Artist-Led Community Engagement Webinar Recap
This webinar focused on how preservationists can work with artists to make preservation work more impactful. Panelists shared examples of artist-led engagement initiatives and ideas for how artists can spearhead community engagement activities to help drive preservation work forward.
One of the League’s grant programs, Preserve New York, has long funded Cultural Resource Surveys and Historic District nominations. These grants are funded through a regrant partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts. This year, our team has reworked our regrants, and in so doing, we have added an art requirement to all grants funding surveys and historic register nominations. These grants, Support for Arts-Based Community Preservation Projects just opened, making this webinar very timely.
In updating these grants, the League wants to encourage folks doing community-based preservation work to find creative ways to really engage the community.
There is so much possibility for this kind of preservation work to make meaningful inroads with the people in the places being studied. One thing we talk about a lot is the fact that there are so many people out there who care about preservation – who do really meaningful preservation work – but would never call themselves preservationists. The community organizers and neighborhood leaders, the folks who meticulously care for their old houses and celebrate their town’s local history. Artists are natural connectors and there are so many ways for creatives to connect the dots between the “capital P” Preservationists and the communities they work within.
Structuring engagement via creative practice breaks down barriers that traditional community planning doesn’t. Arts and culture projects reach broader audiences, engaging kids, elders, people who don't feel comfortable attending planning meetings for whatever reason. And where language might be a barrier, art creates a shared language.
There is no one way to do this kind of work – so much depends on the people, the place, and the context in which this work is happening. Murals, performance art, artist-led brainstorming sessions, walking tours…when we begin to think expansively about this work, there are so many possibilities.
Saira Siddiqui, Principal Consultant and Lead Artist at SAIRA Creative (she/her)
Saira Siddiqui is a community engaged artist and urban planner who thrives at the intersection of art, culture, neighborhood development, and community building. With experience that stretches from the Main Street districts of Oregon to revitalization and preservation efforts in New York State, Saira’s career reflects the same dualities that shape her worldview. She has worked as a boots on the ground practitioner, Executive Director, a funder and capacity builder, and a community engaged artist — moving fluidly between strategic systems work and creative, hands on practice. This blend of right brain artistry and left brain planning, paired with her bicoastal journey, informs her commitment to inclusive development, economic inclusion, and place based storytelling rooted in local identity.
As an artist, her work includes murals, public art, participatory workshops, and collaborative design processes that support communities in articulating shared vision and belonging. Her artistic practice is deeply informed by her training in creativity and change leadership, allowing her to help groups navigate complexity and imagine new possibilities. Across all her work — whether revitalizing commercial districts, facilitating cross sector coalitions, or co creating community driven art — Saira is guided by the belief that art, culture, and creativity are powerful catalysts for connection. She helps organizations and neighbors harness their collective stories and transform them into places that feel welcoming, vibrant, and rooted in identity.
Seth Wochensky, Executive Director, Springville Center for the Arts
Seth Wochensky joined Springville Center for the Arts (SCA) as part-time Director 2010. SCA is a multi-arts center located in rural Western New York with theater, concert, exhibit and workshop programs. Under Seth's leadership, the organization has added an extensive public art program, residencies, and popup community-building events along with the rehabilitation of multiple historic buildings. Seth spearheaded Art’s Cafe, an expansion project of the Arts Center that took a collapsed Main Street building and transformed it into a performance space, two artist residences, an arts workshop, and a public green roof centered around a community-owned bakery-cafe. To finance the completion of the project, SCA crafted a combination of Historic Tax Credit Syndication and a Direct Public Offering, making smaller shares of tax credits available to 120 local investors. The project won awards from WNY AIA, Preservation Buffalo Niagara, and The Preservation League of NYS. In addition to arts administration, he is an artist in his own right, having appeared on stage, exhibited artwork, completed large scale installations and produced several CDs. He previously produced several award-winning short films and has production credits including MTV, The Travel Channel, ABC, and The History Channel. He is an avid organic gardener and is co-founder of the nonprofit Green Springville.
Naomi Hersson-Ringskog, President, The Fullerton and Founder, Dept of Small Interventions
Founder of Dept of Small Interventions, Naomi Hersson-Ringskog launches place-based projects to amplify cultural assets, galvanize collaborations, and build social infrastructure in Newburgh, NY and the Hudson Valley region. Her projects focus on historic preservation, downtown revitalization and regional transportation.
Current projects include Building Shells: Building Community, a design project to creatively address vacant buildings; Archtober Newburgh, an annual celebration of the city’s historic built environment; and the Downtown District Alliance, where she is working with small businesses owners to form a Business Improvement District. Together with fellow advocates, Naomi is involved with Save the Ferry, aiming to revive the 220 year old Newburgh-Beacon ferry service. Naomi also founded the Awesome Newburgh Foundation in 2018 and spearheaded the first arts and cultural study for the City of Newburgh in 2020.
Prior to living and working in Newburgh, Naomi was the co-founder of No Longer Empty, a New York City non-profit that activates underutilized properties with large, community-responsive art exhibitions, cultural collaborations, and educational programming. She is President of The Fullerton, board member of Greater Newburgh Symphony Orchestra, member of Storm King Art Center's Young Council and alumni of Coro New York Leadership program. Naomi earned a Masters Degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University with a focus on urban sustainability.
Moderator: Katy Peace, Director of Communications, Preservation League of NYS (she/her)
Katy Peace has been working with nonprofits for more than 15 years — at arts organizations, a park conservancy, and now in historic preservation. She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Art History from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 2006, followed by a Master of Arts Management degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 2012. She currently serves as the Director of Communications for the Preservation League of NYS, engaging a statewide audience through strategic storytelling and public programming. Katy manages all aspects of the League’s external communications, including press, social media, and email marketing. Her work includes the League’s Preservation Book Club and Future of Preservation webinar series; programs aimed at exploring the connections between preservation and culturally important topics like planning, housing, diversity, and a sense of place. She serves as a volunteer for her local Library Friends group and received a 2024 40 Under 40 Award from SUNY New Paltz. She lives in Schenectady, NY, with her husband, daughter, and large orange cat.
The Future of Preservation programming series is made possible by the Peggy N. & Roger G. Gerry Charitable Trust.