In 2024, Marion Voices carried out our Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project (CHAMP): a participatory, community effort to map & share our prizes cultural, arts, & heritage resources, to collectively write the blueprint for future culture-sector investments locally, & across the wider region. We visited seven cultural & geographic communities across Marion County, & — supported by community liaisons in each community — hosted dynamic, half-day cultural heritage assets mapping sessions: supported by a custom-designed Marion Voices Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project Kit, developed from the excellent foundations of the Cultural Assets Mapping Project (CAMP) Toolkit developed by the City of Austin, Texas, with a unique, Marion Voices-flavored cultural heritage, arts, & folklife spin! Our Marion Voices CHAMP team then collated the hundreds of cultural heritage assets identified & mapped by participants, & summarized findings from each session in a series of seven ‘zine-style reports, & a summary presentation with thematic, high-level overviews. Each ‘zine (& the presentation) highlight key cultural heritage assets identified in each community, speculative future community cultural heritage resources each community wants to see, & Marion Voices‘ aggregated recommendations for cultural heritage & arts investment in each community. It is our hope not only that our Marion County CHAMP ‘zines & maps will provide a ground-truthed blueprint for future community cultural heritage & arts investment by Marion County’s municipal, non-profit, philanthropic, & grassroots community leaders; but also that our Marion County CHAMP Kit & Base Maps — available below — will allow cultural heritage assets mapping to become a permanent part of the toolkit & lexicon of community planning in & beyond Marion County.
We welcome communities both within & beyond Marion County to make use of our CHAMP materials & ‘zine reports! We simply ask that you credit Marion Voices, & keep our design. Marion Voices is also available to conduct Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping processes for your group, organization, or community, as a part of a larger strategy of integrating cultural, humanities, & arts approaches to community development. Contact us if you’d like to bring CHAMP to your community!
Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project (CHAMP) 🏆🏆🏆
The Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project (Marion County CHAMP) began in Spring 2024 with a Community Kick-Off & Launch Party in Late February, & development of our Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project (CHAMP) Toolkit & Marion County Basemaps — custom-designed by graphic designer Jeff Nagle — in Spring 2024. We also began work recruiting paid community liaisons from each of our CHAMP project’s seven cultural or geographic communities, who were charged with outreach & participant recruitment in their own home communities.
In June of 2024, Marion Voices hosted seven participatory cultural heritage assets mapping sessions in four geographic & three cultural/identity communities across Marion County — the real work of our Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project!. Those two-to-three hour sessions combined facilitated presentation with participatory mapping & story-sharing to collectively assemble a shortlist of valued cultural resources in various categories (foodways, historical, built environment, natural, cultural, religious/spiritual, arts), plus community-rooted plans for investment & development of our cultural, arts, & heritage sectors.
Together, we discussed important questions like:
- 🏆 What important cultural, arts, & heritage resources did we used to have in our community; & what happened to them? 🏆
- 🏆 What cultural heritage assets in our community are currently threatened; & what would protecting them look like? 🏆
- 🏆 What cultural heritage resources or amenities do we not have in our community that other communities do have? What barriers exist to their existence here? What might building them require or look like? 🏆
- 🏆 What cultural assets define our sense of place & help make our community & local landscape distinct from other communities? 🏆
Marion Voices‘ Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping sessions were open to anyone of any age; no previous experience or special expertise in culture, arts, or heritage is required. Sessions lasted for two hours, with an optional third hourfocus group for working community artists, as an accompaniment to our Making It: Arts Livelihoods & Arts Economies in Marion County countywide artists’ survey, funded by the Ohio Arts Council & the National Endowment for the Arts. In keeping with Marion Voices‘ equity budgeting model, a stipend pool was available for both segments of each session, & the pool was divided by all participants who attended each the full session & participate dactively. Marion Voices recognizes & values the time & labor involved in collaborative community cultural planning, & this stipend — part of our larger equity budgeting model — reflects our enthusiastic acknowledgment that cultural resources planning is valuable labor.
Marion County CHAMP Sessions were be held on weekends in June in open-air, outdoor park or nature center shelterhouse settings for accessibility.
Our Marion County CHAMP Sessions included:
- 🏆 Saturday, June 8th, 9AM-12PM: Western Marion County || Oorang Bang — Lawn of the Oorang Bang 🏆
- 🏆 Sunday, June 9th, 3-6PM: Latine/Hispanic Communities || Lincoln Park — Charlie D Shelterhouse 🏆
- 🏆 Saturday, June 15th, 9AM-12PM: Marion City & Suburbs || McKinley Park — Y Men’s Shelterhouse🏆
- 🏆 Saturday, June 15th, 1-4PM: LGBTQIA+ Communities || McKinley Park — Erickson Shelterhouse 🏆
- 🏆 Sunday, June 16th, 3-6PM: African-American Communities || MLK Park Shelterhouse 🏆
- 🏆 Saturday, June 22nd, 10AM-1PM: Eastern Marion County || Terradise Nature Center Lower Parking Lot 🏆
- 🏆 Sunday, June 23rd, 3-6PM: Southern Marion County || Prospect Community Park — Good Shelterhouse 🏆
Project funding supported the hiring of a community liaison (or multiple) in each of the above-listed geographic and/or cultural communities to help facilitate CHAMP session planning & community outreach to distinct segments of the Marion County community. Through this model, we planned proactively for CHAMP to extend its audiences beyond existing Marion Voices audiences & participants to foster new collaborators & perspectives. Our Marion County CHAMP Community liaisons were integral to the success of our project; & we strongly encourage other organizations & communities taking on broad-scope (county or regional) cultural heritage assets mapping work to adopt a paid community liaisons model for broader, more democratic community reach & participation.
Following our CHAMP sessions, Marion Voices‘ CHAMP team produced a graphic-designed, fully-illustrated 16-page ‘zine-style report from each CHAMP session — including a session summary, community context notes, each session’s aggregated cultural heritage assets map, a spotlight on key cultural heritage assets discussed, future cultural heritage assets desired, & recommendations for future cultural heritage investment & organizing in each community. We then aggregated those reports into a larger Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project Presentation: outlining both our CHAMP methodology & process, a summary of each session, & integrated, county-wide insights & analysis. Our ‘zines & presentations were presented back to our community in both in-person & online modes. We invite you to pursue our CHAMP projects, learn about new-to-you communities in Marion County, try to spot opportunities to connect & collaborate across lines of difference, or get inspired to try out cultural heritage assets mapping in your own community!
Credits & Acknowledgements:
Special thanks to our dynamic, brilliant CHAMP team, who made this work possible:
- Marion County CHAMP Core Team:
- Jess Lamar Reece Holler — Project Direction, Strategy, Graphic Design, Facilitation, & Analysis
- Johnnie Jackson — Strategic & Outreach Advisor
- Jeff Nagle — Map Design; CHAMP Session Support & Notes; Analysis
- Danllaly Pavón — Translation, Interpretation, & Language Justice
- CHAMP Liaisons: Irene Tron (Western Marion County), Danllaly Pavón & Evelyn Olivos Lisiecki (Latine Communities); Ms. Linda Sims & Ms. Katie Reese-Hairston (Marion City & Suburbs); Ms. Jessie Thompson (African-American Communities); Shannon Pegg & the Marion Area LGBTQ+ Coalition (Queer/Trans* Communities); April Morrison & Cody Higley (Eastern Marion County); Tim Gorenflo & Susan Ann Rhodes (Southern Marion County)
Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project Kit (English & Español):
Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project: Recap Video Presentation + Slides:
Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project — Final ‘Zine Reports (English):
Note: ‘Zine reports are presented in “printer’s spread” format. Simply print in full color, & fold/saddle staple at the binding to assemble your own ‘zine! For those reading digitally, follow the page numbers!
Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project — Final ‘Zine Reports (Español):
Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Maps — Annotated:
Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Maps (Basemaps):
North-Central Ohio Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project (CHAMP) + Folklife Survey // North-Central Ohio Folklife Solidarities Project 🏆🏆🏆
This fall & winter, Marion Voices is transitioning into a brand-new & effort: taking our signature community-based cultural organizing regionally, to help grow solidarities, build networks, & expand arts & culture-sector economies across North-Central Ohio. We will launch this work through a North-Central Ohio Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project & accompanying North-Central Ohio Folklife Survey.
This work will serve an expanded twelve-county region of North-Central Ohio spanning from Lima to Mansfield: including Putnam, Allen, Hancock, Logan, Hardin, Wyandot, Crawford, Seneca, Huron, Richland, Ashland, & Morrow Counties.
We will hold one CHAMP strategy session in each county to bring together key stakeholders, organizations, & individuals involved in the arts, culture, & heritage sectors. A substantial stipend pool will be available for each session to help off-set participants’ time, lost wages, and/or caregiving responsibilities; like in our Marion County CHAMP work, the stipend pool will be divided evenly amongst all participants who remain for the entire session. We will do substantial outreach & organizing in each county to get the word out about each session. We anticipate hiring community liaisons in each county to help with recruitment & outreach. We expect to schedule our North-Central Ohio CHAMP Sessions for January & February 2024.
Our North-Central Ohio CHAMP work will also be accompanied by a thirteen-county North-Central Ohio folklife survey: the first documented folklife survey of any kind to happen in our region. Our CHAMP team will visit our neighboring North-Central Ohio counties & conduct a “windshield survey” — informed by extensive research — of key cultural heritage, arts, & community assets: generating a usable library of North-Central Ohio cultural heritage media that can be used to support future collaborative regional products. Our folklife survey findings will be combined into graphic designed, fully-illustrated CHAMP reports — in an accessible ‘zine format — developed for each county.l
Why work regionally? North-Central Ohio is a vibrant & diverse region; but is one that lacks the coherent, self-developed sense of identity that characterizes other regions of Ohio. Our hope is that, through dedicated folklife documentation & collaborative organizing, the North-Central Ohio CHAMP process can begin to articulate a distinctive, networked identity for our region, while building networked infrastructure for arts, culture, & heritage-sector organizations to collaborate across the region, learn from each others successes, & build a more cohesive regional arts, culture, & heritage model.
The North-Central Ohio CHAMP process will result in a new website or section of Marion Voices‘ website which will host a geo-mapped directory of regional organizations & efforts, plus a mapped directory of cultural heritage resources across the region. It is our hope that North-Central Ohio CHAMP — supported by an A-250 Ohio Commission, & in advance of America’s 250th anniversary in 2026, & joined by support from a visionary ArtsHERE Capacity-Building award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, in collaboration with the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations, administered by SouthArts — will help organize North-Central Ohio communities towards more collaborative heritage-sector futures; & will set new paths for Marion Voices‘ future strategic plan in broader regional partnerships.
All are welcome — contact us to get involved!
The Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project (CHAMP) + North-Central Ohio Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project (CHAMP) have been made possible, in part, through generous support from ArtsHERE, the America-250 Ohio Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, & Ohio Humanities. We are grateful for your support of this pathbreaking effort!
This program is made possible, in part, by Ohio Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this project do not necessarily represent those of Ohio Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.
