On July 27, Clyde Valentín has a long, wonderful day ahead of him.
His morning starts in Chicago, IL, attending an art summit at Malcolm X College (filled with piñatas, dance classes, poetry workshops, and more) before he hops on a plane to attend the AMERI’KANA outdoor music festival in Kansas City, MO.
The surprising part? Both cities — and 16 more across the country, from Honolulu, HI to the Bronx, NY — are simultaneously celebrating the same thing: One Nation/One Project’s ambitious nationwide project Arts for Everybody.
This one day, July 27, has been nearly a year in the making.
“It's been joyous and challenging and really, really complex, as you can imagine,” Valentín, the Founder and Co-Artistic Director of One Nation/One Project, said in an interview with Good Good Good.
“We're partnering with community leaders and institutional leaders across the country.”
A public arts event on this scale hasn’t occurred since October 27, 1936, when 21 stages — across 17 states — simultaneously premiered Sinclair Lewis’ play “It Can’t Happen Here” to protest the rise of fascism.
That nationwide collaboration was born out of the Federal Theater Project — a program that Valentín and his team (Lear deBessonet, Nataki Garrett, and Dr. Jill Sonke) hope to emulate with Arts for Everybody with the prompt “There’s No Place Like Home.”
Each city has its own interpretation of the event: Hawai’i is hosting 11 artistic showcases held across Hawai’i Island. Edinburg, TX is holding a Frida Kahlo arts festival. And Oakland, CA is leading an interactive data exhibition and art workshop that promotes racial equality.
Four days before the event, celebrities like Samuel L Jackson, Jay Ellis, Craig Robinson, Jerry Trainor, and Akilah Hughes joined together in a PSA for Arts for Everybody, with the hopes of getting the message out across the country.
But for Valentín, the scope of the project extends far beyond July 27.
“We're thinking about our own respective legacy via the archive of content that we're creating from storytelling aspects,” he told Good Good Good.
“We have a podcast that we're producing, we have all these video assets,” he continued. “We have research papers that will get published via peer review. We have a publication that we're going to produce that will incorporate research…we're going to put a bunch of stuff out there in the world still between now and the end of the year and a little bit into next year.”
And for many of these cities, the very infrastructure of their communities will be reshaped by Arts for Everybody.
For example, Valentín mentioned an intra-governmental collaboration between the program and Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, where 10 artists are redesigning behavioral health centers.
“They want to transform those very dry, sterile clinics into true resource service for community members,” Valentín said. “And they're looking to the artist to be in communication with the staff and the clients in those facilities, to help imagine and inform what those places become over the next five or 10 years.”
Valentín also pointed to Gainesville, FL, and how their Arts for Everybody celebration — the Summer (You)th Celebration! Arts, Culture & Health Day — was inspired by tangible community measures to reduce gun violence.
Over many months, Valentín watched as the young people of Gainesville helped inform anti-gun violence efforts and directly aided in parks and recreation programs — all while getting paid by the city.
“The city started off wondering about the value of taking an approach to public health issues like gun violence via arts and culture,” Valentín said. “And now they're looking to build a city owned and operated cultural arts center in the middle of their downtown.”
Valentín is excited for all of the positive ripple effects that will come from Arts for Everybody, but he also wants to enjoy all of the fun that awaits him on July 27.
“[We’ll catalog] our own reflections in real-time, because we don't want to lose that learning,” Valentín said. “Our whole goal, to me, is that this work continues.”
Header image courtesy of Scout Tufankjian
