Join Us as We Partner
for a Re-Imagined St. Louis
We aim to revitalize St. Louis communities through creative placemaking, integrating arts and culture to enhance the quality of life and foster vibrant, equitable neighborhoods by empowering communities through arts-driven development in collaboration with residents and neighborhoods, leveraging the power of arts and culture to:
Revitalize neighborhoods
Promote social cohesion and equity
Enhance economic opportunity
Improve environmental sustainability
Improve social and environmental determinants of health
Celebrate cultural identity
Your gift today will make a sustainable change
through creative placemaking in Marquette Park!
According to the National Endowment for the Arts: "Creative placemaking integrates arts, culture, and design activities into efforts that strengthen communities. Creative placemaking requires partnership across sectors, deeply engages the community, involves artists, designers and culture bearers, and helps to advance local economic, physical, and/or social change."
Our Creative Placemaking program addresses resident concerns in underserved communities, including crime and vacancy, traffic safety, environmental justice, and health concerns related to the environment and cultural identity.
Would you add your name to our list of partners today?
Your gift joins others to make a Marquette Park transformation possible. The historic Gravois-Jefferson community around Marquette Park is the most diverse in the city, with at least six different cultures represented there. More than 40% of the people living in those communities are young people.
Our creative placemaking projects will make the park usable even after rain, accessible, better shaded, and welcoming to people of all ages. The renovation of the Thomas Dunn Learning Center will provide a healthy space for successful learning programs, a community art studio, and a cooling/heating center for people who need it. The pictures below show early work along with plans for the re-imagined park. You'll also see previously finished projects.
Additional communities we're partnering with include Baden, neighborhoods along Delmar, Wells, Goodfellow, Walnut Park East, Walnut Park West, Peace Park in O'Fallon, MarkTwain, and Foristell in Missouri, as well as Edwardsville, Belleville, O'Fallon, and Troy in Illinois.
Even as we're addressing resident needs, our exhibitions and performances programming continues. Programming includes works by and for marginalized voices in St. Louis neighborhoods. Some recent examples:
- We have commissioned an installation at Grand and Lindell on St. Louis University property to commemorate the entrance to Mill Creek Valley.
- We are working with a local sculptor to create a memorial to Archer Alexander as part of the National Park Service's Underground Railroad: Road to Freedom project.
- With our National Endowment for the Arts Big Read Grant we addressed issues faced by the community of individuals with disabilities by creating book discussion groups around the book Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig. We also included an art exhibition with Artists First, an oral history project for voices of individuals with disabilities (see the video at the link above), and collaborated with the St. Louis Art Museum to hold tours that discuss artists and their disabilities.
The St. Louis Arts Chamber of Commerce is a Missouri-based 501(c)3 non-profit founded in 2018.
Join the effort and become a giving partner today!