Joanna Keane Lopez is one of the first scholars to receive the new Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit scholarship to attend the West CPL Summit in Albuquerque next month. The scholarship program seeks to bring artists, students, civic volunteers to the three-day events for creative placemakers. The summits attract key decision makers and from arts administration, philanthropy, planning, design, community development, economic development and architecture. The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking created the program to give people from under-represented communities a chance to contribute and be heard at the gatherings.

The NCCP produces the summits with ArtPlace America across the country.

Creative placemaking happens when artists and arts organizations join their neighbors in shaping their community’s future, working together on place-based community outcomes. It’s not necessarily focused on making places more creative; it’s about creatively addressing challenges and opportunities. Success is measured in the ways artists, formal and informal arts spaces, and creative interventions have contributed toward community outcomes.  We believe creative placemaking at its best is locally defined and informed and about the people who live, work, and play in a place. ​