Creating Place

Welcome to Creating Place: The Art of Equitable Community Building!

Creating Place is a multimedia collection of explorations, reflections, challenges, and offerings to the national dialogue around creative placemaking, created by ROOTS members.

A good place to start exploring this multi-faceted project is by downloading the Creating Place digital book. In it, you’ll find an excerpt or overview of each Creating Place article, film, and podcast, as well as links to where you can read, watch, or listen to them in their fullness on our website. The digital book is full of gorgeous photos, and will give you a preview of each contribution while also highlighting the connections they share with one another.

You can also view the full collection right here on our website – all the articles, podcasts, and films are linked below. You’ll see them popping up in our Field News throughout the year. And you can help us grow the conversation by sharing Creating Place with your networks, and using #CreatingPlaceROOTS when posting to social media.

Table of Contents

Creating Place: Context, Connection, Equity
Nicole Gurgel-Seefeldt (Albuquerque, NM)

Who Benefits? Creative Place -Making, -Taking, -Keeping

roots, routes, alternate
Dudley Cocke (Whitesburg, KY)

Home: a place to be from, a place to take with you, a place to which to return, and a place to inform and preserve for seven generations
Kim Pevia (Robeson County, NC)

Creative Placetaking: It’s a Thing!
Vicki Meek (Dallas, TX)

Creating Place Podcast: Last Call
New Orleans, LA; podcast by Bonnie Gabel and free feral (New Orleans, LA)

Whose Cotton You Choppin?
Carlton Turner (Utica, MS)

The Art of: Re/building, Exposing, Bridging, Evolving

Azule, a Place for the Arts: A Journey Towards Creative Placemaking
Alicia Arraya (Hot Springs, NC)

A Global South: Building Community Through Chinese Dance
Kerry Lee (Norcross, GA)

Empowering Women at the Border as Creative Placemaking: Mujeres en Ritual Danza-Teatro
Dora Arreola (Tampa, FL)

Creating Place Film: Clear Creek Creative — Jubilee!
Rockcastle County, KY; film by Blair Johnson (Baltimore, MD)

Creating Place Podcast: Art2Action
Tampa, FL; podcast by Bonnie Gabel and free feral (New Orleans, LA)

People Centered, People Powered

Making Home Away from Home
Ashley Minner (Baltimore, MD)

I am Powerful: Reclaiming and Uplifting the Power, Space, and Voice of Incarcerated Youth
Jeree Thomas (Richmond, VA)

The Struggles and Successes of Building an Inclusive Arts/Activist Community on the Border
Samuel Valdez (San Diego, CA and Tijuana, B.C. Mexico)

Creating Place Film: ConNECKted — Imaginings for Truth and Reconciliation
Film by the Charleston Rhizome Collective (Charleston, SC); edited by Jason Gourdine with Gwylene Gallimard

Holding Space: Memory, Recovery, Resilience

Creating Place Film: SpiritHouse — Reshape the Mo(u)rning
Film by Rodrigo Dorfman (Durham, NC), in collaboration with SpiritHouse (Durham, NC)

Creating Place Podcast: Nikiko Masumoto & Kimi Maeda
Nikiko Masumoto (Del Rey, CA) & Kimi Maeda (Pendleton, SC)

Making Space for Survival: Notes from Tejas, Atzlan
Edyka Chilomé (Dallas, TX)

Creating Space Podcast: Hollerin Place
Bonnie Gabel and free feral (New Orleans, LA)

Acknowledgements

There were a lot of people who had a hand in bringing Creating Place out into the world. In addition to all the amazing contributors whose bios you’ll find in the digital book or at the end of their article/podcast/film, you can also learn more about the the Content Development team that was behind this project on the Acknowledgements page.

Funding for Creating Place comes from the National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Program.

Alternate ROOTS supports the creation and presentation of original art that is rooted in communities of place, tradition or spirit. We are a group of artists and cultural organizers based in the South creating a better world together. As Alternate ROOTS, we call for social and economic justice and are working to dismantle all forms of oppression—everywhere.