This January Beth Takekawa, Executive Director of the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle, WA, attended the ArtPlace Creative Placemaking Summit 2013 in Miami Beach. ArtPlace caught up with her to find out what she learnt from the experience.

ARTPLACE: What did you learn from the summit and how will you apply those lessons to your project?

Takekawa: During one lunch break at the Summit, I was welcomed into a friendly Cincinnati bunch that held the Meetup sign of “Replication.” I posed The Wing’s challenge of being perceived as a replicable model, which I’ve never really understood why that’s an issue. After all we’ve created our model through learning from, being influenced by and even shamelessly copying other communities and organizations over many years. I wondered if it was due to our being Asian American culturally, and people don’t see themselves in us. That question was met with polite silence as it usually is.

But I appreciate the light shed by Eric Avner of Haile/US Bank Foundation. He advised that people should not replicate the product, they should replicate the vision. I thought that very insightful. I think it means that propagating the innovations requires getting better at sharing the overarching vision, assumptions and approaches, rather than the specific programs (the product). Thanks Eric!