One of the objectives of the New Horizons initiative is to infuse arts and culture into libraries, public parks, and other community resources to provide neighborhood programming that ensures the benefits of arts and culture are more fully recognized, utilized and valued. Our focal areas for this program are in the most vulnerable zip codes of our city: 16501, 16502, 16503, and 16507.
We will push this program forward by engaging and educating the community; citizens, businesses, community organization, elected officials, local artists, etc. of the importance of arts and culture in regards to personal, community, and economic development.
One of the ways that we’ve begun to engage and educate is through our Creative Placemaking & Public Art Planning speaker series our first guest, Peter Kageyama, author of Love Where You Live: Creating Emotionally Engaging Places the follow-up book to his For The Love of Cities: The Love Affair Between People And Their Places, gave an inspiring presentation on Arts & Community development. He shared some invigorating photos that gave the audience a glance into what placemaking could look like, right here in Erie.
Another way we will engage and educate is through this weekly blog that will support the sharing of ideas that could make our home, our community; our Erie a community of choice.
Take a look at the Arts + Social Impact Explorer from our friends at Americans for the Arts. It is riddled with impact points, examples of practice, reading lists, and organizations that are implementing programming in regards to arts and culture. Click any topic on the Wheel to learn more.
