Silky Shoemaker is an artist from central PA who explores queer community in its many despairs and ecstasies, solitudes, strangeness, and epic iterations. She talks to us about how a vandalized life size plywood sculpture of Ahmaud Arbery in her front yard opened up the local community to a conversation about racial justice and encouraged her to think on an entirely bigger scale.

Julie Garreau, is the executive director of the Cheyenne River Youth Project, a nonprofit community development organization that serves the youth and families of South Dakota’s remote Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. She sat down with two Lakota teens - accomplished leaders from their Art Fellowship program - to discuss the Covid-19 crisis, their Lakota values, and how the novel coronavirus has affected their sense of place during this challenging time in history.

Together, ArtPlace America and Creative Generation are pleased to announce a new research initiative focused on arts, culture, and youth development. This partnership will explore the intersections of creative youth development, creative placemaking, and community development through community based, youth- and practitioner-led research. By the end of the year, a series of new web-based tools and resources will be created by and for practitioners operating in this space.

John Kind is a driven, passionate and charismatic artist with a unique approach to his blend of hip-hop, poetry, and existentialism. He has been writing poetry since the age of 9 years old. We were lucky enough to be introduced to John via our funded project the Loop Lab, a Cambridge-based non-profit social enterprise specializing in media arts internships and digital storytelling. Here he shows us how his art allows him to discover hidden truths, and dig deeper.