By Sherry Dobbin

Update
As we cross the one year threshold of support from ArtPlace America, we wanted to take stock of what it means on the ground to create a field. At the ArtPlace Summit in March, Jamie Bennett announced the ambition to formalize creative placemaking as a “field.” We want to deconstruct what we have subconsciously been doing to lay the foundation for this field through strategic messaging and experimentation in programming. With ArtPlace’s support, we can reconstruct a narrative that hopefully provides both the theoretical construct and practices to strengthen this newly-claimed field.

ArtPlace’s support has been crucial in formalizing our mission whilst simultaneously encouraging experimentation in our programming—we have presented twice as many projects in the first six months of 2014 than the same period in 2013. While at the time of receiving the award, we had enough credibility to gain trust from the arts and urban revitalization sectors, it was necessary to grow the program to be more than just a local series of interventions. This has resulted in the development and articulation of a formal strategic mission and core values that have empowered our program, partners, artists and advisors and made more clear for us and others our role within the public art field. Linked to that has been a reworking and redesign of our website to more effectively communicate that mission and values. As our program has become better known, articulating our purpose, intent and criteria has become ever more important.

We have also been active in conferences, panels and broader partnership roles that enable our knowledge-sharing (and receiving) at an exponentially greater level. However, because creative placemaking is still a developing field in the United States, it is critical that Times Square Transformation remains transparent and acknowledges our challenges as well as accomplishments, and that we acknowledge risks and failures that grow from our being an experimental test-bed. With 350,000 people in Times Square every day, we are not going to lose our general audience, and therefore we can serve as a valuable resource for learning as we can take a few more risks than struggling districts.

Challenges
For this post, I want to focus on the details of May’s program in particular. Whilst the diversity of projects really generated strong recognition of the program, this exceptional concentration of activities truly should have been prepared with the resources of a mini-festival. Though they arose at the same time, we seized the opportunity to carry out projects and partnerships that we’ve long wanted to pursue. However, our small team of three was stretched thin with projects ranging across visual art presentations, architectural tours, film screenings, outdoor installations and an overnight theater piece in a vacant space (in addition to our regular monthly program showing video art on massive billboards). Our events and operations staff and public relations team enabled us in every way possible, but there was no denying that the preparation for that mass of activity pressured everyone’s learning curves. When doing something new (whether for you or your organization), accept that you cannot predict what you do not know or haven’t done before. No one is in this field to get rich, we must search for ways to ensure our teams can enjoy the process, absorb the learning lessons, and feel proud to have survived it.

No one person or team has the diverse expertise to work across all of these areas. Building mutually beneficial partnerships can save resources, encourage efficiency and broaden and elevate the disciplines your organization can take on. However, partnerships also require sophisticated conversations and comprehension. Nothing is ‘turn-key.’ This doesn’t mean you should shy away from these challenges, but it does mean you should calculate additional time for learning during the process. For example, when working to show Dream of the Red Chamber in the vacant basement of the Brill Building, we learned about many challenges we hadn’t encountered before—from Temporary Public Assembly permits and expediting services to placing port-a-pottys in basements, to staff needed for overnight events and how many times the careful art of diplomacy needs to be accessed. When you embark on new ventures or models, make sure that the contingency budget and time allocation is greater than standard.

Recent Wins
May’s program included three new, large initiatives across architecture, visual arts and theater that demonstrated the creativity of Times Square on many platforms.

• NYCxDESIGN – Originally known as Design Week, this takeover of design-minded exploration of New York City has experienced such popular demand, it now lasts 12 days. We wanted to participate in NYCxDESIGN to challenge perceptions that the district’s relationship with international corporate chains may restrict its design creativity. We invited three creative partners into Times Square to investigate design through interpretation, discourse and play:
  • Accommodating Design, a tour led in partnership with Open House New York of artfully-designed hotels. Partners, designers and architects of citizenM New York, Paramount Hotel, and Hyatt Times Square led tour participants through their efforts to integrate high-end art and innovative design into every aspect of the hotels.
  • Outside In, a curated film screening and panel discussion of design in the urban public realm, exploring the links between environment, sensory experience and well-being. The event, presented in collaboration with Van Alen Institute to mark the end of their Elsewhere spring event series, was held at The Duke on 42nd Street.

Street Theater by Bade, Stageberg and Cox. photo by Adrian Wilson for @TSqArts[/caption]

• Street Theater, an experimental installation of reclaimed chairs found on the streets of New York City, presented in partnership with architecture firm Bade, Stageberg and Cox. The chairs, given new life with a coat of taxi-cab yellow paint, were arranged in 7 rows of 7 to mimic theater seating from which the public was invited to watch the stage of Times Square. The rearrangement of the chairs throughout the course of the day became a performance about the ways in which people use public space and shape it to suit their needs.
• Dream of the Red Chamber – This ‘performance for a sleeping audience’ created by Jim Findlay brought large-scale immersive theater into a vacant space: the historic Brill Building, which once housed the Colony Music store and was home to some of the greatest songwriters. Over two years in the works, the piece reached more and broader audiences at our free showings in Times Square than the typical self-selecting arts audience that attended prior showings. And while we have worked in vacant sites before, this was the most ambitious intervention yet—requiring complex permitting and all of the demands to make a space up to code. The property owner took a risk in showing arts programming, but it paid off—the production was featured in The New York Times on the front page of the Saturday Arts Section and lauded in ArtForum. Through the risk and excitement of the creative and production processes, our BID was able to form a valuable relationship with a new property owner who will be a key stakeholder in years to come.
• PULSE, New York City – We brought our program outside the district and participated in our first art fair. As a result of the fourth year of working with Cuban Artists Fund, we presented the maquettes and process pieces of Arles del Rio’s Nearness that will be installed across Times Square’s outdoor plazas in July and August 2014. As a part of our knowledge-sharing efforts, we led a roundtable discussion during the fair with artists, curators and gallerists about curating in the public realm. We engaged arts audiences outside of Times Square to generate advance interest for the summer showing of Nearness and the Times Square Arts program overall.

Insight/Provocation
In the midst of all this programming, we participated in formal knowledge-sharing to further the respect and acknowledgement of our field.

It was a great privilege to be invited onto the panel ‘Priorities for the Public Realm’ as part of the Municipal Arts Society’s local forum ‘Ideas for a New Administration,’ alongside key individuals like NYC Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg. The inclusion of our program signaled that arts merited a seat at the table. The sustainability of arts and culture in public spaces is as important as the invaluable work of agencies like Transportation and Parks & Recreation. Though we operate in a commercially successful district, our arts program plays a critical role in shaping the public realm and reaching new audiences. We advocated for continued support for innovation beyond times of crisis, as the artist’s role in exploring the identity of a place is vital regardless of its economic success.

Calculated risk is an exciting venture – for its process as well as its results. The approaches and discoveries that we make, we try to share. We are fortunate to have the advantage of our unique venue’s reputation. As Times Square’s visibility may be what gets us invited onto panels or conferences more frequently, we want to share our obstacles and learning lessons, as places of all sizes can find relevance in these conversations. How we, and our peers in other cities, craft efficient partnerships and capitalize on our existing resources supports our public platforms for ambitious artists and artistic assets. By being ambitious, we are all shaping a new norm, and hopefully making it easier for others to take risks in their public realms. Calculated risk and generosity is how we build a field together.