Front and Schiller Park
Starting in 2020, Ashely DeJesus Santiago, a young mother of three, started organizing the themed clean up at the Front and Schiller Park. DeJesus lives across from the Front and Schiller Park, a pocket park located on the northwest side of Reading. Neighbors have been concerned with the safety of the park because it is…
Read MoreAlleyway Concerts
The Alleyway Concerts were born out of the desire to activate underappreciated spaces while also gathering community members through music. Concert locations have ranged from abandoned lots to bodega fronts to inside a laundromat. Using simple portable speakers and microphones the program engages local artists and businesses to see the beauty of their community through…
Read MoreThe Yes! House
Leading the project is the Department of Public Transformation (DoPT), an artist-led nonprofit focused on rural revitalization and civic engagement through the arts. The organization is fueled by a belief that arts-based interventions have the power to address some of the challenges rural communities face and strengthen social cohesion among community members. Leaders of the…
Read MoreUnion Station Revival
As a city that has lost more than half its population in the last 50 years, Gary, Indiana, faces significant challenges with vacancy and abandonment, including that of its historic Union Station. The Beaux-Arts building was built in 1910, but sat forgotten and left to the elements for nearly half a century. In 2016, a…
Read MoreRARE
Richfield, Minnesota is a small inner ring suburb in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The former Lyndale Garden Center space, which closed in 2006 and become abandoned, was the focus of the redevelopment. The former retail space was located at the center of a lower-income community of color which experienced decades of disinvestment. In response…
Read MoreFreedom Square
Freedom Square features an art stage and hosts block-party style events, with free music and food, multicamera shoots, resource tables, and art activities for children. Media Alliance, a nonprofit focused on arts and cultural development in Troy, led two major components of the project: the installation of an art stage, and the development of The…
Read MoreThe King’s Canvas
The studio sits in the West Side of Montgomery, Alabama, in Washington Park, a neighborhood with a rich history of Black entrepreneurship and excellence that has experienced decades of disinvestment and widespread vacancy. After a sixteen-year hiatus from using his creativity, Kevin King, founder and executive director of The King’s Canvas, was gifted painting supplies,…
Read MoreMill Hill
The project is led by the Macon Arts Alliance, an umbrella agency for arts and creative organizations in Macon whose mission is to foster and support the advancement of arts and culture in Central Georgia. The Alliance runs a variety of programs but the East Macon Arts Village is unique in that it was their…
Read MoreLynn Lights
Lynn is a formerly industrial city on the Atlantic coast just north of Boston, and in the early 2000s it was suffering from economic and built environment challenges. Local leaders were working to address those issues and were interested in community feedback. As part of this work, the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency (MassDevelopment) held a…
Read MoreDear Tamaqua
Dear Tamaqua was a yearlong letter writing campaign and subsequent community events which sought to catalyze lasting change in a community which experienced widespread abandoned properties and negative perceptions.
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