Creative Placekeeping
Placekeeping is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Placekeeping (or as some call it, placemaking) capitalizes on a local community's assets, inspiration, and potential, with the intention of creating public spaces that promote people's health, happiness, and wellbeing. At ACDC, we believe in community development as a holistic approach, and placekeeping is just one of the ways in which we support and mobilize residents to engage in community planning.
Our ANCHOR placekeeping strategy guides ACDC’s work to Activate spaces, address Neighorhood needs, be Community-driven, expand affordable Housing and Open space, and achieve Resident-centered goals. We leverage arts, culture, and play to foster community self-determination and social connection.
Hudson Street Stoop
In the early 20th century, kids excitedly made snow angels on Chinatown’s Hudson Street as neighbors chatted on stoops. Today, the gentrification of our neighborhood makes the street different. We’ve set out to answer an important question: How can we create a more inclusive community where everyone feels that they belong? How can we celebrate the past memories of Hudson Street and make space for new ones? Our 2020 experiment: a modern-day stoop.
Tied Together by a Thousand Threads
Tied Together started in an ideas lab created by two ACDC youth program alumni. They aspired to partner with Chinatown residents and youth to activate public and common spaces in our community. This pilot program has developed into ACDC's broader “placekeeping” strategy.
Residence Lab
ResLab was a collaboration between ACDC and Pao Arts Center that brought together Chinatown residents and local creatives to shape Chinatown’s cultural identity.
SaturPLAY
ACDC youth worked with college students to revitalize otherwise unused spaces in Chinatown. The pictured activity involved our high school students engaging with community members to fill out cards capturing why they come to Chinatown and where nonresidents commute from. Through this project, youth discovered how Chinatown serves as a social, economic and cultural hub for many people of all different backgrounds.
Films At the Gate
Every summer, ACDC hosts a free film festival to bring community members of all ages together at the historic Chinatown Gate. Events such as this cultivate a sense of community and promotes increased accountability for visitors and residents to keep public spaces safe, clean and enjoyable for all.
Chinatown Backyard
In May 2019, high school students from ACDC’s A-VOYCE youth program, wanted to transform an abandoned lot in the heart of Boston’s Chinatown into something beautiful, useful, and beneficial for residents and visitors.
They imagined Chinatown Backyard as shared space for gardening, art, and play - a “backyard” for the neighborhood.
Why placekeeping?
Boston's Chinatown has always been a hub for newcomers: Chinese, Lebanese, Syrian and Vietnamese.
The latest wave of newcomers are affluent, young professionals filling up thousands of luxury apartments. This new wave contributes to the changing demographic and displacement of Chinatown residents.
Just as the Asian population is becoming a minority in Chinatown, the physical boundaries of Chinatown are eroding.
Our Strategy
Risa Puno’s Year of the Dog installation, which honors the experiences and memories of the Chinatown community
Yu-Wen Wu’s With/Out Water, a piece about Chinatown displacement and climate change
Use arts and culture to create engage old and new residents in a dialogue of what it means to be part of Chinatown, and to foster a sense of common community.
Integrate arts and culture into the multi-textured fabric of land use, housing, transportation, environment and other systems to create stronger, more equitable, and more vibrant urban spaces.
Strengthen the sense of cultural identity at the borders of Chinatown that are particularly vulnerable to gentrification.
Envision a Chinatown resilient enough to absorb a diverse group of newcomers while preserving its unique cultural identity.
Engage long-time residents, recent immigrants, working-class families, and young professional families in experiences and dialogues that cultivate a common sense of community.
ARE YOU AN ARTIST LOOKING TO WORK WITH THE COMMUNITY?
We’d love to work with you! Email anchor.projects@asiancdc.org to learn more.
