Daily Archives: March 1, 2012


ART/CITY: Sue Bell Yank

In relation to the arts and civic life, the question I am wrestling with right now is whether it’s possible for arts organizations and artists to willfully create the conditions for long-term civic redevelopment and permanent social change on a large scale. I have recently participated as an advisor and evaluator for projects of differently-sized ambitions, primarily focusing on neighborhood revitalization through the arts – Watts House Project in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, The Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, and the UCLA CityLAB visioning project in Westwood, Los Angeles.

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ART/CITY: Mary Ann Merker

“In relation to the arts and civic life, the question I am wrestling with right now is…” leveraging funding due to the budget problems currently in place with local governments. The silver lining in this money challenge is the new partnerships we have been able to forge with community agencies that are not the “usual suspects.”

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ART/CITY: Plinio Hernandez

In October of 2011, I was asked to come on board as the public relations manager for a urban renewal pilot project called popuphood. This project gave six months free rent to five local groups of people to start businesses in previously empty storefronts located in the historical Old Oakland neighborhood, a few blocks south of downtown Oakland.

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ART/CITY: Jonathan Green

“In relation to the arts and civic life, the question I am wrestling with right now is…”
…how to continue to move artistic inquiry into a central position as an essential component of civic investigation and discourse in Riverside California, a city where 17% of the population have less than a high school education, only 22% have a Bachelor’s degree, where the medium income is $31,000, and where 59% of the freshman class at University of California, Riverside, are the first in their family to attend college.

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ART/CITY: Lisa Bullwinkel

How to create more vibrant downtown districts in light of retail jumping to the Internet and leaving vacant storefronts? Bring in the arts! Fill those empty spaces with visual and performing artists who are clamoring for space. The landlords need to become involved in creating a simple process to allow this to occur.

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