Episode 65: Lorrie Chang - Finding an Art & Community TRUE NORTH

This week we visit with researcher, writer, planner, Lorrie Chang to talk about her work with ArtPlace America's Community Development Investment (CDI) program. Along the way we will explore how artists from the Zuni Pueblo, and Southwest Minnesota worked with community developers to integrate arts-based tools and strategies as an enduring core of their practice?

Lorrie Chang centers an arts and cultural-based approach to community change and development as a path to collective liberation. At PolicyLink, she designed and evaluated the nation’s first Creative Placemaking technical assistance program for The National Endowment for the Arts, served as the research partner for ArtPlace’s experiment to integrate arts and culture strategies into community development organizations, and supported six arts organizations advancing equitable policies across the country. In East Portland, she led community engagement rooted in storytelling for The People’s Plan-- a plan by and for the people projecting a vision for a thriving Black community. As a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' Truth Fellow, she explored, "How do we find and empower TRUTH?". Last year, in stillness, she humbly pursued, “What does liberation look like for me?”. She now seeks to alchemize her journey of personal liberation to serve collective liberation. Lorrie holds a Master's in Urban and Regional Planning and resides in San Francisco. 

The Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership (SWMHP) is a non-profit community development corporation serving communities throughout Southwest and South Central Minnesota.

Partnership Art: In 2015, SWMHP was one of six organizations that received funding through Artplace America to participate in the Community Development Investments (CDI) Program. The CDI Program was launched to investigate and support place-based organization incorporating art and culture into our core work, allowing us to better fulfill our mission of creative thriving place to live, grow and work.

Place-based Productions: We are a production company that explores community stories through site-specific performance and the arts. Our work cultivates stewards of community identity by connecting people to their common places, stories and relationships.

Our goals are to foster creativity, play, and, above all, a sense of place.

ArtPlace America was a ten-year, $150 million collaboration among a number of foundations, federal agencies, and financial institutions that operated from 2010 to 2020. Our mission was to position arts and culture as a core sector of equitable community...

This week we visit with researcher, writer, planner, Lorrie Chang to talk about her work with ArtPlace America's Community Development Investment (CDI) program. Along the way we will explore how artists from the Zuni Pueblo, and Southwest Minnesota worked with community developers to integrate arts-based tools and strategies as an enduring core of their practice?

Lorrie Chang centers an arts and cultural-based approach to community change and development as a path to collective liberation. At PolicyLink, she designed and evaluated the nation’s first Creative Placemaking technical assistance program for The National Endowment for the Arts, served as the research partner for ArtPlace’s experiment to integrate arts and culture strategies into community development organizations, and supported six arts organizations advancing equitable policies across the country. In East Portland, she led community engagement rooted in storytelling for The People’s Plan-- a plan by and for the people projecting a vision for a thriving Black community. As a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' Truth Fellow, she explored, "How do we find and empower TRUTH?". Last year, in stillness, she humbly pursued, “What does liberation look like for me?”. She now seeks to alchemize her journey of personal liberation to serve collective liberation. Lorrie holds a Master's in Urban and Regional Planning and resides in San Francisco. 

The Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership (SWMHP) is a non-profit community development corporation serving communities throughout Southwest and South Central Minnesota.

Partnership Art: In 2015, SWMHP was one of six organizations that received funding through Artplace America to participate in the Community Development Investments (CDI) Program. The CDI Program was launched to investigate and support place-based organization incorporating art and culture into our core work, allowing us to better fulfill our mission of creative thriving place to live, grow and work.

Place-based Productions: We are a production company that explores community stories through site-specific performance and the arts. Our work cultivates stewards of community identity by connecting people to their common places, stories and relationships.

Our goals are to foster creativity, play, and, above all, a sense of place.

ArtPlace America was a ten-year, $150 million collaboration among a number of foundations, federal agencies, and financial institutions that operated from 2010 to 2020. Our mission was to position arts and culture as a core sector of equitable community planning and development. You can learn about the story of ArtPlace in our book.

ArtPlace America's Community Development Initiative: A core focus of ArtPlace America’s Community Development Investments program was to learn from how six organizations in urban, rural, and tribal areas were able to incorporate arts and culture into their work, help them achieve their missions more effectively, and bring about positive outcomes for their communities.

PolicyLink: PolicyLink is a national research and action institute advancing racial and economic equity by Lifting Up What Works.® “As the nation moves toward becoming majority people of color, achieving equity—just and fair inclusion into a society in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential—is the moral imperative, a potent antidote to inequality, and the superior growth model.”

Lisjan Ohlone: The Lisjan are made up of the six nations that were directly enslaved at Mission San Jose in Fremont, CA and Mission Dolores in San Francisco, CA: Lisjan (Ohlone), Karkin (Ohlone), Bay Miwok, Plains Miwok, Delta Yokut and Napian (Patwin). Our territory includes 5 Bay Area counties; Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Napa and San Joaquin, and we are directly tied to the “Indian Town” census of the 1920’s and the Verona Band.

Jeremy Liu: Liu is an award-winning artist, social impact strategist, and real estate developer with a successful track record of developing “Community Benefits by Design” real estate projects. As the Senior Fellow for Arts, Culture and Equitable Development at PolicyLink, he has shaped and is guiding an initiative that integrate arts and culture into the work of equitable development.

Zuni Youth Empowerment Project: our mission is to promote resilience among zuni youth, so they will grow into strong and healthy adults who are connected with Zuni traditions. 

Daryl Shack: My name is Daryl Shack Sr. I am a Painter and Fetish Carver with 44 years of experience. My Fetish work is made with various stones that are found locally and from around the world. For my paintings, I use Acrylic and Enamel paints on canvas. What influences my Art is my father, our Culture and Traditions. 

Ashley Hansen Ashley Hanson (she/her) has 15 years of experience working with rural communities to activate stories, connect neighbors, and exercise collective imagination. She is a member of the Center for Performance and Civic Practice Leadership Circle and she was an Artist-in-Residence in both the Planning Department at the City of Minneapolis and with the Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership, where she employed creative community engagement strategies for equitable participation in urban and rural planning and development processes.

Shambhala Prophecy: There comes a time when all life on Earth is in danger. Barbarian powers have arisen. Although they waste their wealth in preparations to annihilate each other, they have much in common: weapons of unfathomable devastation and technologies that lay waste the world. It is now, when the future of all beings hangs by the frailest of threads, that the kingdom of Shambhala emerges.