Background Narrative about Transforma Projects, New Orleans

Summary

Transforma Projects is a vehicle for supporting, nurturing, and celebrating creative practices that impact the social and physical environment.

Transforma Projects, New Orleans is a multi-year initiative that will:

• Bring artists together with community to address an array of critical issues, from housing to education,
• Provide an ongoing vehicle for critical discourse,
• Nurture cultural rebuilding efforts throughout the city,
• And celebrate the artistic heritage and future of New Orleans.

Background

Over the last several decades, art and culture have become increasingly commercial. The proliferation of museums, galleries, and media outlets, combined with surplus wealth among the elite class, has made the production of art a viable commercial endeavor. In turn, the commercialization of art and culture greatly limits the opportunity for the exploration of new cultural forms. Despite this, individual artists and some arts institutions continue to explore new ways to give their cultural production meaning beyond commercial viability. Exhibitions and projects such as Culture in Action, Chicago, the Spoleto Festival, Charleston, Project Row Houses, Houston, Village of Arts and Humanities, Philadelphia, ARTScorpsLA, Revival Field, Minnesota, and Urban Ecology, Detroit are just a few projects and exhibitions that have furthered the possibilities for creative growth outside of traditional commercial venues.

Conditions are ripe for greater emphasis to be placed on the role that artists, the arts and culture can have on the social and political needs confronting the world in our time. Opportunities for artists to use their creativity in the rebuilding of communities, the rethinking of the application of science and technology in the environment, and other areas need to be explored and encouraged.

Today, the City of New Orleans provides a unique opportunity for creative exploration and cultural development that is challenging for artists and will be useful in the rebuilding of the city. Because of the vast devastation inflicted upon New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, the city is in dire need of creative thinking and cultural nourishment. A year after the storm, New Orleans remains a struggling city with a fraction of its original residents. Beyond the Garden District, Uptown, the Central Business District, and the French Quarter, neighborhood after neighborhood of crumbling buildings and vacant streets that held so much of the spirit of New Orleans are silent. The spirit of these places needs a voice. They can become the medium, substance, and content of cultural production.

Transforma Projects

Guided by a diverse group of experts and activists in the cultural, educational, public policy, environmental and social justice fields, Transforma Projects seeks to support another model for supporting, nurturing, and celebrating creative practices that impact the social and physical environment.

At the core of Transforma Projects are the Resource Team and the Creative Projects. The Resource Team is made up of a diverse and fluid group of professionals, local and national, that provide the structural backbone of the initiative. The Resource Team can be thought of as a combination of governing board and curatorial team. In addition to the Resource Team, there are project related resource members who help guide the projects and provide access to local community leaders in the field of housing, health, economic development, etc. The Creative Projects are varied in scale, scope and duration and are representative of a combination of local, national, and international creative practitioners, including artists, architects, activists, and others.

Supporting Creative Practices

Creative Projects

Transforma Projects, New Orleans will support a series of projects that will respond to and address key issues facing the city, including housing, education, health care, economic development and the environment. The projects will be both short and long-term; be initiated by artists, neighborhood groups and cultural institutions and projects will run the gamut of artistic disciplines.

Financial, Intellectual, and Critical Resources

Transforma Projects will secure funding to provide the creative teams with the incentive to devote the necessary time to their project, as well as the means to realize them. In addition, the artists will have access to and the participation of the Resource Team members. The third aspect of support will come from the discourse and critical analysis of the projects that will take place throughout the duration of Transforma Projects, New Orleans.

The Resource Team

In New Orleans, local members will help to open doors, provide specific expertise and technical assistance, and implement community outreach strategies. Together with the national team members, they will assist in defining the aesthetic and community agendas for the Transforma Projects.

Critical Discourse

An important component of Transforma Projects is the evaluation process that will be developed to assess the specific impact of these creative activities from an aesthetic as well as a community perspective. In addition to the analysis of best practices, through a series of commissioned papers and structured dialogues, the artists and the Resource Team, along with invited professionals and other participants, will explore the development of language that will encourage critical discourse about art, creativity, and community.

Nurturing The Creative Community

Transforma Projects presents an opportunity to nurture the cultural community in New Orleans by serving as a marketing umbrella for a broad array of creative initiatives related to the rebuilding efforts. Though funding cannot be provided for all of the creative efforts currently underway in the city, many will benefit from collective outreach and marketing coordinated by Transforma Projects, as well as from the input and expertise of the Resource Team. Further, all will have the opportunity to benefit from the dialogue and new information that we anticipate will be generated by ongoing evaluation and analysis process.

Celebrating The Artistic Heritage And Future Of New Orleans

In the fall of 2009, Transforma Projects hope to host some form of celebratory cultural event for the entire city. Exhibitions that document the history and process of the projects will be presented in venues throughout the community. The event will also include an international symposium on the issues of art, creativity, culture, and community.