arts?

An interesting cross-section of Seattle’s arts leaders along Garrett, including Cassie Chinn of Wing Luke Asian Museum, Sara Edwards of 4Culture (liaison for Washington Hall), Randy Engstrom of Youngstown Cultural Arts Center and Cathryn Vandenbrink of Artspace, convened around the idea of equity and its specific challenges in arts and community development. Facilitated by KUOW veteran Marcie Sillman, the discussion was prompted by the following questions:

·    In your role, how do you support the arts and community development in Seattle?

·    What does a creative or arts-driven community mean to you? What does it look like?

·    How have the arts spurred neighborhood or community development? What are some specific initiatives that improved community through the arts? 

·    In your experience, has arts-driven development prevented or accelerated social equity in terms of access to cultural resources and high-quality community spaces? How and why?

·    What are the major cultural opportunities for Seattle in community development? What steps have to be taken in order to seize these opportunities?

The answers and dialogue that emerged from these questions touched on two large themes: the need for and purpose of building arts and community development work around culture, and the process to which arts leaders ascribe to achieve equity and excellence within their respective communities.

Building Around Culture

“Culture is the immune system of a community,” said Wyking Garrett. Garrett pointed to the P.E.A.C.E. Center—which resides in “converted crackhouses”—as an example of how the arts inspire renewed infrastructure, strengthen a neighborhood’s identity and make a community more resilient against gentrification and other forms of cultural attack. Garrett also defined true community development as something that supports new neighborhood people to commingle with the cultures that are “indigenous” to the neighborhood, rather creating a new separate culture.

Sara Edwards of 4Culture spoke of her role on the other side: stewarding the initial visioning process for Washington Hall, a historic hall in the Central District that was close to being demolished before being rescued by 4Culture and Historic Seattle. The completion of significant restorative work—and a capital campaign—will take several years before Washington Hall reaches its optimal use. Equally important to physical restoration, says Edwards, is building relationships with organizations, community collectives and potential tenants of the building that will respect and reflect the Central District’s African-American legacy and multicultural present.

Speaking on neighborhood-determined cultural spaces, Wing Luke Asian Museum veteran Cassie Chin (now The Wing’s Executive Deputy Director to the nationally-recognized Smithsonian affiliate) has seen the museum from its beginnings in a modest, one- room space (coincidentally, the space where the Canoe Social Club now inhabits) to a full museum and cultural arts facility that prioritizes a community-informed exhibition. Located in the Seattle neighborhood containing the highest number of abandoned buildings (usually hotels above restaurants), The Wing seized an opportunity to renovate an abandoned hotel sustainably and has served as a neighborhood beacon and facilitator for traditionally marginalized voices.

The How – Development and Cultural Agencies Facilitating & Advocating for Authentic Community Space

In the larger scope of Seattle, and in a time where budget cuts have affected arts development particularly hard, Randy Engstrom, Founding Director of Youngstown Cultural Arts Center in the Delridge neighborhood, cited that the arts generate more than $330 million in economic activity annually, and argued that the potential of arts investment to address and overcome the financial crisis has been sorely overlooked. He said the city should hire a Cultural Facilities Manager to advocate for affordable arts space in Seattle.

Cathryn Vandenbrink, the Regional Director of  Artspace, conveyed her experience as someone who has guided an arts housing development to completion—the Hiawatha Artist Lofts on Rainer Avenue—and is now project managing a new artist housing project in the Mount Baker neighborhood in conjunction with the LightRail station. She stated that Seattle is the only major U.S. city to have more than one significant affordable housing site entirely dedicated to artist live/work spaces, and that such housing has the opportunity to craft a community’s identity in otherwise vacant and in-between spaces. Vandenbrink explained the process in which Artspace work as facilitators that are brought in at the request of communities, taking stock of a neighborhood’s ecosystem as opposed to identifying the best “real estate.”

Overall, the breadth of the speakers’ experience gave the audience a complex portrait of the current state of Seattle’s arts and community development, one with great achievement under its belt but that still needs considerable support, particularly in neighborhoods that gentrification and the economic recession have impacted most.

To watch live footage of the event, visit the Arts Leadership Lab Youtube channel (yes, we’re fancy like that.)

Many thanks to Arts Leadership Lab Core Members Christina Twu, Alberto Mejia, Keely Isaak Meehan, Jenny Asarnow and Kristen Hoskins for coordinating the Creative Conversations and ensuring a great night out!