About this Project
In coordination with the HUD Choice Neighborhood Master Plan for Northside, the City of Spartanburg, in association with Hub Culture, Inc., received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Our Town design grant to “support an arts and cultural plan for Northside, a 400-acre neighborhood undergoing redevelopment.” In tandem with the larger community master plan team, the Public Art Collaborative participated in design charrettes in January 2014, directed and facilitated a cultural arts discussion with Northside and Spartanburg residents, and in February 2014, affirmed proposals with community leadership and project planners. Each organization offered important perspectives and ideas to the arts planning process.
Participating Organizations
The Arts Plan
There continues to be strong commitment to the arts throughout downtown Spartanburg as evidenced by public sculpture, public parks, performance spaces, and murals, and the Community-Creative-Cultural Arts Plan for Northside neither diminishes nor diffuses this momentum. The proposed Arts Plan for Northside is specifically and exclusively layered into the larger Northside Redevelopment Master Plan. Its goal is to influence cohesion and answer the question, “Who are we when we are here?”
The Plan summarizes the opinions of Northside residents for how to genuinely embed the arts in daily life and rituals by nurturing existing social and physical assets to bring art and design into the foreground of how this community can be experienced. It supports authentic attributes, memory, tradition, and meaning of place via tangible and intangible connections. The Plan de-emphasizes free-standing works of art in favor of highlighting how the arts can be seamlessly incorporated into the redevelopment.