A Day of Service event Monday at Expressway Park helped introduce Baton Rougeans to a neighborhood project that partners residents of Old South Baton Rouge with the Arts Council, Center for Planning Excellence, BREC and others.
Dubbed “Community Dreaming: Identity through the Arts,” the project included an installation of about 70 black-and-white vinyl photos of local kids along the fenceline of a playground on South Boulevard underneath the I-10/I-110 split. The kids are all students at Polk Elementary, McKinley Middle and McKinley High School. They were photographed by professional photographers, by their teachers and by their peers for the project.
With funding from groups like the Kresge Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Arts Council and CPEX have been meeting with stakeholders in the neighborhood to come up with a plan that uses the arts and culture as a catalyst for much-needed improvements and revitalization.