Playgrounds for Useful Knowledge is one of several projects in the running for the Robert E. Gard award. This is the inaugural year of the award which recognizes and celebrates an exemplary project from 2015 that has successfully crossed the arts into community life in meaningful measurable ways.

Playgrounds for Useful Knowledge was a process-based, action-research project that used playful formats to reveal, share, and catalyze local knowledge in a rapidly evolving and fractured neighborhood. Designed by Mural Arts’ Restored Spaces Initiative curator Lucia Sanroman and Cohabitation Strategies, the project was a critique of traditional community revitalization strategies and an examination of how artistic approaches can address complex opportunities in more resilient, self-sustaining, and endogenous ways. In a part of South Philadelphia marked as much its rich diversity as by the entrenched cultural distance between residents, Playgrounds produced the localized leadership necessary for the neighborhood to become a pivotal example of revitalization without displacement.

Mural Arts partnered with members of the community, organizations, local businesses and government agencies to make Playground for Useful knowledge possible. Project partners include: Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra); Independent Curator: Lucia Sanroman; Independent Researcher: Beth Uzwiak; 7th Street Civic Association; Asian Americans United; Bethanna Community Umbrella Agency; Bhutanese American Organization of Philadelphia; Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia; Casa Monarca; Food Trust; Friends of Mifflin Square Park; LandHealth Institute; Media Van/Tea Cart; Lower Moyamensing Civic Association; Puetes de Salud; Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Associations Coalition, Inc; Southeast by Southeast; Southeast Philadelphia Collaborative/United Communities of Southeast Philadelphia; Friendly Market/7th St. Business Community; Philadelphia Theatre of the Oppressed; and Maria Rosario Jackson, Independent Consultant; Kresge Foundation and many others.

The winner of the 2016 Robert E. Gard Award will be announced at Americans for the Arts 2016 Annual Convention in Boston, MA during the Opening Plenary session on Friday, June 17, 2016, from 12:00 pm – 2:15 pm.