Proposing Place: Creative Placemaking (2010-Present)

Abstract

The concept of “creative placemaking” holds a significant position at this moment in contemporary artistic practice and policy in the United States. In the introduction, I mark the transition from the older policy approach to the newer one as a shift of focus from spaces to places. Policy’s focus on organization building during the Ford era directly contributed to an overburdened nonprofit infrastructure.¹ The four-decade dominance of the paradigm obscured a complete understanding of the arts’ economic sectors—commercial, nonprofit, and community—and veiled the terms of artistic participation. Art happened in the “art palaces,” the theatres, museums, concert halls, or in alternative spaces and galleries. Their funding was understood to flow through philanthropy or commerce, but not some mix of the two. The informal, or community sector—the local craft fairs, buskers, informal jam sessions, and church-based gospel singing—was not fully recognized as part of the nation’s cultural accomplishments. In keeping with the progress of contemporary policy development, creative placemaking is understood by its originator, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), as an operation in which “partners from the public, private, nonprofit, and community sectors shape the physical and social character of a neighborhood, town, city, or region around arts and cultural activities.”²