Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit

Co-presented by South Arts and the National Consortium for Creative Placemaking (NCCP), the Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit: South + Appalachia is an annual gathering that explores how arts and cultural programming can be forces for connection and community resilience throughout the southeastern United States.

As our communities become more diverse, they may also become more divided. Creative placemaking provides ways to build bridges across these differences in hopes of more inclusive, connected, and resilient places. Join us as we explore how arts and cultural programming can bring people closer together.

Important Dates & DEadlines

• Registration opens: December 4, 2020
• Scholarship application deadline: 5:00 p.m. ET on January 15, 2021
• Early-bird Registration deadline: 11:59 p.m. ET on February 10, 2021
• Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit: South + Appalachia: Held virtually February 23-24, 2021

REGISTRATION RATES

• Regular registration: $150
• Late registration (beginning February 11, 2021): $200

A limited amount of scholarships are available. View the scholarship guidelines and apply before the application deadline of January 15, 2021.

Register for the Summit Read the Scholarship Guidelines

Registration becomes non-refundable beginning February 16, 2021.

About the Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit

The Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit: South + Appalachia connects, informs, inspires and empowers hundreds of artists, civic and cultural leaders, educators, public officials and more from around the South. Through the Summit participants can build new or better partnerships, projects, programs and policies. The Summit offers a wide range of experiences, including peer exchanges, research roundtables, training sessions, and more.

At the 2021 South + Appalachia Summit, February 23 and 24, 2021, online, you can explore these topics:

• Equitable economic and business development
  • Access and support for rural and under-resourced communities
  • Equitable procurement practices for artists and arts organizations
  • Funding and financial sustainability of creative placemaking initiatives
  • Helping communities recover economically
  • Policies that help circulate wealth from arts and cultural tourism
  • Promoting the economic value of artists, designers and makers
• Empowering and supporting social practice artists and culture bearers
  • Artists as leaders and social change agents
  • Cooperative work models/ creative support networks
  • Promoting and protecting culture bearers in Appalachia
• Healing, recovery and resilience 
  • Addressing systemic and personal racism 
  • Authorship, storytelling and its relationship to agency, identity and place
  • Improving mental or physical health in communities
  • Public art and equity
  • Surfacing and empowering creativity in communities

All the sessions are designed to help creative placemaking in many types of communities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, southwestern New York, North Carolina, southeastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia,  Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia.  But anyone from anywhere can participate.

Since 2018, Creative Placemaking Leadership Summits for the South and Appalachia have served about 800 participants.  More than 90% of those surveyed said they enjoyed the Summit, learned a great deal of useful information, or made valuable connections. 

The 2021 South + Appalachia Summit is going to offer even more than earlier ones. Besides being online, we will also highlight creative placemaking work in our featured area: Macon and central Georgia. You can also build your connections and keep conversations going for at least six months after the Summit through a new Creative Placemaker Community Forum.

The Summit is more than a gathering. It’s a place for creative placemakers working, living, or just interested in the South to grow their strength and their community.

What is a Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit?
It is a friendly, informative event that brings together people from the worlds of arts, education and public affairs to inspire new and better partnerships, projects, programs and policies. 

Who should participate in the Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit?
Anyone interested in the power of local arts and cultural activities to help make communities more livable, sustainable, equitable or prosperous.  In the wake of the events of 2020, there will be a lot of talk about how to help communities heal and recover faster, and become more resilient through creative placemaking.

Summits bring together a diverse array of professionals, including artists, arts administrators, community economic development professionals, cultural tourism professionals, educators, urban designers and planners, and more.  One of the greatest benefits of a Summit is sharing ideas with people who have different perspectives on the same issues.

Why should I go to the Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit?
If you’re looking to feel inspired, empowered, and supported, a Summit is a great place.to be.  Summits have also led to a number of new partnerships and projects.

Since 2014, around 3,000 people have participated in Creative Placemaking Leadership Summits held around the United States. More than 90% of participants said in surveys that they enjoyed their Summit, learned a great deal of valuable information, or made good connections.

This is the third Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit for the South since 2018. About 600 people participated in the first two Summits. 

Can I go if I don’t live or work in the region?
Sure, everyone is welcome to participate.  But please know that the sessions are oriented to issues that face communities in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Appalachian region. Your communities may be facing the same issues, so you can still get a lot out of the Summit.

The in-person Summits are great for helping me build connections.  How do I do that in an online Summit?
We are working to make it a great social experience, and a great learning experience.  We’re using a new platform -- Airmeet -- that is specially designed for events where people network in small groups. There will be plenty of breaks. And for six months after the Summit, there will be an online discussion forum where Summit participants can talk and share ideas.

We encourage everyone in the Summit -- not just the session leaders -- to share their knowledge and insights. You can share your insights through small group conversations in breakout sessions, or by contributing to a shared chat in other sessions, and in other ways.

What are the Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit sessions like?
Not everyone learns the same ways, or likes the same formats.  So we offer several types of sessions:

• In Peer Exchanges, there are conversations among panelists and Summit participants.  Don’t be surprised if you’re asked to answer a question during the Q&A period.
• Training sessions help you learn specific skills to enhance your creative placemaking career.
• You can learn about cutting edge thinking and new ideas In Research Roundtables.
• Want to do some problem-solving?  Join a Strategic Conversation.

What are the themes of the 2021 Summit?

• Access and support for rural and under-resourced communities
• Addressing systemic and personal racism 
• Equitable procurement practices for artists and arts organizations
• Funding and financial sustainability of creative placemaking initiatives
• Helping communities recover economically
• Improving mental or physical health in communities
• Surfacing and empowering creativity in communities
• Supporting artists and other creative professionals
• And more

The themes were selected by the Summit Working Group.

Who is involved?
The 2021 Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit South is produced by South Arts and The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking (NCCP).  The content and sessions were picked by a Working Group of more than 20 artists, arts administrators, community economic development professionals and others working or living in the South.  

They selected the sessions based on criteria such as the importance and timeliness of the content, the experience of session leaders, and to what extent the sessions bring different perspectives or new ideas to the Summit.