While some people may think of art as a solitary, inwardly reflective activity, this could not be further from the truth. Public art projects like murals and other installations can create lots of visual interest in communities and encourage residents and visitors to engage with a city’s physical space. Community events based around art, such as gallery exhibitions and music festivals, can help cities brand themselves as fun and engaging places to live. There are lots of inventive ways to utilize art in community-building. Here is one that may generate some inspiration.
In June of 2019, nurse practitioner Angie Jones opened Art House in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Art House is an art gallery and event space located in Jonesboro’s downtown area. Art House allows local artists (both professional and hobbyist) to display their art for purchase and collects a small fee for display if the art is sold. This business model makes Art House unique as a community-building tool, because it isn’t often that art galleries make an effort to be so inclusive about what is displayed. Art House encourages participation in arts-based activities because it allows every member of the community that has a passion for art to display their creations.
Art House hosts art shows every month, and its come-one-come-all approach to exhibition seems to be bringing community members together; Art House’s “Event Gallery” page on their website features smiling Jonesboro citizens perusing the gallery space in groups and posing with art they have created or purchased.
Beyond exhibiting local art, Art House hosts classes regularly, teaching community members a variety of artistic mediums. The gallery has even taken its work outside of its physical space, spearheading the creation of a “selfie wall.” Art House helped recruit five local artists to create a collection of small murals in downtown Jonesboro. Perhaps more impressively, this project was completed in August of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it helped encourage citizens to interact with the downtown space on social media by taking pictures of themselves posing in front of the murals.
Art House represents only one model of using art as a community-building tool. Luckily, there are endless possibilities for communities to take advantage of the way art brings people together. How can your community incorporate art into its social fabric?
By Greta Hacker