Join in Cultural Space Seattle, a two-day event to help shape policies to keep and create affordable space for artists and arts organizations to work, rehearse and perform in Seattle. 

Artist and cultural planner Theaster Gates will deliver the keynote address at a public forum, 6:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec. 6 at Town Hall Seattle. The forum, which is free and open to the public, will also feature a panel discussion with Jacqueline Gijssen, senior cultural planner, city of Vancouver, B.C.; Cathryn Vandenbrink, regional director, Artspace; and other cultural space leaders. A question-and-answer session and reception will follow the forum.

A morning working session will follow the public forum, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Wed., Dec. 7 at Town Hall Seattle. Cultural space leaders will discuss current arts space projects, policy and funding and program models. Participants will roll up their sleeves and work together toward a plan to advance an agenda for cultural space in Seattle. The working session is free, but registration is required. Space is limited to the first 50 registrants. Register here.

As an artist, Gates transforms spaces, institutions, traditions and perceptions. When not making art for museums, Gates is committed to the restoration of poor black neighborhoods, converting abandoned buildings into cultural spaces that allow not only new cultural moments to happen in unexpected places, but raise the city’s expectations of where “place-making” happens and why. He is president and founder of the Rebuild Foundation, as well as director of arts program development at the University of Chicago.

Gates is the 2011-2012 recipient of the Seattle Art Museum’s (SAM) Gwendolyn Knight and Jacob Lawrence Fellowship. His solo show Theaster Gates: The Listening Room will open at SAM on Dec. 9 and run through July 1, 2012.

The event is supported by JPMorgan Chase, 4Culture, Seattle Art Museum, Town Hall Seattle and is presented in partnership with University of Washington College of Built Environments and ARCADE.