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Our 2025 Highlights

From gallery exhibitions to grant workshops, thank you for being in community with us this year. As we look back at 2025, join us in celebrating a year of artist support! Keep reading to learn about some of our highlights and stay tuned for more in our upcoming Report to… [ Keep reading ]

Reflections from The Creative Advantage Institute

Youth leaders were the center of a day of learning for Seattle’s arts educators. The 2025 Creative Advantage Institute kicked off with passionate speeches from Speak with Purpose scholars seeking to raise awareness of students with disabilities. Sam Martin, a 7th grader from Aki Kurose Middle School, spoke directly about… [ Keep reading ]

Downtown is Vibrant: 2025 So Far

For the second year of Mayor Bruce Harrell’s Downtown Activation Plan (DAP), the Office of Arts & Culture has worked to lift up the arts and culture sector as a critical piece of a revitalized downtown. Earlier this year, we hosted “Downtown is Vibrant,” an event to share with community our… [ Keep reading ]

The Creative Advantage: 2024 Reflections

Before we dig into the opportunities 2025 has to offer, The Creative Advantage would like to take a moment to celebrate the incredible accomplishments of 2024. Together we launched… We continued… We hosted… Way to go Creative Advantage community!

2024: A Year in Arts & Culture

A Year of Stabilization at the Office of Arts & Culture 2024 was all about stabilization for us at the Office of Arts & Culture. We added 12 new staff and the membership of both the Seattle Arts Commission and the ARTS at King Street Station Advisors were filled, helping… [ Keep reading ]

A Creative Decade: The Creative Advantage 10-year Report

The Creative Advantage unveiled A Creative Decade, their newly published 10-year Report, to the arts and education community at the 10th annual TCA Summer Institute on August 22, 2024. The report documents how The Creative Advantage supports equitable high-quality arts education to 50,000+ Seattle Public School students and highlights the… [ Keep reading ]

2023 Year in Review

As we pause to reflect on the events and work of the last year, I am incredibly grateful to be directing Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture and to be surrounded by a dynamic and inspiring team. Despite many challenges and a tremendous amount of change, I’m proud of the… [ Keep reading ]

The Creative Advantage: Community Arts Partnership Report Highlights Powerful Arts Education Through Two Challenging School Years

By Tina LaPadula In March 2020, schools across the nation closed their doors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This report examines the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, and captures all the ways The Creative Advantage community of teachers and teaching artists persisted, problem-solved, and innovated to keep arts partnerships… [ Keep reading ]

How Creative Strategies Can Build Relationships and Awareness within Racial Equity Learning Cohorts Focused on Environmental Justice

By Diana Dvora Falchuk How can individuals use arts, culture, mindfulness, and embodiment to help transform systems and institutions toward racial and environmental justice? One potential approach is through learning cohort models. Our office (ARTS) partnered with the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, the Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment,… [ Keep reading ]

How arts education made an impact at two alternative high schools serving BIPOC unstably housed youth in Southeast Seattle 2018-2020

In The CYD Secondary Arts Project, a two year pilot program, Seattle Public Schools and The Creative Advantage specifically designed arts programming to reach and engage high school communities who were unstably housed or unsheltered. In 2018, ARTS received funding through the Human Services Department (and the endorsement of the Mayor’s Innovation Team) to provide high quality and culturally-relevant arts to chronicle the… [ Keep reading ]