Creative Placemaking Expert

Kady Yellow has been making places come alive since 2010 when she discovered the power of collaborating with municipal governments, community organizations, and the cultural sector to build healthy, active cities with lively streets. Kady graduated with two Bachelor's focusing on both Mathematics and Design from Binghamton University (BU).

Born and raised in Binghamton, NY—she grew up and out of adversity to later be appointed as the youngest Commissioner for Downtown Development and co-found the Department of Public Art. Within the role she was an mayoral appointee to the Public Art Advisory Board in Upstate New York and under her leadership the global mural movement took local roots in Broome County and today there is a formal economic development zone called iDistrict Murals & Mosaics, as well as a Director of Placemaking that Yellow helped launch.

In 2016, because of her work in New York, she was invited to be keynote speak at the Global Mural Conference. That same year, Kady was awarded an artist-in-residence at the Bunnell Street Art Center in Alaska, where she proposed an unusual use of the residency: to help the town of 5,000 launch their first creative placemaking program called Peonies on Pioneer. The project was accepted and she went there to bring attention to the flower economy in Homer, a place growing the world’s best peonies, and join the team at the arts center to activate Main Street. While in Alaska, she was hired by Mayor Berkowitz and the Enzina Marrari, Public Curator of Public Art at the City of Anchorage, to train arts administrators and government employees on how to effectively work with artists to design great public space.

After working in Alaska she accepted a full-ride Teaching Assistantship at the University of New Orleans and in 2018 graduated with a Master’s in Arts Administration. After a successful summer of field-work as the Volunteer Coordinator in 2017 in Western Ireland, she went on to live and work in Galway, Ireland. Galway was recognized as the European Capital of Cultural 2020 and so she returned to the Galway International Arts Festival to join the team. During this time Lisbon Street Art and Urban Creativity International Conference management team in Portugal invited Kady to join the team.

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After publishing her first book on the subject matter, in 2019, Yellow was recruited to serve as the first Director of Placemaking in Flint, MI. Her focus is to empower residents to engage more meaningfully in their city planning processes by breaking down barriers and facilitating participation. The placemaking project gained national attention and her model is now replicated in North Carolina, New York, and California. Last fall she hosted Placemaking Week in Michigan as part of a goal series of events. Representatives from Project for Public Spaces, Brookings Institute and PlacemakingUS in conjunction with 25 of the nation’s best Placemakers arrived in Michigan for a week-long introduction to the work being done by residents of Flint.

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Yellow has been funded by various organizations committed to improving quality of life including the American Planning Association (Broome County Chapter), The American Institute of Architects (North Carolina Chapter), Carriage Town Historic Association (Michigan), and Flint Public Art Project. A RAUM (Netherlands) international key-note speaker, Yellow is a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Placemaking grantee and producer of the global series Placemaking Week. Yellow recently accepted a position as the first Director of Placemaking in Jacksonville's business improvement district starting in January 2022 and will continue to educate and empower residents to re-claim their public spaces, engage in civic discourse, and participate in local government.