Evaluating the Impacts of Artspace Project's Developments: A Roadmap For Moving Forward

Abstract

How would a researcher go about assessing the impacts of an artist space on resident artists and arts organizations as well as the surrounding neighborhood? This was the very real question Artspace Projects, Inc, commissioned me to address through this paper. The paper’s findings are directly relevant to Artspace, but will also be of interest to academics studying the impacts of arts and culture, other artist space developers and advocates, and Artspace’s stakeholders, including funders and municipalities.

The term artist space covers residential, studio, administrative and programming space for individual artists and arts organizations and includes everything from a theatre to a live-work artist loft. Artspace has developed a range of artist spaces but specializes in redeveloping large vacant buildings whose prior uses include industrial sites, schools, hotels and auto dealerships into mixed-use, artist live-work spaces. Artspace seeks to measure and document the social, economic and physical impacts of its developments on resident artists and arts organizations and the surrounding neighborhoods. These impacts can include everything from artists gaining opportunities to share equipment, to new businesses opening up in the neighborhood, to reductions in crime rates.