What is iconic about Topeka? What are the city’s best-kept secrets? What is special and memorable about Topeka?
Those are just a few of the questions ArtsConnect is asking in a recently released arts and culture survey.
The survey will help the arts organization develop a plan aimed at offering creative solutions to strategic planning and give artists a seat at the table.
The survey, which can be found at artstopeka.org/thinkartsfirst, will be available until July 18.
Sarah Fizell, executive director of ArtsConnect, said the creative plan isn’t meant to replace such existing plans as Momentum 2022 or the downtown master plan.
Instead, it will complement and offer solutions to ideas within those plans.
The arts and culture plan will create a pathway for Topeka’s arts and culture sector to continue growing.
“The purpose is really to make sure we put the arts first,” Fizell said.
ArtsConnect survey will result in creative solutions
For example, the downtown master plan has multiple mentions of creativity, murals and vibrancy. The arts and culture plan could offer creative solutions, give artists leadership roles and develop projects that allow the downtown plan to complete its arts-related goals.
The arts and culture plan should be able to speak to who Topeka’s residents are and share the stories they want to tell, Fizell said.
If housing was identified as a problem, Fizell said, the plan could offer creative solutions that align with Topeka’s identity.
“You can throw a lot of ways to solve these problems by using creative juices and input and ideas, but I think the most successful ones, also at the same time, speak to all of us and feel like they belong here,” Fizell said.
The first step to developing a plan is community input.
“We have been doing a lot of one-on-one meetings, a lot of group discussions, focus groups and also as part of that input, we want to hear from everyone,” Fizell said. “We really wanted to see what’s really special to people who live in Topeka, what’s missing, what stands out, what do you take friends to do, what makes this place tick, what makes us different from other places.”
The survey includes a mix of open-ended and rating scale questions that ask participants what they find iconic about Topeka, something neat that has happened, what places or spaces are underused and where there are areas for community development.
The next step once the survey closes will be to create a first draft of the arts and culture plan with the help of a steering committee, a group of 17 people that consists of artists, city leaders and business owners.
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A project will be born from the survey, report
Once the plan and report are developed with final recommendations, a project will demonstrate the plan’s main tenets, Fizell said.
The arts organization has been working with Group Creatives, a Des Moines-based company.
Fizell said when the consultants visited Topeka and noticed a statue of Arthur Capper, they imagined having a place dedicated to disabled people or an interactive space that allows the community to better understand the lives of those with disabilities.
Ideas like those, Fizell said, are ones the arts and culture plan could create to help people better understand each other in a meaningful way.
“I think that’s really how you build a community that’s equitable and just and fair,” she said, “and I think that we have a really good shot at doing that in Topeka.”
Fizell’s hope is for the plan to become a tangible document that everyone can use.
“You can hand that to someone and say this is what the five-year plan is for arts and culture in Topeka, and it isn’t just the ArtsConnect plan,” Fizell said. “It isn’t a separate entity. It really is intended to be something that pulls all those pieces together and comes out with some sort of magic special sauce that everybody is like, ‘That’s amazing.'”
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