Creativity and Place

A conversation with Robert Bedoya the Cultural Affairs Manager for the City of Oakland about the nuances and intention behind the companion concepts of Creative Place-keeping, Place-meaning and Place-knowing. He also discusses his work in stewarding the creation of the city of Oakland’s cultural plan, Belonging in Oakland: a Cultural Development Plan. This episode was recorded Feb. 13, 2020.

Who is benefiting and whose voices are being heard? Dr. Maribel Alvarez talks about her work and how folklore is an entryway in thinking about value, presence and representation in ways that upend the standard orthodoxies about who produces value in communities and whose voices are needed in cultural policy. She reflects on the impact of festivals such as the folklife festival in Tucson, AZ called Tucson Meet Yourself which is produced each year by the organization Southwest Folklife Alliance. This episode was recorded February 12, 2020.

What does the most sustainable house on a reservation in the US look like? ASU Institute Professor Wanda Dalla Costa discusses Indigenous Placekeeping and value-based design in architectural practices. Her work in the Indigenous Design Collaborative centers collaborative and consensus based design which includes recovery of root culture, centering resident agency, and the social cohesion that comes from building something together.

Why are we here and who do we work for? This critical question is what centers Jennifer Cole’s work as the Director of the National Accelerator for Cultural Innovation at ASU. In this episode Jennifer and Maria discuss the role of Local Arts Agencies (LAA) and why it is important to work with communities to create an ecology that is healthy, vibrant and equitable.

In this episode, we hear from Victor Rubin who is a Policy Fellow at the national research institute PolicyLink, which advances racial and economic equity by Lifting Up What Works®. He talks about insights from working with ArtPlace America on the Community Development Investments program which provided three million to six organizations from 2015 to 2019, with the goal to support place-based community development organizations in sustainably incorporate arts and culture into their core work.

In this episode, we hear from Craig Calhoun who is a University Professor in Social Science here at ASU. Calhoun discusses his research in the efforts that people make to sustain viable communities in a world that is deeply complex.

ASU Institute Professors Maria Rosario Jackson and Michael Rohd discuss the development of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice as well as what the core elements of ethical engagement are.

In this episode, we hear from The Design School’s guest lecturers Liz Ogbu and Christine Gaspar. Ogbu is a designer, urbanist and social innovator and Gaspar is the executive director of the Center for Urban Pedagogy. As designers, both of these women examine the impact we can make to address social justice in a complex world.

In our first episode, we hear from Jason Schupbach, the director of The Design School in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. He discusses the origins of the creative placemaking field and his experience as the former director of Design and Creative Placemaking programs for the National Endowment for the Arts.