How Creative Placemaking Builds Community Capacity

Monday, October 6, 2025

2:15 PM - 3:30 PM ET

Location: Congressional

Speaker(s)

Joyce Pisnanont

Chief Strategy & Impact Officer
National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD)
Elena Arakaki

Policy & Planning Manager
Friends of Little Saigon - Seattle
Mary Anne Ligeralde Quiroz

Executive Director
Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center
Yue Nakayama

Interim Arts Director, Blue Sky Center
National Urban League
Maren Colon

Community Development Divisional Manager
Woodforest National Bank

Neighborhood organizations have long leveraged arts, culture, and storytelling strategies to build community, cultivate economic development, and encourage connection, healing, and empowerment. Join this session to learn about current research that examines how community arts initiatives (including placemaking and place-keeping projects) can expand a community's capacity to address socioeconomic and cultural well-being, and historical and structural disparities. While focusing on Asian American communities, this research offers an emerging framework for building community capital in a multifaceted way that can potentially be applied in other diverse communities.

This session will share this framework and will feature examples of creative, culturally aligned strategies that engage residents with their neighborhoods, foster a sense of belonging, and promote long-term community stewardship. Participating speakers will share their insights on the applicability of this framework, representing a range of rural and urban, multi-ethnic and multi-racial communities across the United States.