Staff spotlight: Marian Liou, SGA Director of Arts & Culture

Marian Liou has served as Director of Smart Growth America’s Arts & Culture Program for a full year. Under her leadership, the program has expanded in scope, all while maintaining a steady pace of new resources and initiatives—such as the Transportation Artists in Residence report and a new grant program, Healing our Highways. We sat down with her to discuss her thoughts on the program’s current trajectory, as well as her vision for its future.

our staff

Call for ideas: Healing our Highways through creativity, community, and culture (applications open)

Smart Growth America, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kresge Foundation, is requesting applications for our new grant program, Healing Our Highways. This initiative aims to generate creative ideas and activities that build knowledge, connections, and power within disadvantaged communities most harmed by transportation systems and climate change. The program … Continued

Climate Change Technical assistance Transportation

Growing and supporting transportation artists-in-residence

Smart Growth America’s new report—Transportation Artists in Residence: A Landscape of an Emerging Field—takes a closer look at two pilot artist residencies at state departments of transportation convened by our Arts and Culture team. Initially launched in 2018, Smart Growth America created the concept of artists-in-residence in state transportation agencies. The report evaluates the impacts, … Continued

Transportation

Transportation Artists in Residence: A Landscape of an Emerging Field

In 2018 Smart Growth America launched the concept of artists-in-residence in state transportation agencies with leaders of the Minnesota and Washington State Departments of Transportation (MnDOT and WSDOT). The goal of this program was to use a creative approach to advance the agencies’ goals to reduce congestion, promote economic vitality, support multimodal transportation systems, and … Continued

Transportation

Request for proposals: Cultural organizing technical assistance consulting services

Through this Request for Proposals (RFP), Smart Growth America (SGA) is seeking proposals for consultant services to support the programming of its Arts & Culture team. Services include providing technical assistance in community and cultural organizing, power and movement building, and leadership and strategy development and implementation, by and within communities of color around issues … Continued

Technical assistance

Request for proposals: Illustration services for Arts & Culture program

Smart Growth America is seeking a qualified artist, illustrator, or designer to produce a series of illustrations to communicate the mission and goals of SGA’s Arts & Culture program, particularly with respect to one upcoming project. That particular project will fund and provide technical assistance to artist-activist teams to address transportation and land use systems … Continued

Transportation

Request for proposals: Transportation artists-in-residence report design – Deadline Extended

Smart Growth America is seeking a qualified consultant to manage the layout and visual design for both a physical report and supporting digital presence detailing the findings from Smart Growth America’s work designing and supporting artist-in-residence programs at state departments of transportation and a virtual convening of transportation artists-in-residence. Deadline Extended: Proposals should be sent … Continued

Transportation

Request for Proposals: Arts and Culture Consulting Services

Smart Growth America (SGA) is seeking proposals for consultant services for its Arts & Culture team. Such services will support the Arts & Culture team’s thought leadership and programming and include but are not limited to program design, implementation, and reporting/evaluation, event planning, communications strategy, stakeholder research and engagement, and related support services. SGA is … Continued

Creative Placemaking

Equity Forum Recap: Protecting and preserving culture during change

Our Equity Forum: Upending Cultural Displacement featured key thought leaders and practitioners who discussed the complex relationship between smart growth and cultural displacement, as well as shared innovative strategies for preserving and protecting neighborhood culture during change. Communities across the country are experiencing significant changes driven by reinvestment, disinvestment, rising housing costs, and the changing … Continued

Advancing Racial Equity Events

Smart Growth America’s Equity Forum: Upending Cultural Displacement

Smart Growth America’s Equity Forum: Upending Cultural Displacement on July 13, 2022 is a continuation of our year-round equity programming—anchored by the Equity Summit programming focused on advancing racial equity through smart growth. Our speakers will share their unique stories and key strategies to assist advocates, planners, developers, and elected officials in better understanding and mitigating the various forms of cultural displacement affecting communities across the country.

Events