Downside UP: How art can change the spirit of a place

How does a dying working class town end up betting its future on art? With 80% of its downtown buildings closed, North Adams, Massachusetts united blue-collar locals with art world luminaries to transform economic failure into America's largest center for contemporary art, MASS MoCA. A film by North Adams native Nancy Kelly, DOWNSIDE UP is about the tentative, dangerous notion of hope in a city widely viewed as hopeless.





	Click above to explore some communities whose artistic impulses are squarely in the social realm. Here are some examples of communities who are working with youth, housing, community-building, public space, and developing capital for the common creative good. This presentation requires the Flash 5 plug-in.

Download the list of recipients of Planning Grants from the Ford Foundation for work at the intersection of these fields: Grantees2.rtf (32kb MS Word file).

A new Request for Proposals was issued on April 21 by the Ford Foundation for planning grants in this intersection of fields. THE DEADLINE HAS PASSED.

Download last summer's RFP for planning grants (now expired) Planning Grant RFP.pdf (36kb Adobe Acrobat file).

Download the new "Downside UP" Listening Tour Final Report: FinalReport.pdf (396kb Adobe Acrobat file)

“Downside UP” is continuing our effort to making available free tapes and support for local work around historic preservation and the arts (one set per state, first come, first served). Contact Nancy Kelly: nkmomlode@earthlink.net