Creative placemaking in the US: The case of Portland, OR
Eleonora Redailli
Creative placemaking is an idea that is gaining traction in the field of arts and culture. Despite a growing popularity, creative placemaking is still a fuzzy concept that offers an unstable signifier based on a fractured and loose web of rationales and justifications, from which vested parties are still working out terms and agreement. In this research, I consider creative placemaking as it has developed as a national policy in the United States. First, I analyze the multilevel governance of the creative placemaking policy developed by the NEA, pointing out how three different tools have been used by the government to promote this policy: research, grants, and partnerships. Then, I turn attention to the local level and investigate how each of these tools is connected to a specific art program in Portland, OR: Trimet’s Interstate MAX public art program, Time Based Art Festival by Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, and My Story by We Are Portland. I study each of these programs, addressing the following questions: What are the art theories supporting the overall project? What is the role of artists? What is the connection with place?
Crossing Borders: Global PR of the State Hermitage MuseumDr. Natalia Grincheva
The proposed research will significantly contribute to the scholarship on museum global PR with new findings that will help to identify and explore new global outreach practices that advance a museum position in the international arena. The research will employ ethnographic methods which allow exploring various activities, programs, and initiatives of the foundations located in different countries. Drawing on my personal experiences as a volunteer in the Hermitage Museums Foundations in the USA (2010) and in the UK (2011), the research will expose how the foundations function as
important facilitators of the museum development campaigns and traveling exhibitions outside of Russia. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with the foundations’ directors and leaders from all six countries will provide important details on the structure and nature of relationships established between the State Hermitage Museum and targeted communities abroad. This focused case study will serve as an excellent research platform for identifying and exploring best practices in the museum
global PR emerging in the conditions of economic and cultural globalizations. The case study will have strong implications for the field of cultural management and will advance academic scholarship on museum PR which is currently under-researched and requires further attention from museum scholars.
Session Chair: Travis Newton
