arts Archives - Transportation For America

The Scenic Route is getting a makeover

Back in early 2016, we launched the Scenic Route website, a new interactive guide to help transportation professionals collaborate with artists and to introduce creative placemaking to transportation planners, public works agencies, and local elected officials. This guide was an important touchstone, but the evolutions in this field and the notable projects that have happened since its launch have left it in need of an update, which we’re pleased to announce is on the way.

Do you have a project you’d like to see included in the new Scenic Route?
Tell us about it here.

The Scenic Route has inspired communities across the county to embed artists into transportation projects through stories like the Green Line in the Twin Cities, where art was integrated into the entire light rail construction process, or transit planning effort in Portland, OR, where artists played a crucial role in community engagement. As part of the Scenic Route’s makeover, we will be updating case studies, adding new resources, and featuring new projects, to reflect the proliferation of artist/transportation agency partnerships and artist-in-residence programs, and to share what has been accomplished over the past few years with the projects we previously featured. Here’s what you can expect:

New resources. In some ways, the Scenic Route launched just as our arts and culture work was really getting off the ground in 2015 and 2016. But Transportation for America’s arts and culture team has been busy in the last few years surveying the state of creative placemaking, training cities and artists to improve transportation projects, launching the first ever artists-in-residence program at State DOTs, and most recently working with communities to creatively address COVID challenges. We’ll be adding new resources that stemmed from those projects and can help communities looking to do similar work.

Updates to flagship case studies included in the first iteration of the website. Oftentimes a creative placemaking project’s impact isn’t realized right away but rather develops in the years following implementation. That’s why we’re following up with some of our favorite projects featured in the guide to see how they have benefited communities in recent years.

A new website organization. The new website will be reorganized to better help you find what you’re looking for.

And most importantly, we want to feature work that you think is important. Have you been a part of a project, or are you familiar with a project that should be featured on the Scenic Route? We’re primarily interested in transportation projects in which artists have played a key role in solving a transportation challenge. Let us know by filling out this form.

We look forward to releasing a new and improved Scenic Route in March. Stay tuned!

Looking back on Minnesota and Washington State DOTs’ inaugural artists-in-residence

Last week, we brought together the artists and agency staff involved in the nation’s first ever artists-in-residence at state departments of transportation to reflect on the inaugural year of the program. Speakers shared their reflections on the residencies, how they coped with the current pandemic, lessons learned, and plans for the future of these novel programs.

Image of the corner of a room with numerous photos taped to the walls. In the foreground is a table with two chairs. — WSDOT AiRs Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome transformed their office space at WSDOT headquarters to be a gathering space, as well as a gallery featuring different aspects of WSDOT’s work. Photo credit: Mary Welcome.

You can find the webinar slides here and the recording below.

The decades-old concept of integrating art within government has increased in popularity in the last couple of years as cities created a number of artist-in-residencies within their departments of planning, parks and recreation, transportation and more, as Ben Stone, director of arts & culture at Transportation for America (T4America), shared last week. But it had never been done at the state level.

It was clear to T4America that having an artist work within a state department of transportation could help the state better accomplish its goals and result in transportation projects that are more supported and beloved. This idea started to crystallize toward the end of 2018 when T4America approached MNDOT and WSDOT about hosting an artist in their respective agencies. T4America helped both agencies fundraise and design their programs, and since the launch in the summer of 2019 has managed the programs and hired the artists.

What made these residencies unique is that they not only were the first programs to occur at state departments of transportation, but at any agency at the state level.

In both the MnDOT and WSDOT AiRs, the intent was to bring a creative approach to advancing the agencies’ goals of improving safety, reducing congestion, promoting economic vitality, supporting multimodal transportation systems, and creating healthier communities.

WSDOT’s artist in residence

Artists Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome, the artists handpicked for the Washington residency, exceeded the expectations of the WSDOT staff, according to Allison Camden, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Multimodal Development and Delivery at WSDOT. It was “heartening and cathartic for a lot of our staff to see Mary and Kelly capture our challenges so clearly, with ideas on how to address them,” she said. From the beginning Secretary Roger Millar considered it to be an exciting opportunity to bring a fresh perspective to the challenges of a transportation agency.

“People felt heard. They felt understood. And they felt valued. If I could do anything differently, it would have been to set up a two-year program.”
– Allison Camden, Deputy Assistant Secretary Multimodal Development and Delivery, WSDOT

Image of four people overlooking a flat landscape scene in Washington State. — *Photo credit: Mary Welcome.*

Gregory and Welcome’s approach included several months of listening and intentionally “getting lost in the weeds with WSDOT.” If you’re wondering what that actually looked like, they tracked it. They read exactly 69 different reports from different folks in the agency, interviewed 147 different people, traveled over 161 hours, conducted 600 hours of on site work and 170 hours of off-site research, traveled 2978 lane miles on the road and 1830 rail miles, handwrote 190 pages of interview notes, and attended 18 different public legislative hearings.

From their research, they identified a number of themes that they used to shape their numerous final products. Those final products included transforming their office space at WSDOT headquarters into a gallery and gathering space, creating a bumper sticker campaign and DOT-specific conversation cards, as well as writing and printing a newspaper on WSDOT’s maintenance efforts.

Image of the top of a table that has a black tablecloth. On top of the tablecloth is a variety of photos and bumperstickers that read "State of Good Repair", "Ride the damn bus!", and "Maintenance is Sexy". — *Photo credit: Mary Welcome*

Image of person sitting on the grass and holding up a newspaper. — *Image credit: Mart Welcome*

Some of these products will be available for purchase from this publisher in early 2021.

“Understanding the people’s dynamic of a place means we can build systems for nurturing, for challenging, for listening, and for imaginative magical thinking.”
– Kelly Gregory, Artist-in-residence, WSDOT

MnDOT’s artist in residence

Jessica Oh, the Highway Sponsorship Program Director at MnDOT described how well the AiR program—which MnDOT calls their Community Vitality Fellowship—lines up with MnDOT’s values and strategic plans of acknowledging the importance of place; uplifting community voices and assets; and strengthening relationships with a wide range of stakeholders.

This program has involved deep thinking on the following ideas:

How to build innovative and different partnerships—with artists, arts and culture organizations, and more—to improve transportation outcomes;
How to embrace innovation, flexibility and creativity;
How to be responsive to communities, elevate their voices, and elevate the cultural values within a community in the transportation system;
And how to address the impact of transportation facilities.

Similar to Gregory and Welcome, artist Marcus Young 楊墨 was hand selected by MnDOT and SGA and started his residency by listening to staff and their priorities. Based on that, he identified just how important it would be that his projects provide space for staff to be their whole selves, to be creative, to gather in new ways, and most importantly bring more humanity to their work and transportation as a whole.

Image of a quote on a purple background that reads "I am a granddaughter of one of the porters who helped establish the Rondo community. I have a perplexing space that I live in, working for MnDOT and acknowledging the fact that it tore up a community that I will never get to know. Some things you just can’t mend. Some wounds are so deep that the scar tissue is within. Even if you create a land bridge, you still have the scar of the depth of this freeway that has torn apart a community and the social insight of the people." – MnDOT Staff Member — *A reflection from a MnDOT staffer that came about as part of Young’s work on land acknowledgment at MnDOT. Image courtesy of Marcus Young 楊墨.*

This led to Young focusing his time on the creation of three projects:

The Land Acknowledgement Confluence room, a repurposed conference room where staff will be able to gather, be creative, and explore new everyday cultural practices of land acknowledgment. Through his residency Young has had numerous conversations on land acknowledgement, he hopes that this room can help ensure those conversations continue in the future. He remarked that it will not only be a place, but it will be “a placeholder so that we can all practice acknowledging land in better ways. And by acknowledging land in better ways, we acknowledge history. We acknowledge our whole selves in different ways.”

What is a land acknowledgment? “An Indigenous Land or Territorial Acknowledgement is a statement that recognizes the Indigenous peoples who have been dispossessed from the homelands and territories upon which an institution was built and currently occupies and operates in.” Learn more at http://landacknowledgements.org/

Image of a rending of a newly designed conference room with several plants, armchairs, and purple map of indigenous land on the left wall. — *A rendering of the future “Land Acknowledgment Confluence Room” which will be created at MnDOT’s headquarters in 2021. Image courtesy of Marcus Young 楊墨.*

A Sense of Place Convening that would bring 90 MnDOT leaders together for an intensive day-long event. As part of this convening, Young would use creative exercises and the Open Space Technology method to help participants generate ideas on how MnDOT can elevate placemaking and placekeeping within its work on livability, quality of life, public engagement, equity, economic development, and partnership with communities. This was fully planned, but unfortunately had to be rescheduled due to COVID-19.
A Creative Conversations discussion series tackling topics such as equity, land acknowledgment, sustainability, and imagining what’s possible during this period of great change.

Be it converting unassuming conference rooms or holding space for conversations in unique ways, Young’s overarching message is that the potential of art is hidden everywhere, and you don’t necessarily need to be a professional artist to unearth it:

“If you create a space where we can gather and really work on things together, [you realize] that the potential of art is hidden not only everywhere, but within everyone.”
– Marcus Young, Artist-in-residence, MnDOT

What’s next?

Stay tuned for more resources from Smart Growth America and T4America on state DOT AiRs. We’ll be releasing new resources on this topic in early 2021 and providing updates as MnDOT enters year two of its program. You can also sign up for arts and culture-specific updates from us here.

If you are interested in starting up an AiR at your department of transportation or transit agency, we’d love to hear about it! You can reach Ben Stone, our Director of arts & culture at bstone@smartgrowthamerica.org.

Get to know Washington state’s new artists-in-residence

We announced earlier today that Kelly Gregory and Mary Welcome have been selected to serve as artists-in-residence with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) in a new fellowship program created by ArtPlace America and T4America, bringing a dose of creativity to the statewide transportation agency. Get to know this team of two artists with this brief Q&A.

WSDOT is launching the country’s first statewide artist-in-residence program, embedding this team of two artists within the agency for a year starting later this summer. Kelly Gregory (left, above photo) and Mary Welcome (right) will help develop new ways to achieve WSDOT’s goals through a first-of-its-kind program. They took a few minutes to answer a few questions from Ben Stone, the director of arts and culture for Smart Growth America.

What was it about the WSDOT artist residency that inspired you both to apply? Now that you’ve been selected, what excites you most about the residency?

As artists and activists, we have a history of working in collaboration with non-arts communities and building relational bridges between fun and function. We are excited for the opportunity to shape what a statewide artist-in-residence can look like on a national level because we really believe in the power of artists to bring fresh perspectives and strengthen community connections. As a nationally recognized transportation agency, WSDOT addresses the needs of every resident and visitor of the state and we are excited to help build relationships with communities across the entire state. What an incredible opportunity—to study the communities of Washington based on how we move around.

While you’ll have a lot of time to formulate project ideas once the residency starts, what are your initial thoughts on how you’ll approach the residency?

We’re especially interested in the statewide services and the many different people (from road crews to planners) and places (both rural and urban) that make up the WSDOT community. We think some of the best outreach is done on a conversational level, spending intentional time with folks outside of formal meetings and work hours (riding in a snow plow! hanging with the captain of a ferry!). During this residency we hope to develop meaningful, equitable, and impactful ideas into a long standing project that WSDOT can take ownership of in order to continue to be national leaders in the transportation sector.

Tell us about one of your recent projects that you feel is relevant to the residency.

Our collective Homeboat has spent the past three years working with the town of St. James, Minnesota with funding from an ArtPlace America grant. Using an extensive community research process, we collaborated with city employees and local leaders to create a Community Advocate Program that equips community members to connect neighbors, family members, and friends to critical resources, information, and opportunities. We also collaborated with the St. James community on a Healthy Housing Initiative that developed strategies for improving options for affordable, safe, housing to neighbors.

This kind of work is really relational, necessitating a lot of listening and grappling with the complex layers of what makes up a community in order to identify invisible barriers. We appreciate the added challenge of problem solving within our creative practice, but we’re also pretty good at keeping it fun for everyone involved.

In our Arts, Culture, and Transportation Field Scan, we profiled seven roles that artists play in solving transportation challenges, from generating creative solutions to healing wounds and divisions. How would you describe your roles as artists working on transportation projects and how to do these roles match up with or expand beyond those seven roles?

The seven roles profiled are focused on equity—from planning and construction to collaboration and engagement. Equity is at the core of our work, and manifests in our practices by working toward equal access, collaborating with the spirit of a place, building hyperlocal, designing for shared stewardship, moving at the pace of trust, and including all community voices. It is critical that all of our transportation systems are equitable, safe, and inclusive for all people from rural to urban places.

How do our transportation systems shape the places we inhabit or experience? We feel especially close to role number five: Fostering Local Ownership. Local stewardship of valuable shared resources, like our streets, that serve as the country’s connective tissue, are critical to more equitable, connected communities.

What kind of professional or personal experiences do you have in Washington state? What lessons from your work outside of Washington do you hope to bring to the residency at WSDOT?

Mary is based in Palouse—a small rural town on the eastern edge of the state that is inaccessible by any type of public transportation and sits at the intersection of three small highways. She cares deeply about cultural equity in the state of Washington. Her projects seek to build systems of exchange across the rural-urban continuum and she’s excited to collaborate with an agency that recognizes—and also has to effectively serve—the entire state. WSDOT is more than the sum of its parts. The agency is a living network of people and place. She brings a keen and curious place-based practice, a deep affection for the hinterland, and extensive experience as a long-haul cross-country driver who has never taken the same way twice.

Kelly has long been an advocate for alternative transportation. She has worked on a number of transportation related initiatives throughout the last decade. With the urban design firm Gehl, Kelly helped create the National Street Service, a participatory social movement to transform America’s streets into enjoyable and fulfilling places for all people. She also co-founded Post-Car Adventuring—a micro-publisher which creates guidebooks for outdoor adventure using public transport and bicycles. She loves long train travel and rides her bike everywhere.

Full artist and team bios

Mary Welcome (Palouse, WA) is a multidisciplinary cultural worker collaborating with complex and often under-represented rural communities. As an artist-activist, her projects are rooted in community engagement and the development of intersectional programming to address hyper-local issues of equity, cultural advocacy, inclusivity, visibility, and imagination. She collaborates with local schools, city councils, civic groups, youth, summer camps, libraries, neighbors, and friends to build cooperative environments that encourage civic engagement, radical education, and community progress. She believes in small towns, long winters, optimists, parades, and talking about feelings. www.bangbangboomerang.com

Kelly Gregory is an itinerant social architect based on the Pacific coast. Her practice is rooted in socially-engaged work: affordable housing projects, exhibitions, reimagining spaces of incarceration, democratic public space, and in-depth community-driven research. Her projects fold current communities and future solutions into functional, beautiful spaces for collaboration and engagement. www.rovingstudio.com

As a team, with a multi-disciplinary backgrounds in arts, outreach, architecture, and activism, they listen with communities and imagine new solutions in collaboration with neighbors.

Minnesota Department of Transportation to host a Community Vitality Fellow to advance transportation goals

Minnesota Department of Transportation joins Smart Growth America’s artist-in-residence program, by hosting a Community Vitality Fellow to creatively meet the agency’s goals of promoting economic vitality, improving safety, supporting multimodal transportation systems and creating healthier communities.

A Community Vitality Fellow will spend a year working with the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) to help develop new ways to achieve agency goals through a program created by ArtPlace America and Transportation for America, a program of Smart Growth America. MnDOT will be among the first state transportation agencies in the country to participate in the artist-in-residence program by hosting a Community Vitality Fellowship position.

Applications are now open for artists interested in the year-long Fellowship position, which will be located within the St. Paul Office of MnDOT. The call for artists and application can be found here: https://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/program/arts-culture/mndot-air

Learn More & Apply Here

Have questions? Watch a recording of our recent webinar about the program.

Recognized as a tool for pioneering innovative and creative solutions, artist-in-residence programs have been piloted across the nation in municipal governmental agencies, including the cities of Los Angeles and Seattle, but never before at a statewide agency. In Fergus Falls, Minnesota, artists-in-residence have increased cultural programming to support community development. In Lanesboro, MN, the artists-in-residence have used art as a catalyst for deeper community engagement. In Minneapolis, artists-in-residence have used theatre to help the city’s Regulatory Services Department staff develop more empathetic policies and better relate to their constituents, while St Paul’s artists-in-residence have worked to make community meetings more creative, fun, and productive.

Several organizations collaborated on the Community Vitality Fellowship position, including Smart Growth America, ArtPlace America and MnDOT. Transportation for America (T4A) will administer both the funds and the overall program, including providing staff and consulting assistance. The State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI) will also provide staff support. Both T4A and SSTI are programs of Smart Growth America. MnDOT will supply in-kind contributions consisting of work space for the selected Fellow and staff time for agency workers to collaborate on the groundbreaking new program.

“Artists can provide fresh approaches and new ways of doing things, interpret complex processes, and provide unique perspectives for existing programs,” said Ben Stone, Smart Growth America’s director of arts & culture. “While a handful of cities have embedded artists in various departments over the years, MnDOT will be the second statewide agency to embark on such a program. We’re excited to be a part of helping Minnesota harness arts and creativity to create better supported and more beloved transportation projects that help accomplish the state’s goals.” Minnesota will join Washington State DOT in joining the artist-in-residence program with Smart Growth America by hosting a Community Vitality Fellow.

Why employ a Community Vitality Fellow?

MnDOT is interested in creative ways of engaging communities and bringing in new partners to help solve problems in the delivery of efficient and dependable transportation systems. Transportation infrastructure that reflects the assets and distinct character of communities will enhance economic vitality and community development efforts across the state.

What will the Community Vitality Fellow do?

The Fellowship will run for one year with rotations through MnDOT’s core divisions to gain knowledge on the agency’s operations, priorities and challenges. The Fellow will then propose process improvements to address MnDOT’s overarching goals while improving community engagement, supporting safe places to walk and bike and enhancing equity in the planning, building, operations and maintenance of transportation infrastructure. The Fellow will develop processes and procedures to further evaluate and integrate elements that elevate the unique character of each community within the transportation system.

Cities across the country have engaged fellowships and artists-in-residences to support their efforts. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s artists-in-residence have installed interactive artistic elements to bus shelters, taught storytelling skills to the DOT staff to help them better communicate their projects to the public, and served as a bridge between transportation advocates and DOT staff.

“We are delighted to support the establishment of a Community Vitality Fellowship to the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Embedding artists in state government can transform the way transportation challenges are solved,” said Sarah Calderon, ArtPlace America’s Managing Director. “MnDOT will establish a valuable Fellowship model for how artists can contribute toward the planning, creation and utilization of safe, sustainable and integrated multimodal transportation system and share results with state departments of transportation across the county.”

The Fellow will be based in MnDOT’s headquarters in St Paul, but may also work from one of MnDOT’s district offices in greater Minnesota for part of the Fellowship.

CONTACT: Ben Stone, bstone@smartgrowthamerica.org / 410.370.3843 and Jessica Oh, jessica.oh@state.mn.us /651-366-4939.

Equal Opportunity Employment

Equal opportunity and having a diverse staff are fundamental principles at Transportation for America. Employment and promotional opportunities are based upon individual capabilities and qualifications without regard to race, color, religion, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation/preference, age, national origin, marital status, citizenship, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic as established under law.

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Transportation for America is an alliance of elected, business, and civic leaders from communities across the country, united to ensure that states and the federal government step up to invest in smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions — because these are the investments that hold the key to our future economic prosperity. T4America is a program of Smart Growth America. www.t4america.org

The State Smart Transportation Initiative promotes transportation practices that advance environmental sustainability and equitable economic development, while maintaining high standards of governmental efficiency and transparency. It is jointly operated by the University of Wisconsin and Smart Growth America.

ArtPlace America is a ten-year collaboration among a number of foundations, federal agencies, and financial institutions. We began our work as an organization in 2011, and will finish in 2020. Our mission is to position arts and culture as a core sector of community planning and development.

Minnesota Department of Transportation oversees transportation by all modes, including land, water, air, rail, transit, walking and bicycling. The agency is responsible for maintaining, building and operating the state highway system to ensure a safe, accessible, efficient and reliable transportation system that connects people to destinations and markets throughout the state, regionally and around the world.