Community Art: Project Row Houses - Week 9

projectrowhouses.org

• "the mission of Project Row Houses is to transform community through the celebration of art and African-American history and culture"
• "Since our inception, PRH’s campus has grown from the original block and a half to six blocks, and from 22 houses to 40 properties; including twelve artist exhibition and/or residency spaces, seven houses for young mothers, artist residencies, office spaces, a community gallery, a park, low-income residential and commercial spaces."
• work was inspired not only by Beuys' social sculpture but also by artist Dr. John Biggers' principles of the creation of effective communities:
• Art and creativity should be viewed as an integral part of life, exemplified in African traditions wherein art is interwoven into the very fabric of life through rituals and ceremony activities.
• Quality education is defined through impartation of knowledge and wisdom – including understanding that is passed from generation to generation.
• Strong neighborhoods have social safety nets, woven by community to support community and to raise social responsibility
• Good and relevant architecture; meaning housing that should not only be well designed, but also make sense to preserve a community’s historic character.
• staff includes founder, executive director, development manager, education manager, public arts manager, Young Mothers program manager, and an administrative assistant, as well as volunteers
• publicizes visiting hours
• showcases history of buildings within their decription
• hosts after-school and summer programs for school-aged children
• cost is dependent on a sliding-scale based on household income
• Young Mothers Program serves single mothers 18-26 
• mothers must be enrolled in school, have at least a part-time job, and attend program events/counseling sessions/etc.
• program focuses on development in the areas of academic excellence, career development, financial security, parental responsibility, and social/spiritual awareness
• serves up to 5 women at a time; so far program has supported 50 "graduates" who have proven to be successful after their stay
• Row Houses Community Development Corporation - sister program
• focus on providing low-income rental housing as well as opportunities for home-ownership for low-income individuals
• offers opportunities for summer studios to college-attending artists interested in community-based art
• street-scaping effort to install public artworks around campus
• hosts artist and community talks
• formed partnerships with many organizations, mostly local, such as the Architecture department at Rice

"Activism as Art: Shotgun Shacks Saved through Art-based Revitalization" (Sholette, 2010)

• art that helps the community and directly engages in it rather than art that is about the community--idea of Beuys' social sculpture
• plan was conceived as an effort to save the historical (at least within the community) "shotgun shacks" from demolition; also wanted to help the people currently living within them to stay within their community
• need for artistic component to prove to community that they were more than slumlords, prove that they truly care
• Project Row Houses includes a residential program for young mothers and artist-in-residence programs
• funding that goes directly into a community rather than into a medial institution trying to serve the community can result in greater ripple effects (especially economically) throughout the community
• finds ways to enhance the economic structures around the community: developed more housing in the area surrounding PRH, but this is more to preserve the community and "control" its economic destiny
• rent prices on new homes are still kept low, so it's not a money-making venture for the program
• want to mix middle-income people into the area to bring in more education/more dollars--but important to retain the mix rather than just bring bigger payers into the community 
• Lowe doesn't want to get involved in actual policy because he feels that he serves better as an artist

"Project Row Houses: Social Scultpure in Practice" Video (Current TV, 2008)

• high school student challenged Lowe to create a solution to the issues his art was raising (the people in these communities already knew the issues)
• create art with practical implications
• artists and young people began to "sculpt" the mostly abandoned area of the Third Ward; slowly more and more people became involved in helping to clean and "program" the site
• wanted art and artists to be at the core of what they were doing
• goals:
• understand and elevate the architecture
• engage art and artists
• focus on education as something that could contribute to improving the quality of life in this community
• create a social safety net
• future goal: economic development

"Project Row Houses" (Roeck, 2010)

• Lowe hoped that the renovated houses would instill a pride in the community
• began as a non-profit--was able to get funding because they were promoting the arts, saving historic structures, encouraging community development, and addressing social problems
• idea of treating the community as an art project
• mentions that while many people feel that PRH gives them a fresh start and can enable them to be successful, it's not transformative for everyone
• Lowe suggests that this is understandable as the work of social art is never done
• PRH has year-round arts programming from workshops to openings to festivals
• PRH helped the community to avoid the gentrification that some nearby neighborhoods were experiencing

Project Row Houses (America's Most Livable Communities)

• goal: connect local artists with revitalization of the third ward community
• campus primarily serves low-income African Americans; several houses are set aside for artist residencies and some gallery space
• Artists Project uses teenagers to assist the artists and act as tour guides
• site attracts many people throughout Houston of various cultural, ethnic, and social backgrounds
• organization has grown into comprehensive community development group, with programs focus in the arts and culture, education, and historic and community preservation and revitalization
• PRH helps the community reconnect with its African American culture and history and resist the threat of gentrification

"Project Row Houses endeavor branches into laundromats" (Gray, 2009)

• campus has grown tremendously and now blurs into surrounding community
• in addition to homes, PRH has renovated historic spaces like the Eldorado Ballroom and taken in Victorian-era shotgun houses moved to their site when the original neighborhood was threatened
• questions if the artwork can be expanded to other areas of the city/country/world
• Lowe claims the key is for the artists to focus on the art and to bring in specialists or incubate new businesses for other ventures, such as work force development or counseling
• Laundromat as art: create a "Cookie Love's Wash 'n' Fold"--an actual nice, clean laundromat that celebrates the life of a real person (Cookie Love) part of the Third Ward

Interview: Rick Lowe on Designing Project Row Houses (Finkelpearl, 2001)

• large-scale art initiative tend not to originate within minority/underprivileged/underserved communities
• eight or so of the row homes are dedicated to art exhibitions
• claims that PRH addresses issues that art-as-urban-development projects tend not to address, like teenage mothers, school drop outs, etc
• Lowe wanted to create political art that was actually reaching the people it was relevant to--wanted to display his art outside of the gallery space
• felt need to focus his audience--focused on poor/working-class African Americans, because speaking to all the poor/working people was too difficult
• felt it was more effective to work with a focus
• didn't care so much about what the artist world thought of his projects so long as the community was pleased
• question of the line between art and propaganda 
• Lowe believes he can only make work reflecting issues that are relevant and meaningful to him; doesn't feel successful in making commissioned work
• commitment to doing long-term community projects rather than a hit-and-run 
• approached houses as if working on a sculpture
• got local arts museums and organizations to adopt houses--built partnerships to renovate houses more quickly and with more people
• brought together lots of people working side by side in the Third Ward
• at first many outsiders were volunteering, but then churches began to get more community members to volunteer as well
• there were many conflicting values among the people involved in the organization, which sometimes made it difficult to accomplish things
• ex: advisor didn't want someone from Planned Parenthood speaking to the young mothers because she was against abortion
• Lowe feels that his creativity within the project is over, but he is proud that he created a forum which can stand independently from himself; wants to step back once he feels the project is truly stable
• Lowe doesn't devalue 'museum' or 'gallery art,' he just doesn't feel like it's his calling as an artist

Interview: Assata Shakur on Living in Project Row Houses (Finkelpearl, 2001)

• Shakur was one of the first women to be a part of the young mothers program
• in the beginning, the mothers felt that they were somewhat on display and had a hard time navigating how to achieve privacy when they were living in a public art project
• project was initially quite strict and had multiple behavior requirements, though those restrictions became somewhat more lax in later years
• program provided day care for the children; idea was to provide women with all the resources they needed to essentially get on their feet and prepare them to be successful once they left the program
• created a total support system
• Shakur, after leaving the program, continued to volunteer with PRH; felt that she owed dedication to the program similar to that which they had given to her
• women supervising behavior/character/training classes was a psychologist who had grown up across the street and thus understood many of the issues these women were now facing
• Shakur comments on the communal nature of PRH and how it created an environment which caused people to build relationships with one another
• some artists began doing work related to the young mothers program; others allowed the young mothers to work with them as interns, giving them experience as artists or businesswomen 
• Shakur to Lowe: "I'm your art"
• PRH attracted people who wouldn't normally visit a museum or gallery; it presented art in a non-threatening way which had a connection with these people 
• brought something to the community rather than bringing the community to the museum

Questions/Comments

• What other examples of "social sculpture" like this exist?  
• Can/should all community art projects create social safety nets? 
• organization seems to have a strong focus on building partnerships with other community organizations
• receives lots of funding, mostly because of how multi-faceted the project is, it seems
• like the articles from last week, mentions that funding can have greater effects when it goes directly to the community rather than through some intermediary organization--but Project Row Houses does seem to be such an organization, just one with different functions than a museum
• interesting that the Economic Development organization is separate from the main organization but that the two do seem to work closely together
• Question of whether or not art is actually central to the success of this project--Lowe thought it was, but how is that changing the lives of the people in this community?
• Does it make a different that there is art within these houses rather than just renovating the houses themselves?  
• What social issues are involved when an artist treats a community as an art project? What are the positive/negative ramifications of that?
• the project does bring in specialists for programs not directly related to the artwork
• Could this project be transplanted to another place?  What are the qualifications for a project like this to succeed?
• Does Lowe's intended audience make this project seem exclusive to people not from the community?
• appears that it doesn't
• How can you achieve privacy for people living within a public art project?  Especially if they are considered to be part of the art?