When I was awarded a Practicing Artist Scholarship to attend this year’s Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in the Twin Cities, I was eager to find myself surrounded by other fervent promoters of the arts in individual localities from around our nation. I did find impassioned people, but I also found that an inner conflict of mine has deepened: As an artist, I’m not sure that I should be involved in this effort to fund and execute public art. This notion has danced in and out of my mind for the last few years, particularly regarding the role of artists and public art on the negative effects of gentrification and the affordable housing crisis. During the conference, I felt the tension between my excitement about increased federal spending on the arts and my skepticism that those monies will be used on careful, conscientious policymaking that allows for neighborhood improvement without giving in to the seemingly ubiquitous phenomenon of displacement. Rather than answers, I have come away with more questions. How is public art involved, whether inadvertently or directly, in the pushing out of low-income residents, minoritized groups, and even artists themselves? And how are artists implicated in this process?
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