An Arts-Based Response to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented public health crisis that has overturned lives and work. Arts and culture projects and programs can play a powerful role in shaping our response and addressing the vast needs that have been exposed. The arts and the creative practices of artists are some of our most powerful tools when faced with earth-shifting events such as this.
Our most vulnerable populations are already subject to multiple public health risks, including mental health, racism, food insecurity, housing instability, and social isolation and exclusion. By supporting artists to collaborate with these communities, we can enhance connection, coping, and wellbeing and create new tools and methods for addressing the current challenges.
Creative Placemaking and Place-Based Strategies
Through PAC, artists will collaborate with communities to address their needs through place-based strategies and creative placemaking practices. Place-based strategies respond to the immediate context of a specific community or neighborhood. Creative placemaking, like place-based strategies, is closely tied to a specific place. Creative placemaking occurs when the creative practices of artists are fully engaged to collaboratively shape the public spaces of our region and catalyze community-led change.
Call for Organizational Partners, 2020
PAC builds on the framework established by OPA and Neighborhood Allies in the pilot Temporary Public Art and Placemaking program launched in 2016.
In Fall 2020, the following four community-based organizational partners were selected through an open call process:
- The Brashear Association
- Etna Community Organization with the Sharpsburg Neighborhood Organization (ECO + SNO)
- Frogang
- Steel Smiling
Each of the organizational partners identified a specific public health issue as a focal point for their collaboration with an artist. To read more about each partner’s mission and issue of focus, follow this link to the Public Art and Communities Program press release: https://opapgh.org/news/public-art-and-communities-program-release-call-for-artists/.
Call for Artists & Project Development, 2021
After the organizational partners were onboard, a Call for Artists was released on February 1, 2021. The project team supported the organizational partners in selecting the artists with whom they wished to collaborate.
Artists Jason McKoy, Nola Mims, and Rell Rushin, and Lindsey Peck Scherloum will work with their organizational partners from 2021 through the end of 2022 to develop and implement place-based projects that address the public health needs identified by the community. Ultimately, four place-based public art and creative placemaking projects will be implemented from 2022 to 2023 that increase community resilience and strengthen community responses to the pandemic.
Public Art and Public Health Advisory Group
To better understand and develop an integrated response to the COVID-19 public health crisis, the project team assembled a Public Art and Public Health Advisory Group. The Advisory Group includes leaders in the fields of public health, community development, and environmental and social justice. As a critical contributor to the program, the Advisory Group meets regularly with the partnering organizations and artists selected for the program.
Public Art Training Camp & Workshops
Educational workshops on public art and creative placemaking are a critical component of PAC.
An initial Public Art Training Camp in Fall 2020 offered training sessions for emerging and mid-career artists interested in working in the public realm. Sessions featured national and local speakers and covered topics including national trends in public art, finding and applying for opportunities, contracts and agreements, insurance for artists and organizations, project budgets, and permits and permissions. Attending Public Art Training Camp was not required to submit an application.
In summer 2021, the partnering organizations and artists selected for the program attended Placemaking Academy. This PAC-specific training provides in-depth training on creative placemaking and public art with a particular focus on the ways in which the arts can contribute to improving local place-based public health outcomes. Project teams are also trained on developing public art projects, creative placemaking best practices, community engagement strategies, and project implementation. The goal is to build the capacity of the organizations and artists to work in the public realm beyond the program.
The project is a collaboration between the Office of Public Art, Neighborhood Allies, and the Borough of Millvale, and is funded through the generous support of The Heinz Endowments, the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, and the Our Town program of the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
