Creative Transformations: Stories, Learnings, and Recommendations to Support Arts, Culture, and Public Housing Communities
The many problems related to public housing in New York City are well known. A history of disinvestment. Decline of federal funding. Isolation and physical neglect. During the building of public housing super blocks, communities were broken apart and a diverse range of cultural spaces were lost, leaving behind a multi-generational trauma that extends far beyond inadequate facilities.
Until recently, the power of arts and culture in public housing communities has been much less visible. Our Creative Transformations report report shares stories, learnings, and recommendations from our Creative Transformations initiative that demonstrate how arts and culture contribute to public housing communities.
Key themes describe how arts and culture in public housing communities can:
support community leadership and resident organizing
break down isolation, connecting fellow public housing residents and their neighbors
build community cultural infrastructure
strengthen activism
further economic development and entrepreneurship
shape community planning
deepen healing
These key themes are illustrated through examples in neighborhoods across New York City, including:
CVH Vision, an artist collective that is elevating Community Voices Heard’s visual campaigns
“Resistance is Resilience”, a collaboration between Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), Downtown Art and FABnyc to incorporate arts into neighborhood resiliency awareness and education
Intergenerational Community Arts Council (ICAC) at Ingersoll Community Center, where residents shape cultural life in Fort Greene with support from University Settlement and GOLES
#NO CUTS PSA, a process by which youth at Red Hook Initiative wrote and produced a video to preserve HUD
Park Hill Community Market, a cultural marketplace and festival organized by Napela Inc. in Staten Island
What Creates Health? @ Queensbridge, a collaboration with Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and NOCD-NY to examine violence as a public health issue in Long Island City
Making Gowanus and Theater of the Liberated, a community arts and culture project that has informed Gowanus’s rezoning process
Our Arts, Culture and Public Housing Communities program was launched by a cross-sector roundtable held in July 2015 and followed by a research and planning process. The program ultimately grew to support 17 pilot projects, including 19 partners and the participation of more than a thousand public housing residents and artists. You can find descriptions of the full list of partner projects here.