ART. CHANGES. EVERYTHING.

ART. CHANGES. EVERYTHING.

BY ERIK TAKESHITA
The Institute for Comprehensive Community Development

“Art. Changes. Everything.”

That's the belief of Intermedia Arts, a Minneapolis-based multidisciplinary, multicultural arts organization and many of the 101 graduates of the Creative Community Leadership Institute (formerly known as the Institute for Community Cultural Development).

The Creative Community Leadership Institute (CCLI) was created in 2002 by Intermedia Arts in partnership with Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) to provide comprehensive, professional-level training and support for local community-engaged artists and community developers working at the intersection of the arts and community development.

Community development, traditionally focused on building housing, creating jobs, supporting small business development and revitalizing commercial districts, can only do so much. All of these things, while necessary are not, by themselves, sufficient.

However, when combined with the power of the arts and culture, we can get one step closer to building healthy, sustainable and vibrant communities.

Arts and culture can bring people together across traditional barriers such as age, income, education, race and religion. It can help create a sense of neighborhood identity and pride.

Along the way, it can also be instrumental in helping to grow and attract businesses, create vital markets for housing and help improve the safety of a community.

As Intermedia Arts states: Art. Changes. Everything.

Four examples

The Creative Community Leadership Institute is based on the fundamental belief that the health of our communities demands innovative, cross-sector leadership that can blend art with community development. The focus of CCLI is building a dynamic core of capable leaders and partnerships through an intensive five-month program of hands-on workshops and on-site experiences.

These leaders and partnerships, developed from the program, have gone on to do tremendous work throughout the Twin Cities.

Here are four examples:

Intermedia Arts

Chaka Mkali (aka I Self Devine) was an established hip-hop and graffiti artist before CCLI. Through his experiences with the Institute, he learned more about organizing and about Hope Community, a Minneapolis-based community development organization. He has since become the Director of Organizing and Community Building at Hope Community, infusing arts and culture into their organizing and youth development work.

Juxtaposition Arts

At Juxtaposition Arts, a community-based education, entrepreneurship and professional development organization for young artists, the artistic and executive directors as well as staff and board members have all participated in the Institute. According to Artistic Director Roger Cummings and Executive Director DeAnna Cummings: “TheCreative Community Leadership Institute, helped refine [our] process of organizing and developing community through the arts.”

NACDI

The Native American Community Development Institute — where Institute alumnus Justin Kii Huenemann is President and CEO— has Arts and Culture as one of their four sector areas to build human capacity and increase economic development in the urban American Indian community. They recently renovated a vacant building to house the All My Relations Art Gallery, held the first Twin Cities American Indian Arts Festival that attracted over 8,000 people, and have used public art as an essential part of their effort to develop a Native American Cultural Corridor.

Alumni Jun-Li Wang and Peter Haaken Thompson are now working with Springboard for the Arts where they are leading the Irrigate Project, an artist-led creative place-making initiative spanning six miles of Light Rail line construction in Saint Paul. A partnership of Springboard for the Arts, the City of St. Paul and Twin Cities LISC, Irrigate will train, mobilize and support artists to create hundreds of arts projects attracting people to the corridor while reinforcing a sense of community identity, ownership, and pride.

The Creative Community Leadership Institute

The Creative Community Leadership Institute is led by a core faculty of Bill Cleveland from the Center for the Study of Art and Community, Wendy Morris from the Creative Leadership Studio (www.wendymorris.org) and me.

The 55-hour workshop curriculum has five basic parts including Getting to Know Ourselves and the Field; Power Dynamics (Rank, Race and Privilege); Partnership Strategies; Sustainability: Evaluation, Communications and Fundraising; and Taking Stock and Taking it Home. Each of these is explored through a combination of reading, discussion, hands-on experiences, site visits and case studies.

There are four discrete outcomes for participants including learning new content about arts-based community development; experiencing different techniques for how to deliver content; developing a strong network of peers; and experiencing a personal journey of self-discovery.

To date, the Institute has graduated 101 “fellows" who are making a difference in the Twin Cities.

In the words of Chaka Mkali (aka I Self Devine): “Look at the alumni of CCLI and it is basically a who’s who of who is doing art; who’s doing organizing.

"It’s like a list of rock stars.”

Erik Takeshita is a senior program officer for Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC).

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