Arts for Learning/Miami’s Wall (In) project is a finalist for ArtPlace America’s 2017 National Creative Placemaking Fund
Extremely competitive national grant program will consider 70 projects
(June 7, 2017) Today, ArtPlace America announced that Arts for Learning/Miami is one of 70 finalists for the 2017 National Creative Placemaking Fund (NCPF). ArtPlace selected these 70 proposals from 987 applications, making Arts for Learning/Miami’s project one of just 7% of the projects across the country to make this cut.
ArtPlace’s National Creative Placemaking Fund is a highly competitive national program, receiving 987 applications this year. Investing money in communities across the country in which artists, arts organizations, and arts and culture activity help drive community development change across 10 sectors of community planning and development: agriculture and food; economic development; education and youth; environment and energy; health; housing; immigration; public safety; transportation; or workforce development.
Arts for Learning/Miami’s proposed Wall (In) is a multi-year collaborative project in which young high school aged artists from Liberty City will research the remains of a segregation wall on NW 12th avenue and work to co-design a community-based memorial for the site. Participating youth will work alongside renowned homegrown artists Tarell Alvin McCraney and Chat Travieso to learn about community-based art, develop leadership skills, and promote equity and social justice. Wall (In) supports the development of the young residents’ personal power, self-esteem, and sense of purpose. Through Wall (In), youth will hone their planning and decision making skills, and build their cultural competence by working with different members of the community. They will speak to historians, activists, community leaders, and other stakeholders to research the history of Liberty City and the segregation wall and investigate the current state of the wall by mapping the remains and any existing plans for its future. Current project partners include the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center (Liberty City’s Historic art place), the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, residents, and resources such as the Black Archives.
Sheila Womble, Executive Director of Arts for Learning notes, “Arts for Learning is honored to be a finalist. This is truly a young initiative; not only because it is early in its development, but also in that its creative direction will be led by youth. We are delighted that ArtPlace recognizes the promise of the community’s youth, this project, and the power that the arts have in placemaking.”
“These seventy finalists are extraordinary examples of the ways that artists, arts organizations, and communities are thinking about working together,” said ArtPlace Director of National Grantmaking F. Javier Torres. “We look forward to learning more about all of them, as we visit with them this summer.”
“Each of these projects has proposed something extraordinary and important,” added ArtPlace Executive Director Jamie Bennett. “We would love to be able to invest in all of them, and know that choices ahead of us will be extraordinarily difficult.”
The complete list of the 2017 applicants for ArtPlace’s National Creative Placemaking Fund may be found here.
About Arts for Learning/Miami
Arts for Learning (A4L) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing teaching and learning through the arts and community cultural resources. As a leading source of arts programs in Miami, A4L provides traditional and arts-integrated instruction, student studio programs, afterschool and summer programs, high school internships, and teacher and artist professional development. A4L’s programs augment cognitive, social, and emotional development in children and youth. The programs also develop creativity, critical thinking, communication, problem solving skills as well as promote positive peer relations and cultivate self-efficacy. A4L partners with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, and Young Audiences – A4L’s national affiliate. A4L also serves as the South Florida Wolf Trap, a regional program of Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning. A4L’s services are delivered to more than 5,000 children and youth in approximately 50 schools, preschools, after-school programs, and summer camps throughout Miami-Dade and Broward.
Arts for Learning’s programs are made possible with generous support from and partnership with: African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, All Kids Included, Broward County Public Schools, The Children’s Trust, Design and Architecture Senior High, Centro Mater Child Care Services, Inc., City of Hialeah, City of Miami, City of Miami Beach, City of Miramar, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs, Jonathan D. Lewis Foundation, Miami Children’s Initiative, Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, Miami-Dade County Mayor, and the Board of County Commissioners, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, The Miami Foundation, O, Miami, O Cinema, South Florida Cultural Consortium, and Young Audiences, Inc.
About ArtPlace America
ArtPlace America (ArtPlace) is a ten-year collaboration among 16 partner foundations, along with 8 federal agencies and 6 financial institutions, that works to position arts and culture as a core sector of comprehensive community planning and development in order to help strengthen the social, physical, and economic fabric of communities.
ArtPlace focuses its work on creative placemaking, projects in which art plays an intentional and integrated role in place-based community planning and development. This brings artists, arts organizations, and artistic activity into the suite of placemaking strategies pioneered by Jane Jacobs and her colleagues, who believed that community development must be locally informed, human-centric, and holistic.
A4L Media Contact: Carolina Candelaria, Communications & Development Manager, [email protected], 305.576.1212 *32
A4L Organization Contact: Sheila Womble, Executive Director, [email protected], 305.576.1212 *23
Arts for Learning Miami (A4L)
The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse
404 NW 26th Street, Miami, FL, 33127
305.576.1212, www.a4lmiami.org
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