With a vibrant creative economy in mind, the city of Rochester and Monroe County are looking for artists from underrepresented and underserved communities to serve on an Artist Engagement Team.
The team will work to develop and implement community engagement strategies for an arts and culture plan for Rochester and Monroe County. This will serve as the blueprint for investing in and improving the local creative ecosystem, officials say. The move supports the Rochester 2034 Comprehensive Plan, which identifies an arts and culture plan as one way to support, grow and sustain the creative economy.
“Those facing challenges in accessing community arts participation opportunities can help us remove those barriers,” says Mayor Malik Evans. “We’re searching for artists to help develop innovative outreach methods for creative people and arts supporters in Rochester with limited access to information about available and upcoming arts programs and initiatives.”
The city plans to use a $20,000 grant from the Rochester Area Community Foundation and funds from the city’s Percent for the Arts program. Each year, Rochester sets aside 1 percent of the total development costs of qualifying capital (infrastructure) projects to help fund public art in the community.
The funds will be used to contract with three to four artists who will assist the Project Team in developing an outreach plan and carrying out specific outreach and community engagement tactics. Typical work activities will include tracking participation, documenting feedback, and attending regular meetings, officials say.
“Artists and arts and cultural institutions drive our creative economy; they make Rochester and Monroe County a more active and vibrant community. As we build our Arts and Culture Plan, it is imperative that we engage the very artists whose work allows us to brand ourselves a community of the arts,” says Monroe County Executive Adam Bello. “I am grateful to the Rochester Area Community Foundation for their generosity and partnership to fund artist participation and outreach as we build this plan.”
Interested artists can respond to the city’s Request for Qualifications. Artists with experience in community engagement or a passion for using their creative skills for community involvement are encouraged to apply, officials say. The call for artists, who reside or have a studio in the city, includes all creative disciplines
A virtual information session will take place on Jan. 28. Applications are due by Feb. 4.
Smriti Jacob is Rochester Beacon managing editor. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected].
Where was this recognition of Rochester’s “vibrant creative economy” 10 years ago when the city, having received a $250,000 Mayor’s Institute on City Design grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, partnered with the Memorial Art Gallery who, in planning their Centennial Sculpture Park, stiffed the local artist community and handed $50,000 to an outsider, Tom “The Dog Killer” Otterness, to create what the MAG’s PR department called two “heroic figures”. The figures stand there today on the corner of University and Goodman.
For those unfamiliar with Tom’s work, in his 20s he obtained a stray dog from a New York City shelter, tied it up, shot it, and filmed it’s death throes, presenting his work of “art” to the world as the “Shot Dog Film”. Decades later, after the story of the film resurfaced causing other groups (but not the MAG!) to cancel his commissions in disgust, Tom decided to apologize for his youthful indiscretion. Of course by then it was too late to apologize to the dog.
I’m curious: would creative tattoo artists be considered?