Map: Nations Online Project
Fergus Falls didn’t need much money from the National Endowment for the Arts to create both economic benefits and constructive conversation across the political divide.
As Victoria Stapley-Brown wrote recently at the Art Newspaper, the arts benefit communities in many ways, and in rural America, a little funding can go a long way.
“A grant of $25,000 is not even a drop in the bucket of the US federal government’s spending, around $3.5 trillion per year. But it was able to effect visible change in Fergus Falls, a small rural community in Minnesota with a population of 13,000, which received $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the government agency that funds art and culture across every congressional district in the nation, in 2011. …
“With the $25,000 NEA grant, the St Paul, Minnesota-based arts non-profit, Springboard for the Arts, which calls itself ‘an economic and community development organization for artists and by artists,’ opened an office in Fergus Falls and was able to launch a multi-year cultural project. Since 2011, the organisation has been given a total of $145,000 in NEA grants — but has also received over $1.2m in funding from private donors, such as the McKnight Foundation. …
“The project explores ‘how artists can be a part of rural economies and rural communities,’ … to encourage young people to stay in the town and see it as a viable place to make a living and raise their families …
“Artists from other communities working across all media, from the visual arts to music to film-making, have also come to Fergus Falls for the Hinge Arts Residency, a programme that has hosted 45 artists for one to three months. These artists live in apartments on the property of the formerly disused hospital complex, which has spurred a local conversation about preservation and the use of historic buildings in the town, and local politics. …
“The artists-in-residence have carried out their own work during their residencies, which often involve the local community, such as the folk and punk musician Shannon Murray’s research into music and Minnesota working class history. They have also shown work in empty storefronts and organised community art projects, such as casting architectural elements of disused buildings, and giving art classes to local children.” More here.
Hat Tip: Arts Journal.
Photo: Rick Abbott
Kirkbride Art & History Weekend at the former Fergus Falls State Hospital Complex, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
