Columbus Conversation: Arts and Community (featuring Craig Reschke)
How might community-led cultural initiatives bring people together today and meaningfully improve tomorrow’s civic life? Featuring Miller Prize recipients Ann Lui and Craig Reschke of Future Firm and Sam Jacob of Sam Jacob Studio in discussion with community members Jessica Schnepp and others, this conversation highlights the ways that grassroots creative networks, Friends of the Crump Theatre and NOMAD, are at the front lines of preserving cultural arts spaces and creating platforms that amplify voices and foster creativity as community assets.
Ann Lui and Craig Reschke
Future Firm, Chicago, Illinois
Sam Jacob
Sam Jacob Studio, London, England
Jadon Darnell, Austin Lewis, and Kate Thomas
NOMAD, Columbus, Indiana
Jessica Schnepp
Friends of Crump Theatre, Columbus, Indiana
Moderated by Bryony Roberts
Bryony Roberts Studio, New York, New York
Jessica Schnepp is the Community Development Coordinator for the Bartholomew Consolidated School Foundation, whose mission is to promote awareness and philanthropy for programs that help students achieve educational excellence in the Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation. She was the Fundraising Coordinator for the Linden Project, a community-led effort for Lincoln Elementary School (Gunnar Birkerts, 1966) that built an architectural-based playground inspired by Birkerts’s original vision for the site. Jess has now turned her experience to support revitalizing the Crump Theatre and helping build community enthusiasm around a much needed arts and entertainment venue in downtown Columbus.
Bryony Roberts is an architectural designer and scholar. Her New York–based practice Bryony Roberts Studio integrates methods from architecture, art, and preservation to address complex social conditions in the public realm. Her practice has been awarded the Architectural League Prize and the Rome Prize, as well as support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation, and the MacDowell Colony. She edited the book Tabula Plena: Forms of Urban Preservation and recently guest edited an issue of Log titled “Expanding Modes of Practice.” Roberts teaches architecture and preservation at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation in New York.