Alleyway Concerts

Every summer in Reading, Pennsylvania, Barrio Alegria engages community musicians and vocal artists to perform in their Alleyway Concerts series. Barrio Alegria (Barrio) is “a community engagement organization that uses the arts to create transformations in individuals to help them transform their communities.”

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The Yes! House

In downtown Granite Falls, Minnesota, a vacant commercial space is becoming The Yes! House, a theater venue, regional hub for artists and creatives, youth recreation zone, and community gathering space to nurture conversations around social change.

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Steps at Main

In Reading, Pennsylvania, the Reading Public Library joined forces with community organizations to offers its steps as venue for community events. Library administrators recognize that performing arts are a way to build relationships with community members and transform community members’ perception of its space.

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RARE

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…

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HomeWorks: Bronzeville

The project focuses on a housing cluster where each property will include both living and work space for artists to support entrepreneurship culture and youth development in Bronzeville. HomeWorks: Bronzeville works primarily with local artists who have family and other strong ties to the community and who identify as creative small business owners. Since their…

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The 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,…

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Mill 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…

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Kalamazoo Fare Games

Throughout 2016, six competitors, all local food entrepreneurs, provided food samples and business plans to community members in a “small bites” tasting event. A committee for the Fare Games guided this process, mentored the competitors on their business plans, and ultimately voted to select Pho on the Block to occupy the new restaurant space. The…

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DARTS

The pop-up hosted daily programming for all ages which connected with the day’s theme and included stand-up comedians, magic performances, and more. Attendees were encouraged to take the books with them and to then pass them onto their neighbors and friends once they had finished reading them. The catalyzing force behind this project was the…

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Beyond Walls Mural Festival

Located just north of Boston on the Atlantic Ocean, Lynn, was once a thriving manufacturing center. It was dubbed the “shoe-making capital of the world” in 1885, but as production began to decline and eventually moved elsewhere, Lynn, like many cities, was left with large industrial buildings and the need for new economic opportunities. The…

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