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where interested artists and community members meet
to share lessons in art-based
community development.
The Rural Arts & Culture Summit is a two day event
and there is, it's both, there's parts of it that
are opened to the public, so right now we're at a
local flavor event that is open to families and
there's all kinds of interactive arts
activities going on, but then we have people coming
from all over the state and a few from all over
the country that have come to attend workshops and
sessions about great case studies and success
stories and arts based community development.
We have about 95 different presenters here and about
285 people coming to listen to them.
It's about the transformative power of
arts based community development,
so it's how communities can really frame their
stories and their narratives by engaging
artists as leaders and looking at challenges and
opportunities through the lense of the arts.
I think arts play a pivotal role in economic
development and often they're overlooked.
In Lanesboro alone, between the arts
organizations, the Common Wheel Theater and
Lanesboro Art Center, over a million dollars a year
is brought into the community,
just from the budgets of
the two arts organizations.
So the arts can have a tremendous impact in
small communities.
I think that as, if, as you start looking at the
economy of a place be it in an urban setting or in
a rural setting, there are people that are around you
and a lot of the times when you start peeling
back the layers, lots of times artistry comes out.
And having those people within your community and
tapping into those resources that they're
able to offer, then bring things to the forefront.
It's just the beginning cause people are going to
go home with great ideas and new relationships.