Rick Lowe
Rick Lowe’s unconventional approach to community revitalization has transformed a long-neglected neighborhood in Houston into a visionary public art project.
In 1993 with a group of fellow artists, he converted a block and a half of derelict 1930s shotgun houses in Houston’s predominantly African American Third Ward into Project Row Houses, an amalgam of arts venue and community support center. PRH now houses youth arts education, exhibition spaces and artist residencies, residential mentorship for young mothers, an organic gardening program, and an incubator for historically appropriate designs for new low income housing. Lowe has initiated arts-driven redevelopment and community building projects in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Seattle, Delray Beach, Charleston, and North Dallas. He is artist-in-residence at the Nasher Sculpture Center and a Mel King Community Fellow at MIT, and his work has been exhibited in national and international venues.