about artsHUB

ARTS & CULTURE LIGHTING THE WAY

Lanterns decorated with answers to “what lights you up about Vermillion?” hang in the Pocket Park, October 2022. The lantern project and first visioning session were supported by the South Dakota Arts Council's Residencies for Recovery Grant. Residencies for Recovery aims to involve artists as creative problem solvers, able to build community bonds.

Over Dakota Days weekend in October 2022, the VCA hosted an art installation of nearly 300 paper lanterns in the Pocket Park downtown. It was the culmination of a summer of pop-up arts engagements led by artist Amy Fill, where folks painted the lanterns with designs that represent what “lights them up” about Vermillion. The full display created a celebration of Vermillion voices, what we love, how we live, and who we hope we can become together.

The first “Lighting the Way” Vermillion visioning session in November 2022 was an outgrowth of this hands-on community art project. It was led by Jamie Horter, a rural advocate, artist, and facilitator. She invited a room of arts stakeholders to celebrate what we do and what we love about Verm and provided some thought-provoking questions for breakout sessions.

Subsequent visioning sessions focused on the future of Verm as a town known for its arts scene and how to strategize that. Consensus formed around the idea of an artsHUB, a coordinating body and centralized resource for an arts events calendar, artist and venue roster, and artist support.

Conversations toward this goal were paused while the VCA and Vermillion Area Arts Council completed a merger—as a result, the VCA has stepped into the role of arts council and taken up the artsHUB as our service mission.

  • The first session was part celebration of what’s already happening in Vermillion and part exploration of ways an arts communications body (what we’re affectionately, if temporarily calling an “arts hub”) might help amplify what we do. There’s so much to love! And so much to communicate!

    Click here to view the full PDF report. This report is a harvest of ideas about opportunities participants saw for collaboration and the possibilities open to Vermillion if we created an arts hub.

  • The second session was an exploratory conversation around three main themes:
    1) Definition of arts & culture / communicating purpose, relevance to community
    2) Who are the beneficiaries / how do represent everyone
    3) Who are the hub participants

    A synopsis of the discussion around these questions can be found by clicking here to review the full PDF.

  • Lots of progress was made at this session! The group identified Arts Hub goals and objectives, created a working mission statement and logo, and resolved to create a test website as a home for an arts & culture calendar and directory of orgs.

    A synopsis of the discussion around these questions can be found by clicking here to review the full PDF.