ArtPlace America's $2.8 Million Midwest Impact

An astonishing $2.8 million. That’s the magnitude of the impact that ArtPlace America has made in Minnesota, South Dakota and the 23 Native nations sharing that geography in just the past six years.

Launched in 2011 and due to phase out in 2021, ArtPlace America is a 10-year collaboration among a number of foundations, federal agencies and financial institutions to strengthen the social, physical and economic fabric of communities by positioning arts and culture as a core sector of community planning and development. In short, ArtPlace is founded on the belief that we should stop asking what communities can do for the arts, and start asking what the arts can do for our communities.

Like the Bush Foundation, ArtPlace has strong roots in this region, and has from its very beginning, with both the McKnight and Knight Foundations as founding partners.

In addition to its nationwide reach, ArtPlace has funded more than two dozen projects across this area since its inception, and the Bush Foundation’s five-year $2.5 million investment is instrumental to the four new regional projects that are receiving support from ArtPlace’s National Creative Placemaking Fund in 2017. Here are the investments they’ve made thus far:

2016

Cheyenne River Youth Project, Eagle Butte, SD, $325,000

Mixed Blood Theatre, Minneapolis, MN, $350,000

Region 5 Development Commission, Little Falls, MN, $440,000

Thunder Valley CDC, Porcupine, SD, $500,000

 

2015

Art Shanty Projects, White Bear Lake, MN $100,000

First Peoples Fund, Kyle, SD, $385,000

West Broadway Business & Area Coalition, Minneapolis, MN, $200,000

 

2014

City of New London, MN, $262,500

Juxtaposition Arts, Minneapolis, MN, $500,000

Pangea World Theater, Minneapolis, MN $120,500

Springboard for the Arts-lake Region Office, Fergus Falls, MN, $100,000

 

2013

Bedlam Theatre, St. Paul, MN, $350,000

Can Can Wonderland, St. Paul, MN, $350,000

Lanesboro Arts, Lanesboro, MN, $313,000

 

2012

Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, MN, $325,000

Native American Community Development Institute, Minneapolis, MN, $435,000

Pillsbury House + Theatre, Minneapolis, MN, $250,000

Public Art St. Paul, MN, $300,000

 

2011

Springboard for the Arts, St. Paul, MN, $750,000

The Heritage Center Red Cloud Indian School, Pine Ridge, SD, $110,000


ArtPlace puts art and artists at the center of community development.

The Kirkbride artist residency program explores the past and future of a mental institution closed in 2006.