At a community-led “state of the arts” forum in Union Square Monday, keeping Somerville a creative hub was top of mind.
In the wake of this year’s dismissals and restructurings at city hall, the event gathered around 50 people to air their thoughts, concerns and wishes for Somerville’s artistic future. It was produced by the Art Stays Here coalition and attended by members of eight other local organizations.
Co-organizer Ethan Dussault called it “an unusual meeting. We usually convene people to talk about arts space.” He said people had asked for a more open conversation after recent changes at the Somerville Arts Council.
Affordability and accessibility loomed large in the conversation, and several people mentioned losing workspace or struggling to raise funds to make their buildings accessible. Ellen Waylonis, co-founder of Esh Circus Arts, said affordable indoor rehearsal space has become more important due to the effects of climate change. Though outdoor rehearsals and performances previously made sense in the face of budget constraints, she said, the unpredictable weather over the past five years has been “sort of tanking” their ability to do that.
Some of the discussion was positive. Ami Bennitt, a founder of Art Stays Here, said that after more than a year, the Arts and Business Council of Greater Boston had succeeded in purchasing Central Street Studios to maintain it as permanently affordable art work space. A ribbon-cutting took place on Wednesday.
Ben Baldwin, the executive director of the Somerville Community Land Trust, said his organization has been “trying to get creative” in acquiring space. “The most expensive thing that we’re talking about is the land and the buildings,” he said, thanking some “extremely generous” people from the Brickbottom artists building who chose to make their condominiums permanently affordable as part of the trust.
City councillor and candidate for state representative Ben Ewen-Campen spoke about the city’s arts and creative enterprise (ACE) zoning requirements — which require developers in some areas to designate 5-10% of new square footage to arts uses. “It doesn’t work that well,” he said. He proposed creating the option for developers of making cash payments more readily available as a community benefit, an idea he said has gotten the conceptual but not legal support it needs. “Let’s make this really happen,” he said.
The night’s forum took place over a year after the Somernova community benefits agreement (CBA) was voted on, a process that required a zoning overlay and many hours of negotiation between developers and the neighborhood. In an interview after the meeting, Dussault cited that agreement as an example of the power of community organizing.
“Even though there’s no CBA being negotiated now,” Dussault said, building, maintaining and strengthening partnerships within and outside of the Somerville community “is always a good use of time. Because there will be another development, there will be another hair-on-fire moment, and there’s no reason to just wait for those to be organized, to be in connection, to be in community. Tonight was a shining example of the willingness of the Somerville community to do that.”
After the event, attendee and a staffer at the event production company EventThem Voravut Ratanakommon affirmed the power of collaborating across city lines. He shared a story about a friend who couldn’t afford to live in Medford anymore, so moved out to Easthampton and “created a whole art community out there,” he said. “They created a Porchfest out there, because they took the ideas of here and brought it out there.”
“I think everybody is so concerned about borders,” he said. “We talk about it a lot, and our city borders and where we’re from. We’re very proud of those things. But we also have to realize we have to collaborate to survive, because the resources that we have access to are dwindling by the minute.”
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