As the 2016 mayoral race picks up speed, we continue to bring candidates in to the studio to talk about the future of arts and culture in Portland.

First-time candidate Sarah Iannarone is a program manager at Portland State University, where she is also a PhD candidate in the School of Urban Studies and Planning. She is on the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability Mixed Use Zones Project Advisory Committee and is a small business owner.

1:50 On her vision for Portland arts and culture
“[Art] is part of the DNA of who we are as a city. The question for our future is, what is the relationship between arts, livability, and our economy?”

3:00 On the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC)

7:40 On how we can address the rising costs of housing and studio space in Portland
“I haven’t heard anyone else talk about thinking of ways we can innovate in our current zoning to make better use of existing space in neighborhoods. […] What does it look like for the government to get out of the way for some community-based solutions? What does it mean to look beyond the standard single-family home on a lot?”

14:46 On how to make sure there is room for artists in commercial spaces
“Another thing we can be doing is making sure that our artists are connected to real, paying work—that we are not seeing artisans as always in need of a handout. Artists are really productive members of society. They contribute a great deal beyond things that are superficial or superfluous to our lives.”

19:55 On how we can afford to invest in infrastructure for the arts
“We’ve worked so hard the last few decades to make Portland an amazing place. Our arts are community investments, our public spaces are community investments, the civic culture that we have here is a community investment […] this is something that the real estate investors are valuing. So we need to capture that.”

21:30 On the role of subsidies for arts
“We subsidize as a public the things that we value that the market doesn’t necessarily value on the surface. That means that we don’t have to do the work that the market will do for us. What we have to do is the work that the market won’t do for us. And the market won’t build things like The Gerding for us.”

22:13 On how to extend access to arts and culture in Portland

24:08 on the importance of arts education and public art
“While we need the math and science for skill-building, we also need a core understanding of the complexity of human experience […] and art is a way that you connect intellect to the heart, so that people in our society can connect to each other, they can connect to place.”

30:25 On how to ensure Portland survives growth with its soul intact
“We need someone with a bold vision of what is on the other side of these growing pains that we are experiencing right now. To characterize that as ‘losing our soul’ almost predisposes us to losing our soul, instead of having a leader who is saying, ‘We can keep our soul. We have our soul, this is what our soul looks like in Portland. This is how we do things.’”