Fired artists claim Mill Hill project will displace poor blacks

Two artists fired from an east Macon arts program say the planned Mill Hill revitalization project could force longtime residents to move away in time, but an official with the Macon Arts Alliance says the agency is taking steps to keep that from happening.

Brooklyn-based artist Ed Woodham said his excitement about being part of the Mill Hill artist residency program waned when he arrived in Macon several weeks ago. Woodham said he and artist Samantha Hill now believe that the objective of the program is for “art washing,” which is used to gentrify a neighborhood, forcing poorer residents and commercial tenants out because they can no longer afford to live there.

In the case of the east Macon arts village, that could have an adverse effect on a mostly black neighborhood, Woodham said.

“Art washing is using art with the idea of the betterment of the community as a whole, yet what it is, it’s being used for the gentrification process to make things look in order,” he said.

But an official with the Arts Alliance disputes that the project aims to displace residents. It’s been a collaborative effort, with a series of meetings dating back a couple years to gather opinions from people living in the neighborhood, located near Coliseum Drive, said Jonathan Harwell-Dye, director of creative placemaking at the alliance.

“The focus of this project has been and always will be improving the community with the residents that live there,” he said.

A nonprofit will also be created for a “community land trust” to help keep properties affordable for residents, he said.

The land trust would use funding to help residents become and remain homeowners. As part of that process, a “homeowner agrees to sell the home at a resale-restricted and affordable price to another lower income homebuyer in the future,” according to the the National Community Land Trust Network.

If property value goes up, then the property owner can build equity, Harwell-Dye said.

“We are dedicated 100 percent to maintaining affordability in the neighborhood,” he said.

Woodham said Macon Arts Alliance officials told him and Hill they were fired this week because they would not participate in public relations and because of claims that they were not representing the program the right way. Woodham said they were willing to publicize the art projects as they were completed. Hill and Woodham were to live in renovated cottages from midsummer to the fall, collaborate with residents on how to improve their community and work on creative projects.

Instead, they said they have been living in a downtown apartment and were never told when the cottages, which were undergoing restoration, would be finished, they said.

“We said that if we publicize like we’re celebrities, it makes the average person we would be interviewing feel like it’s off-putting,” Woodham said.

In a statement, Hill said that as the two of them interviewed people in the neighborhood, some residents expressed feeling marginalized in the process to transform the area into an arts village.

The two-year artist residency program, which receives funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, includes the restoration of four homes during the first phase.

“Our findings were much different than the rhetoric presented in the Mill Hill Artist Residency call for artists and the Mill Hill web page,” Hill said in the release.

Harwell-Dye said there were several reasons the two artists were terminated, including the lack of public relations and negative feedback. The Macon Arts Alliance will continue to seek new artists to move into the cottages, but the timeline for that is unknown, he said.

Hill and Woodham also agreed to live in an apartment until the cottages were finished, Harwell-Dye said.

“We’re disappointed by this outcome, but we are very dedicated to moving forward and moving ahead and working closely with our partners that live in this community,” he said.

The centerpiece of the arts village will be the restored Clinton Street auditorium that will become an arts center and a gathering place for community events. The auditorium will feature a culinary arts training kitchen and offer programs such as poetry, sewing and job training.

This story was originally published July 28, 2016 at 12:24 PM with the headline "Fired artists claim Mill Hill project will displace poor blacks."