July 16 - July 18, 2019
A leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with LISC
Trailblazing community leaders come together to drive creative placemaking, catalyze opportunity for residents
National Endowment for the Arts and LISC convene first-ever Local Leaders’ Institute on Creative Placemaking to fuel high-impact arts and culture projects
Washington, D.C. — The National Endowment for the Arts and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) are pleased to present the inaugural Local Leaders’ Institute on Creative Placemaking, an intensive workshop designed to help participants implement successful creative placemaking projects that strengthen their local communities.
For this inaugural institute, six teams of local leaders representing small, medium and rural communities, will travel to the Arts Endowment’s offices July 16-18, 2019 in Washington D.C. There, the local leaders, along with a creative placemaking resource team with expertise in a range of topics, including partnership with artists, community engagement, and project management, will “workshop” their creative placemaking projects, while also engaging in a rigorous peer knowledge exchange. Participants will leave the Institute and return to their communities better prepared to carry out arts, culture, and design projects that yield catalytic, long-term, equitable outcomes for their communities.
“We are thrilled to welcome six community teams to Washington, D.C., for the inaugural Local Leaders’ Institute on Creative Placemaking. Communities of all shapes and sizes are embarking on creative placemaking projects,” said Jennifer Hughes, director of design and creative placemaking at the National Endowment for the Arts, “This is an opportunity for the National Endowment for the Arts to support this work in a new way, by facilitating hands-on learning and peer exchange during a two day Institute.”
“Arts and culture are powerful catalysts for strengthening social cohesion, and building equitable economic opportunity in communities of all sizes,” said Lynne McCormack, national program director of creative placemaking at LISC. “This kind of shared learning helps local leaders develop creative placemaking plans and projects that will serve their communities’ development now and in the future.”
Through a competitive process, six communities were selected to participate in the inaugural Local Leaders’ Institute on Creative Placemaking:
- Cherokee Village, Ark.
- Cleveland Heights, Ohio
- Dorchester County, Md.
- Lexington, Ky.
- Paonia, Colo.
- Ulster County, N.Y.
The Local Leaders’ Institute on Creative Placemaking builds on the work of the 2016-2018 pilot Creative Placemaking Technical Assistance Program in which LISC, in partnership with PolicyLink, delivered technical assistance in the form of trainings, workshops, peer exchanges, webinars and specialized consultancies to 16 creative placemaking initiatives across the U.S. Lessons learned from that pilot program, made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kresge Foundation, continue to inform capacity building initiatives for the creative placemaking field.
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