Community Builds Culture

Community development is typically understood to
mean investment and construction, but it can also mean
the development of community voice, aesthetics, history
and health. A community is a group of people who
make culture together.

People make culture in many ways, but the arts are a particularly powerful tool
for community building. The economic benefits of arts activity in communities has
been well documented, but the arts also build social connections and more democratic dynamics among community members. They enrich the quality of life, enliven the environment, shape identity, and contribute to the economy. The arts are vehicles for crossing cultural and class boundaries, learning, self-actualization and political action.

The Center is focused on understanding how the arts can most effectively contribute
to building healthy communities and deepening democratic life. Our approach is designed
to enrich the interaction between artists, community activists, educators, researchers, business leaders, and policymakers – to build learning communities across domains.
We promote ideas that connect research and innovative policy making with the practical problems of implementation and execution in the real world.

Informal Arts: Finding Cohesion, Capacity
and Other Cultural Benefits in Unexpected Places
Our study of the "informal arts" in Chicago neighborhoods broke new ground,
focusing attention on creativity and participation at the grassroots – art making by Americans who paint in their kitchens, sing in church, play music with neighbors, or act
in community theater. The informal arts are popular creative activities that fall outside
of the conventional commercial and non-profit arts experiences. They are inclusive activities, characterized by low barriers to participation, and usually occur in informal
and inviting settings. Tens of millions create art in these informal ways, and low-income neighborhoods that have no non-profit cultural organizations have rich endowments of informal arts activities. Informal art making is both a source of great personal satisfaction and a site for building social connections that enable communities to thrive. More…

LISC – Building Community Through the Arts
The Center is working closely with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation/
Chicago (LISC), developing an evaluation component for their pilot program
Building Community Through the Arts (BCA). BCA is a two year initiative that
aims to leverage and develop new community resources by incorporating cultural activities into neighborhood planning and development strategies. More...