Philadelphia Receives ArtPlace Grant to Support Creative Placemaking

Mayor Nutter announced that the City of Philadelphia's Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) will receive a $200,000 grant from ArtPlace, a new national collaboration of foundations, banks and federal agencies formed to accelerate creative place-making across the U.S. OACCE is one of three organizations in Philadelphia receiving support in 2012: University City District (UCD) and Asian Arts Initiative are also receiving ArtPlace support for their place-making projects.

The ArtPlace collaboration consists of eleven national and regional foundations, six of the nation's largest banks, and eight federal agencies – including the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). To date, ArtPlace has raised almost $50 million to work alongside federal and local governments to transform communities through strategic investments in the arts.

"Attracting this grant from ArtPlace is a triumph for the City of Philadelphia. Our city is known for its flourishing arts scene," said Mayor Michael A. Nutter. "By investing in the arts, Philadelphia is expanding its economy, quality of life and future. This project will enhance the newly re-developed Race Street Pier while drawing even more visitors to all of the existing attractions on the Delaware Waterfront. I also congratulate the other awardees and look forward to the realization of their projects that will benefit even more Philadelphia citizens and communities."

The OACCE project will feature an unusual installation – tentatively entitled NET – by the Austrian artist/design collaborative Numen/For Use which will soon appear on the central Delaware Waterfront. NET, an interactive installation of interconnected nets, will focus attention and excitement on the waterfront at Race Street, supporting local efforts to activate the waterfront. Numen/For Use calls the installation a "transparent artificial landscape of ephemeral architecture in public space." Visitors will enter at the "ground floor" and climb the transparent structure to the highest level, or just recline in what may appear to be an oversized public hammock.The installation will occur in summer 2013.

NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman said, "Across the country, cities and towns are using the arts to help shape their social, physical, and economic characteristics. The arts are a part of everyday life, and I am thrilled to see yet another example of an arts organization working with city, state, and federal offices to help strengthen and revitalize their communities through the arts. It is wonderful that ArtPlace and its funders have recognized this work and invested in it so generously."

The three organizations in Philadelphia receiving ArtPlace support in 2012 are among forty-seven creative place-making initiatives nationwide supported by the collaboration this year. ArtPlace received almost 2,200 letters of inquiry from organizations seeking a portion of the $15.4 million available for grants in this cycle. Inquiries came from 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Philadelphia-based William Penn Foundation was instrumental in supporting local ArtPlace-selected projects. "It is an exciting time to have ArtPlace working in Philadelphia," said Jeremy Nowak, president of the William Penn Foundation. "Culturally-driven development practices show great promise for our city, and we think that the national focus brought by ArtPlace will help to leverage additional investments in Philadelphia."

UCD's grant of $375,000 will support urban design upgrades and art installations at "The Porch", a new half-acre public space at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station, the second busiest train station in the country. Artists will be part of the design process throughout, and will create functional art to enliven the plaza. The Porch will create a new town square for a rapidly expanding new neighborhood around the site.

The Asian Arts Initiative will use their $450,000 ArtPlace grant to create a "Social Practice Lab" that will commission work from creative individuals and organizations in Chinatown and Chinatown North. The goal of the Social Practice Lab is to encourage artistic excellence and innovation while building relationships, encouraging neighborhood development and effecting positive change within the community.

"The Philadelphia projects receiving ArtPlace funding exemplify the best in creative place-making," explained ArtPlace's Carol Coletta. "They demonstrate a deep understanding of how smart investments in art, design and culture as part of a larger portfolio of revitalization strategies can change the trajectory of communities and increase economic opportunities for people."

In September, ArtPlace will release a new set of metrics to measure changes over time in the people, activity and real estate value in the communities where ArtPlace has invested with its grants. A complete list of this year's ArtPlace awards can be found at www.artplaceamerica.org.

Participating foundations include The William Penn 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 Rockefeller Foundation, Rasmuson Foundation, The Robina Foundation and an anonymous donor. In addition to the NEA, federal partners are the 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 is also supported by a $12 million loan fund capitalized by six major financial institutions and managed by the Nonprofit Finance Fund. Participating institutions are Bank of America, Citi, Deutsche Bank, Chase, MetLife and Morgan Stanley.

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