ARTS at Marks Garage

ISSUE AREA: PLACE

City: Honolulu, HI
Arts - Neighborhood Development - Urban

Contact:
Erik Takeshita
Business Director
1159 Nuuanu Avenue
Honolulu, HI 96817
(808) 521-2903
erik@artsatmarks.com

Date Published: October 2006

The ARTS at Marks Garage is a collaborative neighborhood-based arts center in Honolulu that works to promote community and economic development through the arts by providing affordable office, gallery and performance space to arts groups and individual artists. Founded in 2001, the center is part of a social, economic, and aesthetic renaissance that is taking place in downtown Honolulu. The mission of ARTS at Marks Garage is to show how arts and culture can help transform lives and build culture. Its vision statement is: "hand in hand, let us join in building a community where every man, woman and child experiences the arts as the joyful work of life."

The ARTS at Marks Garage is located in a four-story building in downtown Honolulu. Located in a dilapidated part of town, the four-story building had not been occupied for several years, and was in a state of disrepair. The area was plagued with social and economic troubles. Two thirds of the neighborhood residents were on some form of public assistance, and only a quarter of the residents were officially employed. Many of the housing units in the area, including public housing, were classified substandard. The neighborhood was identified as a high risk area for children dealing with abuse and neglect. Furthermore, the area was also plagued with ethnic tension, as it was home to individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds, such as Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Laotian, and Filipino.

In 1999, the Mayor and City Council formed a task force to figure out how to address these problems. It was through this task force that an arts enterprise project was proposed. The City Council provided an initial seed fund grant of $25,000 to the Hawai’i Alliance for Arts Education to locate and renovate a property that would provide affordable space to art groups and artists. The building chosen, a former garage owned by the Marks family, was renovated for the project. It currently provides space for eight partner organizations: Hawaii Watercolor Society, Hawai’i Craftsmen, Pacific Handcrafters Guild, PHG Foundation, The Lizard Loft, Hawaii Academy of Performing Arts, Hawaii Shakespeare Festival, Meader Arts, Orig Media, LLC, Smash Box Productions Tim Bostock Productions and Upside-down Dance.

ARTS at Marks is located in the center of the Honolulu Cultural and Arts District (HCAD), a non-profit organization working to create a renaissance of the downtown area. ARTS works with HCAD to built trust and community cooperation at the grassroots level. In addition to supporting the local arts by housing these organizations, ARTS at Marks also coordinates a wide range of programming to benefit the community. The center hosts about 12 exhibits and 30 performances a year, more than half of which have educational components. ARTS has also created a Legal Graffiti wall, which is repainted weekly by local youth. Marks reached an agreement with landowner and the police department to allow creative use of a wooden barrier wall across the street from the center.

One of ARTS at Marks’ biggest programs to date is Side by Side Cultural Connections. This program was created in response to problems with drug abuse, gang violence, and racial tension in the neighborhood surrounding Arts at Marks. Arts at Marks recognized that both adults and children needed skills to build cultural understanding among diverse ethnic groups. Through the Side by Side program, adults and children create art, dance, and music based in diverse cultures. The program specifically targets local residents living in the Kamehameha Homes, a public housing unit near the center. Master artists offer lecture demonstrations and hands-on activities for the housing residents, followed by field trips to museums, galleries, theatres and arts performances, places not normally accessible to neighborhood residents. Each series of Side-By-Side involves 25-30 neighborhood residents.

In total, ARTS at marks reaches over 1,000 people, youths and adults, each month through its diverse programs. ARTS was one of twelve programs across the country chosen for the Ford Foundation grant of $150,000 to support its community transformation work. They also receive funding from the City and County of Honolulu, Community Based Economic Development Grants, private contributions, and their partner organizations. Among their future plans, ARTS at Marks hopes to work with the Honolulu Cultural and Arts District to create a program that will establish artist housing and studio space in the neighborhood. ARTS at Marks is helping to transform the neighborhood into a cultural gathering place.

Resources:

www.hawaiiartsalliance.org
www.artsatmarks.com