PLACE Alliance – England’s link group for ‘place-related’ interests, of which IHBC is a member – has released a new manifesto called ‘Artists & the Arts in Placemaking’, calling for the importance of culture in placemaking to be recognised and no longer seen as ‘an optional extra’, and the inclusion of public art and the arts in local and neighbourhood plans.
The PLACE Alliance writes:
We Believe…..
- The consideration of culture through the public arts should be seen as a joyful obligation that is fundamental, not ornamental, to every significant initiative impacting the public realm.
- The public arts have the potential to help regenerate and revitalise all of our urban spaces, towns, and parks, and to play a vital role in stimulating a successful people-centred economy in the service of a democratic society.
- Artists can contribute creative thinking, design and placemaking skills; help engage people of all ages and backgrounds in discussing, understanding, planning, and designing the public realm; help animate and enhance a meaningful sense of place through their individual vision, permanent or temporary art, performance, and street arts.
- The public arts should be defined as anything that artists can do, plan, instigate, design, produce, stimulate and contribute, working with citizens, communities and other professionals, in the context of the built environment and place.
- Like placemaking, the public arts are the concern of everyone — citizens, institutions, agencies, the creative industries, property developers, community groups, and leaders, as well as politicians in national and local government.
View the full manifesto
View more information about the PLACE Alliance and working groups
IHBC newsblogs on the PLACE Alliance
IHBC newsblogs on the Farrell Review
