FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Lillian Dunn [email protected] 317-­‐417-­‐0373 The Village of Arts and Humanities Receives 2014 ArtPlace America Grant for SPACES Artist-­‐in-­‐Residency Program Philadelphia, PA, June 24, 2014 … The SPACES Artist-­‐in-­‐Residency Program at The Village of Arts in Humanities announced today that it has been selected from over 1,000 applicants to receive one of 55 grants given by ArtPlace America (ArtPlace) in 2014 to support creative placemaking across the country. The $280,000 grant will support the next two cycles of SPACES, a groundbreaking urban artist-­‐in-­‐residency program that brings outstanding artists from around the world to live alongside neighborhood residents. There they use artistic practices to create sustainable solutions for issues of concern to the community. SPACES is the only artist residency program in Philadelphia in which artists both live and work on site, becoming community-­‐
dwellers themselves to best share their expertise and benefit from that of their neighbors. Executive Director of The Village Aviva Kapust says, “We thank ArtPlace for this exciting and inspiring recognition of the work of The Village. This grant validates our belief that creative placemaking occurs most powerfully in collaboration with residents of the place itself, and our desire to prioritize the discoveries and transformations inherent in the collaborative art-­‐making process as equal if not more important than the art product. It also serves as a tribute to both Arthur Hall and Lily Yeh, founders of The Village who pioneered the placemaking strategy of sharing social art practice as a tool for people to build a more beautiful and just future for themselves and their families.” SPACES’ first cycle is already in full swing. On June 1, The Village welcomed 3 sets of artists chosen by community members to live in creatively restored artist homes for the summer and fall. One artist is King Britt, internationally renowned music producer and Philadelphia native. His project “Village Transmissions” will establish a record label and community-­‐run radio station on Germantown Avenue. Britt says the ArtPlace grant recognizes a program that has already changed his perspective on art-­‐making. “The SPACES residency is one of the most important projects I’ll be involved with during my career,” Britt says. “The sincerity and genuine concern for the betterment of our world at The Village has made me re-­‐ examine my purpose, allowing me to understand what is really important in the future of our society. The Village of Arts and Humanity not only uplifts the youth and voices that are there, but places them in an international conversation. I am honored to present a project where I can show a different point of view and learn one as well.” “Investing in and supporting the arts have a profound impact on the social, physical, and economic futures of communities,” said ArtPlace Executive Director Jamie L. Bennett. “Projects like these demonstrate how imaginative and committed people are when it comes to enhancing their communities with creative interventions and thoughtful practices.” The Village is an established community asset of 14 art parks and ten programs buildings, annually impacting 5,000 youth and families, enlisting the help of 600 volunteers, and educating 360 teens that attend Village afterschool programs. It is the sole provider of free afterschool arts and cultural programs to youth ages 9 through 19 in the 260 square block area of North Central Philadelphia. Through all of its programs and initiatives, The Village is dedicated to supporting a community where every young person and their family have the opportunity to be engaged in cultural activity. About The Village of Arts and Humanities For 30 years, The Village of Arts and Humanities has supported the voices and aspirations of its community in North Philadelphia through providing opportunities for self-­‐expression rooted in art and culture. The Village inspires people to be agents of positive change through programs that encompass arts and culture, engage youth, revitalize community, preserve heritage and respect the environment. It is a nationally-­‐recognized model for the power of the arts to stabilize and revitalize underserved communities, and annually impacts approximately 5,000 youth and families, enlists the help of approximately 600 volunteers, and serves a 260-­‐square block target area of North Philadelphia bordered by 5th and Broad, Diamond and Glenwood Streets. About ArtPlace America ArtPlace America (ArtPlace) advances the field of creative placemaking, in which art and culture plays an explicit and central role in shaping communities’ social, physical, and economic futures. To date, ArtPlace has awarded $56.8 million through 189 grants to projects serving 122 communities across 42 states and the District of Columbia. ArtPlace is a collaboration among the Barr Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, The Ford Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The William Penn Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Rasmuson Foundation, The Surdna Foundation, and two anonymous donors. ArtPlace seeks advice and counsel from its close working relationships with the following federal agencies: the National Endowment for the Arts, the US Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Education, and Transportation, along with leadership from the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Domestic Policy Council. ArtPlace has additional partnership from six major financial institutions: Bank of America, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Chase, MetLife and Morgan Stanley. The deadline for submission for a 2015 grant application will be announced later this year. For more information or to join ArtPlace’s mailing list, visit www.artplaceamerica.org. For additional information about ArtPlace contact: Bow Bridge Communications, LLC, New York City, Libby Mark, Managing Principal, 917-­‐ 968-­‐5567, info@bow-­‐
bridge.commailto:[email protected]. ### SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION SPACES opens next chapter in place-­‐making at The Village In today’s grant-­‐making world, the founders of The Village of Arts and Humanities would be called “creative place-­‐makers.” But back then they were just Arthur and Lily, two artists who believed in the power of art to bring a neighborhood together. 30 years after Arthur Hall and Lily Yeh first made dance, music, and murals with the Fairhill-­‐Hantraftt neighborhood, the SPACES program offers a new spin on the artist residency model that continues their legacy of innovation. Instead of working in solitude in a remote studio, SPACES artists move into one of two colorful row homes in the heart of North Philly. More “residents” than “in residence,” the artists work alongside their new neighbors to amplify the gifts and stories of the community and creatively strengthen the neighborhood as a whole. Through SPACES, artists share their expertise and creative practices with a neighborhood struggling after decades of disinvestment. In exchange, their practice is enriched by the gifts and insights of our own community, and by the process of collaborating to make art and experiences of lasting value. SPACES kicked off its first cycle on June 1, 2014. The following three projects will be part of this inaugural cycle. VILLAGE TRANSMISSIONS In Village Transmissions, renowned Philly-­‐based music producer, composer and performer King Britt will work with community residents to create a record label and radio show that gather, remix, and broadcast the voices and sounds of North Philadelphia around the world. The radio show will be recorded live in a storefront on the Germantown Business Corridor. King has meticulously established a state-­‐of-­‐the-­‐art recording studio (thanks in part to donations by supporters Native Instruments and Ableton) in his artist home. He’s judged an impromptu best-­‐beat competition among students in The Village’s after-­‐school music production program and been bowled over by the flow of local emcees, who knock on his door to slip him CDs. Of an afternoon you can find him making beats in the famous yellow velvet armchair of 2509 N. Alder St. In the next few weeks, he’ll be assembling a core music production team of community residents to begin work on the Village Transmissions record label. King Britt is a Philly-­‐based international producer, composer, performer and curator of electronic music. As a producer/composer, he fuses his encyclopedic knowledge of music history with electronic compositions that redefine and re-­‐contextualize the past into the present. This approach is exemplified by his work for Preservation Hall’s release “King Britt presents Sister Gertrude Morgan,” which combined the gospel evangelist’s vocal recordings from 1970 with contemporary composition. This recording went on to penetrate the pop culture divide, appearing in Michael Mann’s Miami Vice and the Grammy-­‐nominated soundtrack for HBO’s True Blood. This and many other projects from his vast catalog led him to receive the Pew Fellowship for Composition in 2007. TABLE ALCHEMY Table Alchemy performs its magic by asking participants to re-­‐perceive the neighborhood as a resource-­‐rich local ecosystem. Where some might see weeds and litter, Table Alchemy sees dandelion greens for salad and promising sculptural materials. The project is the brainchild of Amber Art + Design, a Philadelphia-­‐based collective of five artists, educators, and activists that have worked in the public art sphere for 10 years. The artists in residence will work with neighbors to collect tasty recipes from local cooks, and then remix them using local produce (grown in part at The Village’s on-­‐site farm) with health in mind. The crew will debut the recipes at a series of communal meals in their artist residences, the art parks surrounding The Village, and on Alder Street itself. The tables and chairs for the meals will all be made by Village residents, using discarded objects from around the neighborhood as materials for both functionality and decoration. Amber Arts’ residence at 2512 Alder Street perfectly suits their mission of repurposing and re-­‐
valuing discarded materials. The house sat in bad disrepair for years before The Village took over the property this winter and PhillyEarth Director Jon Hopkins and Village student Nestor Rodriguez painstakingly renovated the home using found materials. Walls are lined with colorful cabinet doors, repurposed and hand-­‐painted flooring, and even slices of a tree cut down in one of the parks. The Amber crew has already made their house a home, decorating with paintings and artist Charles Barbin’s extensive collection of hats. On a weekend you can find them grilling out on the sidewalk for neighbors, cleaning out and categorizing building debris from nearby properties, and foraging fresh mint for the occasional glass of lemonade. They’ve identified community members who will work with them this summer and are planning to hold their first family-­‐style meal after Independence Day. Amber Art + Design is Charles Barbin, Ernel Martinez, Keir Johnston, Linda Fernandez, and Willis Humphrey. They formed the collective as a platform for using social art practice within communities to encourage meaningful and sustainable change. Amber's diverse portfolio demonstrates their collaborative approach to public art through projects that engage elderly individuals, college students, elementary and high school students, and community groups in the design, planning and implementation of community based art initiatives. Amber is committed to a hands-­‐on artistic approach that investigates and demonstrates synergies between visual art, poetry, dance, performance, health, and ecology. PEOPLE’S LIBRARY The People's Library and Paper Collective addresses the impact of incarceration on families and communities in the Fairhill-­‐Hantraftt neighborhood. Artists Mark Strandquist and Courtney Bowles will bring together community members and a broad network of partner organizations and artists from across the city to start a People’s Library storefront on the Germantown Business Corridor. The People’s Library will serve as a command center for expungement workshops, legal clinics and other interventions that engage collectively with the causes, effects, and alternatives to social justice issues in North Philadelphia. It’s also a start-­‐up creative business and workforce-­‐ development program where re-­‐entry adults and youth create hand-­‐made fine papers and books from discarded paper-­‐based material, author community histories, host open-­‐mic spoken word and poetry readings, and lead weekly writing clubs that encourage dialogue with incarcerated friends and family. This residency begins on August 18, but already Mark and Courtney are hard at work connecting with community partners and resources. They were recently in Philadelphia for Beyond the Walls: Prison Health Care & Reentry Summit, where Mark discussed how art can humanize incarcerated men and women and reframe the incarceration debate, as well as presenting his plans for the People’s Library at The Village. Mark Bowles and Courtney Strandquist are artists, educators, and community organizers from Richmond, VA. They first founded the People’s Library in February 2013, which has since brought hundreds of people together to transform discarded materials into blank books for anyone in the city to fill with their histories and be included in the Richmond library’s permanent collection. Mark’s ongoing project, Windows From Prison, which brings communities together to create images requested by prisoners, has been exhibited in galleries, converted into high school curricula, turned into a national mail-­‐exchange program, and has been produced through various public installations. He was awarded the 2014 Society for Photographic Educators' Image Maker Award, a Photowings/Ashoka Foundation Changemaker Award, and a 2014 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship. Courtney’s work and research focuses on the minutia, the discarded, and material culture in an effort to understand how the past has influenced our present. In addition to writing and presenting at a multitude of conferences, she has co-­‐produced two films, The Builder and New Jerusalem, and released 4 albums on Jagjaguwar with the band Spokane.