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Seattle’s Creative Industries Are Our Future. That’s Why The City Is Expanding Our Creative Work

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Seattle has a rich history of cultural innovation and creative risk taking. Our arts and culture are recognized around the world, and a robust creative workforce nourishes our entrepreneurial spirit. Seattle’s creative industries are one vital source of fuel that will drive our economy into the future. To ensure that racial and economic disparities don’t continue to grow, we need to build a creative economy that is inclusive of everyone.

Since its inception in 1991, Seattle’s Office of Film + Music, which operates within the Office of Economic Development (OED), has supported the heart of our city’s creative industries. With new challenges and disparities facing Seattle’s creatives, it is time to reconfigure, realign and reimagine the Office’s work and the role of government in our city’s economic health.

That’s why Mayor Durkan’s 2020 Proposed Budget includes investments to expand the City’s creative industry work by dedicating three new full-time employees. Two of those positions, including one newly funded position, will be in the creative industry program in OED, and one will be in the Office of Arts & Culture. All three positions will support the City’s creative industry work, which encompasses film, music, and media/graphic design.

“Our City has seen incredible growth and change over the past decade, and with that growth came many big city challenges, including displacement,” says Mayor Jenny A. Durkan. “We’ve seen many artists and creative industry workers, particularly artists and workers of color, pushed out because they simply cannot afford to live in Seattle. That has hurts their ability to create, and present their work. We must invest in and prioritize filmmaking, arts, music, and culture in Seattle. That is why I’m making the Inclusive Creative Industry Program an economic priority for the City.”

For Seattle to thrive, we need to deepen, align, and expand our department partnerships and programs to better prepare our workforce, businesses, and infrastructure. We ground this work in a commitment to race and social justice, economic data, and deep community and industry listening.

To achieve those goals, the Office of Film + Music and its current staff will lead the new “Inclusive Creative Industry Program” as the citywide economic development priority. As part of OED, this team will leverage the resources and investments of other OED programs to further its work supporting creative industries. This new prioritization of the creative industries is reflected in the Mayor’s proposed budget. As part of this strategy, here is what we are proposing:

  • The OFM director position will become the Inclusive Creative Industry Program Director and will report to OED’s Director. A national search will be conducted after budget approval.
  • We will add three new staff positions to increase support and advocacy for the film and creative industries.
  • Aligning with OED’s new Inclusive Creative Industry Program, the Creative Economy Advocate will become a full-time member of Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) in partnership with OED’s Workforce Development Team and Inclusive Creative Industry Team.
  • We will increase music industry advocacy and support through the combined efforts of the Music Commission’s work, the Inclusive Creative Industry Team, and OED and ARTS staff.
  • The Nightlife Advocate position will remain with OED in the Inclusive Creative Industry Program.
  • We will launch a new internship and career connected learning initiative in partnership between OED, ARTS, Department of Education and Early Learning (DEEL) and others

By building upon OED/OFM, DEEL, and ARTS’s connection between creative, art, technology, education, workforce, industry, and other related fields, we can prepare Seattle’s students and workforce to thrive now and in the future. We are deeply excited for this new body of work and look forward to collaborating with Washington Filmworks and King County to build an inclusive economy grounded in our creative communities and industries.

For more information about OED’s inclusive economy vision or reports from our community listening sessions, please sign up for our e-newsletter or email us at: oed@seattle.gov, arts.culture@seattle.gov.

By Bobby Lee, director Office of Economic Development and Randy Engstrom, director of the office of Arts & Culture

Creative Youth Development: Arts Strategies for Engaging Unstably Housed and Homeless Youth

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Cover for the report has a photo of a zine shaped like a house. On the left side, a window above a futon is drawn: "Feeling more at home on a friends futon than my current space." On the right side: "I am not sure where I will live in the spring."

Written by Hannah E. Curtis

With support from the City’s Innovation & Performance team, Human Services Department, and Seattle Public Schools, the Office of Arts & Culture has initiated the Creative Youth Development (CYD) Secondary Arts Project.

The CYD Secondary Arts Project invests in high quality, culturally responsive arts programs at schools that have a disproportionate number of students experiencing homelessness and housing instability, to promote creative learning and educational engagement. To begin this process, a field scan of existing materials and literature was conducted to:

  1. Examine best practices of CYD,
  2. Identify effective and culturally responsive impact and assessment strategies and tools,
  3. Determine which types of data collection and research methods best fit with the goals of the project,
  4. Provide empirical evidence that CYD positively impacts factors associated with student success, and
  5. Provides overview information about homeless and unstably housed youth in Seattle/King County.

Creative Youth Development: Arts Strategies for Engaging Unstably Housed and Homeless Youth makes the case that arts education in schools, alongside the many other benefits, can potentially provide a radical space of intervention where students experiencing unstable housing and homelessness have a safe space to belong, learn new skills, explore their identity, and make connections to their teachers, peers, schools, and larger community.

Artist Trust Annual Artist Survey

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During the summer of 2019, 1,283 artists from across Washington State participated in the Artist Trust Annual Survey. The results of this annual survey allow us to better understand the artists we serve and share information from responding artists with other artist-serving organizations.

Artists who took the 2019 Annual Artist Survey indicated the major challenges in their careers are marketing, building new audiences for their work and finding financial stability. With two thirds of responding artists working out of their homes or home studios, they shared perspectives on accessing space and space affordability in Washington State.

This year, a number of new topics also emerged, including concerns about the climate, LGBTQ and gender equality, and access to continuing education. The 2019 Annual Artist Survey provides information that will continue to inform our programming and artist support services at Artist Trust. They make their findings and this report available publicly with the hope that other artist-serving organizations, artists, and arts advocates can learn from and utilize the results. Through this research, they continually work to gain a deeper understanding Washington State’s artists and better meet their needs.

Artist Trust is a nonprofit organization whose sole mission is to support and encourage individual artists working in all disciplines in order to enrich community life throughout Washington State. Since its founding in 1986, Artist Trust has invested over $10 million in individual artists through grant programs and provides a comprehensive suite of professional development training and resources to help artists achieve their career goals.

Tagalog sa King Street

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A workshop production of one-act plays written and performed in Tagalog (with English surtitles), September 5 – October 5, 2019 at ARTS at King Street Station
Admission is free

September 5-October 5, 2019
Free to the public, all ages
ARTS at King Street Station
303 S. Jackson St, Top Floor
Seattle, WA 98104           

Intermittent open rehearsals in the gallery
Tuesdays-Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; First Thursday 10 a.m.-8 p.m.  
Performances: Thursday, October 3, 6:30 p.m.;
Saturday, October 5, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.
RSVP button

ARTS at King Street Station will host the workshop production of Tagalog sa King Street, a collection of one-act plays written and performed in the national language of the Philippines. With creative use of live English surtitles and shadow puppetry, non-Tagalog speaking audience can enjoy the innovative, brave, new voices selected from the prestigious Virgin Labfest of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

This is a workshop production that will be presented in two parts. The first are open rehearsals as the creative team comprised of Lorna Velasco, Joyce Juan Manalo, Ai Lalo, Alyza DelPan-Monley, Arlo Magpoc, Nina De Torres Ignacio, Leah Mitts, Manny Golez, and Pia Rivera will transform the space into a world of shadow and light. The open rehearsals will culminate with three performances of the completed work that are free to the public on Thursday October 3rd and Saturday, October 5th. Tickets are available here. The production was made possible through at grant by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. The performance is ADA accessible.

 Kung Paano Ako Naging Leading Lady (How I became the Leading Lady), by Carlo Vergara, is a story of two sisters, Mely and Viva, who turn a small grudge into a superhero battle between good and evil.

Hintayan ng Langit (Heaven’s Waiting Room), by Juan Miguel Severo is about 67-year-old protagonist Manolo meeting his unrequited love, 64-year-old Lisang in purgatory. Their spiritual ascent is delayed until they resolve a lifetime worth of heartaches and regrets.

 ARTS at King Street Station is a new kind of cultural space where communities of color have increased opportunities to present their work and be seen and heard. Grounded in community feedback, the programming and cultural space on the third floor of King Street Station will be an incubator for artists and communities, experimenting with the best ways to respond to the cultural needs of an ever-changing city. A new cohort of King Street Station Advisors will select and respond to community exhibition and programming ideas. ARTS’ goal for King Street Station is to be a resource for the city and the embodiment of the Office’s commitment to racial equity. Admission is free.

News: Lara Davis and six years with ARTS Creative Youth Programs

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“Differences must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.”  

– Audre Lorde

After six incredible years leading the Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) Creative Youth programs, I’m excited to announce that I am leaving to pursue an opportunity with the Visionary Justice StoryLab – a collective of interdisciplinary artists, media makers, and cultural workers evolving story, media, and performance based racial and healing justice practices for communities of color and the organizations that serve them – and take personal time for myself to reconnect with my own creativity and artistic practice.

Photo of Lara Davis against a rainbow flag background.
Lara Davis, Youth Arts Manager at ARTS

Youth Arts Manager position open at ARTS

ARTS Creative Youth programs have grown significantly in the past six years and continue to deepen our impact through school-based arts education investments and a continuum of Creative Youth Development and career-connected learning opportunities. I’ve been proud to be part of a fierce team of collaborators that includes teaching artists and community arts organizations, City and Seattle Public Schools staff who work in partnership to advance education justice and prioritize the arts as central to achieving racially equitable and justice-based outcomes. 

Now in over half of Seattle Public Schools, The Creative Advantage, our citywide initiative, is committed to realizing equity in arts education for all Seattle students.  Driven by a public-private partnership, this initiative works through a collective impact framework that includes the district, ARTS, Seattle Foundation, and the broader arts community. To learn more please check out this article on The Creative Advantage in Seattle Foundation’s Heart and Science Magazine spring 2019 issue by Naomi Ishisaka.

The leadership of our young people, Black and indigenous and POC communities is essential to these ongoing efforts – to fully realize local education equity initiatives like The Creative Advantage and to build a just future rooted in culture, collective power, the imagination, and love.

In an era of persistent and growing economic, climate and racial injustice, I’m continually inspired by the boldness and creativity of young organizers and activists – many of whom are artists – and the collective struggle for liberation that relies upon intergenerational and collaborative leadership. I’m grateful to have been a part of this effort with the Office of Arts & Culture, and excited for its continued work in and with community. 

With deep gratitude,

Lara Davis

Redefining Seattle’s literary scene, Anastacia-Renee, Seattle Civic Poet 2017-19

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Seattle created the Civic Poet program in 2015 to invest in and foster the city’s rich literary community. Anastacia-Renee is the second Civic Poet, serving from 2017-19 and as her commission comes to a close we wish to recognize, cheer and share our gratitude for Anastacia-Renee and all who have contributed their valuable time, participated, and most importantly who generated literary work that overwhelmingly exceeded the expectations that the City and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture had for the program. Anastacia-Renee’s contributions paves the way for future Civic Poets and community engagement through the literary arts.

In her two year tenure, Anastacia-Renee convened, recited, performed, curated, advised, led, taught, and listened to close to 7,000 residents of all ages, in a range of traditional and non-traditional venues city wide. She also engaged the community through her readings, workshops, consultations, City Council Civil Rights Utilities Economic Development and Arts Committee (CRUEDA) meeting openers, Speak to Me series, featured guest on TEDx and Lit Crawl, national holiday functions and many more one-time engagements for small neighborhood-based agencies/groups.

Anastacia-Renee raised awareness for the literary arts community and the Living Legacies tribute topped her two-year tenure with an event in June at King Street Station that acknowledged, celebrated, and raised three highly accomplished writers to the forefront of Seattle’s robust literary community, Mary Anne Moorman, Storme Webber, and Georgia McDade.

ARTS Welcomes Rick Reyes as Racial Equity Coordinator

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Rick is a Seattle-based, Tacoma-born, researcher, organizer, creative, and the new Racial Equity Coordinator with the Office of Arts & Culture. Trained in writing, critical race theory, and public policy at Seattle University, Rick’s previous research, art, and work explore epistemologies to better understand assumptions on race, class, and gender that produce real-life impacts on people of color and those at the center of structural oppression. As a researcher, his work includes discussions on disaster politics and the privatization of education, the power of narrative, and the intersections between science and social construction.

Rick’s work experience includes community outreach, communications, and program development at and in partnership with organizations such as the Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle University, the Office of Arts & Culture, Napster, and Seattle Theatre Group.

An avid musician and writer, Rick finds community in performing with, recording alongside of, and going to performances with fellow musicians, writers, and creatives.

Square Feet 2019: Staying Power

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On April 28-29, ARTS hosted the fourth installment of the Square Feet event. This roughly annual mini-conference explores different issues related to cultural space. This year the keynote speaker was Gus Newport, who spoke (at the Wing Luke Museum) about his work as a community organizer, a developer of affordable housing, and a cultural space creater in neighborhoods and cities across the country. His talk was streamed live and is archived here.

Karen Toering, Uche Okezie, and Gus Newport (L-R). Photo by Sunita Martini

The conference (at King Street Station) also included breakout sessions, a panel discussion, and the graduation of the 2018 Build Art Space Equitably (B.A.S.E.) Cohort. The sessions ended with the return of the Large Foam Check Challenge, an inclusive budgeting exercise that offered participants the opportunity to direct over $10,000 of ARTS spending towards a project of their devising. Last year, the funding was aimed towards the creation of a Tiny Cultural Space. That project is underway in partnership with Sawhorse Revolution and Estelita’s Library. This year the idea the group generated was about honoring and recording the oral histories of Indigenous people who are living in Seattle unhoused. The project, in partnership with urban Indian organizations, would directly pay participants for their stories.

Large Foam Check Challenge winners 2019. Photo by Sunita Martini

Structure for Stability (The PDA Report)

Following nearly two years of work and a significant Racial Equity Toolkit process, ARTS also presented its newest publication. Structure for Stability: Recommendations for Developing Affordable Community-Based Cultural Space provides an in-depth analysis of the challenges facing cultural spaces and artists’ spaces in Seattle and offers recommendations for the creation of a new, independent, mission-driven entity, to be capitalized through the Office of Arts & Culture’s bonding capacity, that will lease, develop, and hold real estate in partnership with community for use by artists and cultural organizations. The report is available here.

ARTS at King Street Station is open

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Open hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.;
 First Thursdays 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
ARTS at King Street Station
303 S. Jackson Street, Top Floor
Seattle, WA 98104

On Saturday, March 23 ARTS at King Street Station officially opened its doors to the public. Mayor Durkan cut the Ribbon, Ken Workman the great, great, great, great-grandson of Chief Seattle welcomed everyone, and the Lummi Black Hawk Dancers opened the gallery. More than 2,700 visitors came to the opening and enjoyed the new space and more importantly had a chance to see yәhaw̓, a year-long Indigenous community-based project.

yәhaw̓ features the work of 200+ Indigenous creatives at over 20 sites across Seattle and beyond. The exhibition is accompanied by a mentorship training cohort, satellite shows, residencies, vendor opportunities and partner programs. Curated by Tracy Rector (Choctaw/Seminole), Asia Tail (Cherokee), and Satpreet Kahlon, yәhaw̓ celebrates the depth and diversity of Indigenous art made in the Pacific Northwest.

If you didn’t get a chance to join us at the opening, please stop in anytime during our open hours.

For more information about the exhibition visit yehawshow.com,

For information about how to propose your event or exhibition to happen at ARTS at King Street Station, the application portal is open!APPLY buttonFor more information about King Street Station visit here.

What’s next for ARTS at King Street Station? Propose your event or exhibition now

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New King Street Station Advisors group will review applications for and advise City on creating and maintaining a radically inclusive space for arts and culture

Now open, the King Street Station Portal provides a place for community to propose their ideas, events, performances, and exhibitions or art installations for the new arts and cultural hub. ARTS at King Street Station invests in exhibitions or events that promote arts and cultural participation, celebrate diversity, build community connections, and enhance the visibility of artists of color. The portal offers artists and communities the freedom to imagine, create and realize their programs hosted at ARTS at King Street Station. Guidelines and the ARTS at King Street Station information packet are available.

The new ARTS at King Street Station space responds directly to feedback from community focus groups with an emphasis on people of color. It is a dedicated cultural space that provides more than 7,500 square feet of cultural space and access to presentation and creative spaces, ARTS staff and resources, space for city convening’s, and professional development, meeting space and other services.

Individuals, artists, curators, organizations and groups are encouraged to propose projects that foster community, encourage participation, and reach diverse audiences. All projects must take place at ARTS at King Street Station (303 S. Jackson St.), have a significant arts and culture component, and be free and open to the public. ARTS may provide funding for events/performances and exhibitions for direct project expenses, including artist fees. Interested parties should submit applications at least two months before prospective events and six months before exhibition projects envisioned for the ARTS at King Street Station space. Projects will be selected by a panel of King Street Station Advisors; proposals may be paired with other projects. 

King Street Station Advisors:

King Street Station Advisors is a newly formed group of community leaders and arts/culture enthusiasts who will work with ARTS staff to ensure that the programming at ARTS at King Street Station centers racial equity, represents and welcomes diverse communities, and showcases many creative disciplines. Advisors are provided with a small stipend and serve a two-year term.

Inaugural King Street Station Advisors: Tom Bardwell, Cecilia DeLeon, Akilah Franklin, Bryan Garcia, Emnet Graham, Duncan Gibbs, Laurence Hicks, KERRI, Jasmine Jackson, Frances S. Lee, Lhorna Murray, Catherine Nueva España, Shin Yu Pai, Keanna Rose Pickett, Chukundi Salisbury Sr., Ixtli (Ixtlixochitl) White Hawk, Laurie Wilson, and Sunny Ysa.

ARTS at King Street Station is located at 303 S. Jackson St., top floor, Seattle, WA 98104. Open Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm; First Thursdays, 10 am – 8 pm. Admission is free.