MPAC and PHX: 21st Century City

Maricopa Partnership for Arts and Culture (MPAC) develops and implements entrepreneurial partnerships that advance arts and culture as an important part of the region’s economic prosperity, distinctiveness and vibrancy. One of those partnerships involves a new book called PHX: 21st Century City. Joining Michael Grant in the studio will be Myra Millinger, President & CEO, Maricopa Partnership for Arts and Culture, Edward Booth-Clibborn, Editor and Publisher, PHX: 21st Century City, and Nan Ellin, Author, PHX: 21st Century City.

Transcript:

Michael Grant:
Tonight on Horizon. November is Alzheimer's awareness month, marked by events around the valley and state, including the opening of a new health care facility for Alzheimer's patients. Plus, how has art become an economic and cultural driver in the region? We'll talk about that and how it's illustrated in a new book called "Phoenix: 21st Century City." Those stories, next on "Horizon."

Announcer:
Horizon is made possible by contributions from the friend of eight, members of your Arizona PBS station. Thank you.

Michael Grant:
Good evening, welcome to "Horizon." I'm Michael Grant. The polls have just closed in Arizona. The most closely watched races in our state of course U.S. Senate race between incumbent Republican Jon Kyl, and Democrat Jim Pederson. The congressional race between incumbent Republican J.D. Hayworth and Democrat Harry Mitchell, and the governor's race between Democrat Janet Napolitano and Republican Len Munsil. We'll start seeing numbers from those races, other statewide races and the propositions in about an hour. You will see those numbers here on 8. And then at 9:00, a special one-hour edition of vote 2006. We will have up-to-the moment numbers and analysis from the experts. November is Alzheimer's awareness month, with events such as the Alzheimer's association's memory walk. Another event, the opening of the new banner Alzheimer's institute. The institute conducts research, provides a variety of care to patients and their families and caregivers, and applies new treatment and prevention therapies for those afflicted with the disease. Here now to talk about the new banner Alzheimer's institute and other Alzheimer's-related issues, Dr. Pierre Tariot, associate director and director of the memory disorders clinic at the banner Alzheimer's institute. Good to see you.

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
Thanks for having me here.

Michael Grant:
Have we been calling Alzheimer's just by other names for a long time?

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
For a long time. Thousands of years, actually. It's been recognized as an illness associated with aging, and called various things, but often in our country things like senility, or hardening of the arteries.

Michael Grant:
Okay. Now, I have a note here that this month marked the 100-year anniversary of Dr. Alzheimer's submitting papers on and making the first clinical diagnosis of the disease.

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
Right. He had a woman, a patient who's name was O'Goust, who presented with loss of memory, loss of ability to think clearly, change in her emotions and personality, and he considered it a very remarkable and mysterious illness, and was the first person to study the brain of such a patient after death, and he identified what are still the classic characteristics that you see under the microscope. These things called plaques and tangles that characterize the illness and give us clues about what actually causes it.

Michael Grant:
Okay. We'll get to that in a second, but the banner Alzheimer's institute just opened. Give us an overview.

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
The banner Alzheimer's institute opened its doors formally last week with a ribbon cutting. It is an institute with a very ambitious mission to end Alzheimer's disease without losing a generation, to establish the model of care for people afflicted along the way, and to promote scientific collaboration, really throughout Arizona, because there's so many centers of excellence here already, and around the nation.

Michael Grant:
What kind of research is being -- will be conducted there?

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
We have the opportunity to do things in a very focused way that our sister centers of excellence, that don't compete with what our sister centers of excellence are doing. So, for instance, sun health has a wonderful brain bank and basic science labs, T-gen does genetics, Barrow has of course Dura surgery, great brain imaging techniques for structural brain imaging. We want to be able to take very promising therapies that are lurking on the horizon right now and rapidly test them in patients and in people at risk for the disease to make very rapid go, no-go decisions for deciding what -- which one of these promising therapies should go forward. So the model basically blends care with study. We don't think we can have a world class research clinical research institute without providing world class care.

Michael Grant:
Are we getting closer to some answers? The prevalence of Alzheimer's, maybe it's just anecdotal, but it seems to be more prevalent than it used -- getting back to our discussion about, we used to call it senility.

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
Right. Actually, the World Health Organization in looking at this century predicted that Alzheimer's disease would become the pandemic of western societies. And the reason is because it's associated with aging, so the ironic downside of our successful aging is we become susceptible to this common age-related condition. So by mid century it's estimated that 16 million or more Americans will be afflicted, and cost to our society will approach a trillion dollars in today's dollars.

Michael Grant:
You direct the memory disorders clinic. Tell us about that.

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
The model of our institute blends care and study, so on the care side, we have the memory disorders clinic to make a proper diagnosis and give folks a clear sense of how to manage the disease from a medical standpoint, but we have a sister program called the family and community services program, designed to work with the families to come up with a unique map, if you will, to help them navigate the illness, because --

Michael Grant:
What to expect, here's what to do when it occurs?

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
Right. And nutrition, medication, transportation, legal and financial issues, when is it ok to stay alone for a few hours, when should we think about day programs, long-term care. And every family is affected uniquely, and every individual is affected uniquely. So in concert with our other partners in the community like the Alzheimer's association, we really want to stand by our families through thick and thin as they go through this illness.

Michael Grant:

Obviously any disease and illness is tragic and a strain on family and caregivers and those kinds of things. Seems like Alzheimer's, though, has a particular impact to it, I'm not quite sure how to phrase it, it's almost like you've lost someone without losing them.

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
That's actually incredibly perceptive. I think one way that it's described to us is the reverse of somebody missing in action. The the physical presence is there, but the person is leaving or has left. Very, very hard. And it's also commonly associated with changes in emotion and temperament that can be very tough on the family as well. Imagine, I hope each viewer can imagine this, getting to a point where one's own mother doesn't know who you are. That's very, very hard.

Michael Grant:
Memory screening week next week?

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
November 14 will be -- we'll be working with some of our sister organizations to have a memory screening day at the banner Alzheimer's institute during that day. People can call 602-239-6900.

Michael Grant:
And the memory screening involves what?

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
A quick assessment of how somebody's memory and thinking is doing to give a read, should I be concerned, or this looks okay, you don't need a further evaluation.

Michael Grant:
Okay. Collaboration with other senior programs. You've mentioned some of that.

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
Absolutely key. Dr. Eric Ryman, my partner and the leader of our institute, is also the director of the Arizona Alzheimer's consortium, eight prominent institutions, Mayo clinic, A.S.U., T-gen, Sun Health, Barrow Neurological Institute, let's see if I can remember --

Michael Grant:
This is a memory test.

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
Banner, University of Arizona, and the V.A. Medical Center in Tucson.

Michael Grant:
Very good.

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
Each having, you know, breathtaking strength in certain areas. So when we thought about how to design this, we thought we should come up with something that compliments those strengths and doesn't overlap with them.

Michael Grant:
All right. Dr. Pierre Tariot, thank you very much for joining us. Good luck on the institute.

Dr. Pierre Tariot:
Thank you very much.

Michael Grant:
The Maricopa partnership for arts and culture often referred to as MPAC, develops and implements entrepreneurial partnerships that advance arts and culture as an important part of the region's economic prosperity, distinctiveness, and vibrancy. Local charitable organizations provided MPAC with three-year seed funding to launch new arts and culture programs and initiatives. In a moment, we'll talk about some of those and how art is helping energize the economy. First, one of MPAC's projects involves a new book called "Phoenix: 21st century city." the book is part of an international series on emerging cities featuring local artists, designers, and architects. The creators of a few of the featured works talk about their process.

Artist Erin Sotak:
I moved to Arizona as a child in 1982. I exchanged the grassy yard, taller than me snow drifts, and 241 shades of Ohio gray sky for a granite lawn, faster than me tumble weed, and 241 shades of brown. The desert of my childhood and the desert of my adulthood bring me hope, solace, peace.

Artist Hector Ruiz:
My work is influenced by immigration, change, conservatives, border state, corrupt politics, red necks, Indians, Mexicans, people who have moved to Phoenix from all over, one of the of fastest growing cities in the nation. There's plenty to be influenced by here.

Artist Randy Slack:
I've always had an appreciation for the Phoenix region, and was unaware that renewal would destroy and rebuild the small town history I'd come to know. Many motel signs litter the grand avenue on the way to my downtown studio.

Artist Michael Wirtz:
My work speaks of the emotional and psychological tensions that result from living in a city of explosive transition. Everything is caught in an uneasy balance. In a way in Phoenix, we are constantly trying to balance our humanity against the forces of marketing, capital, and growth.

Michael Grant:
Joining me now with more on MPAC and the project you just saw, Myra Millinger, president and C.E.O. of the Maricopa partnership for arts and culture. Edward Booth-Clibborn, editor and publisher of "Phoenix: 21st Century City," and Nan Ellin, author of "Phoenix: 21st century city." Welcome to all of you. Myra, tell me exactly what MPAC is.

Myra Millinger:
MPAC is a regional sector-driven initiative that began in 2004 at the recommendation of a task force superseded us led by 30 corporate public sector and arts leaders who were looking at what were the issues facing the nonprofit cultural sector in this region, and what needed to be done to position it so that it could be a full partner in the economic growth of the region. We have a 24-member board of private sector leaders who are guiding our work, and we were funded initially with cornerstone support from the Flynn Foundation and the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. We have four core areas that guide our work going forward at this point. The first is the critical issue of linking the cultural sector, both for and nonprofit, of art, architecture, and design in the economic strategies of the region as a full force player. Our second is to build regional distinction for arts and culture by identifying signature events that can begin to brand this Phoenix region on par with national and international centers where people gravitate because of its vibrancy and its brand. The third is to find ways for this ever-growing and shifting population base to begin to link with arts and cultural organizations so that the audiences of the future can be identified and the fourth issue is the critical issue of the right brain and young people. We feel very, very strongly that we need to focus on building a work force for an innovation economy that is not just math and science driven, but is idea driven. And if we don't bring arts and culture experiences to young people early on, they will grow up walking funny because they will only have half of their brain. So that is the fourth area of our work.

Michael Grant:
I get you. Well, I'm exhausted just listening to you. We're going to talk about the book and we're also going to talk about buzz in a couple of minutes. What are some of the other projects that MPAC has been working on.

Myra Millinger:
We undertake research to advance our message and our case statement, and so we've done two research reports to date, one on measuring the strength of the creative community here, and the second one that will be issued next week on understanding how people view this region, both in and outside of the region, in terms of its vibrancy. And we'll be issuing that. We also use our funding for seed support, and buzz, that you just mentioned, is one such effort. We provided the capital so that KAET could launch this pilot for what we hope will be a weekly series. We work very much with the arts and culture community on collaborative ventures that will help them collectively move forward. We have an initiative right now with 20 arts and culture organizations on joint market analysis to understand audience development.

Michael Grant:
Nan, let's talk about the book a little bit, "Phoenix: 21st Century City." How did it get started?

Nan Ellin:
It got started a little bit less than two years ago, in January 2005. I was visiting Brooklyn to check out the arts scene there, and a day or two later I was in the a store in upper east side of Manhattan and encountered the book on Brooklyn that Booth-Clibborn editions had issued, and I was looking through it and I loved the book, I love the idea of evoking a place through the work of its artist, architects, and designers, and getting the particular character of a place at a moment in time. And I thought to myself, one day Phoenix is going to be ready for a book like this. I went back home and within a few months, I thought Phoenix is ready, and I contacted Edward Booth-Clibborn, and he agreed to come out and take a look, and I took it to MPAC, I was serving on one of the work groups there, and they agreed this could be a good project for MPAC.

Michael Grant:
So Edward, in other words, she just bugged you to death.

Edward Booth-Clibborn:
Absolutely. Story of my life. [laughter]

Michael Grant:
It is a series.

Edward Booth-Clibborn:
It's very much a series. It started in 2003, by accident. Because a young girl working for me, my office in London, told me London was boring and wanted to go back to Berlin, East Berlin. She said it was much more interesting things happened. When I got there, I met an awful lot of young people working, and this is the first book, working there, and it really inspired me to think of the idea of doing the book, which covered all forms of different areas -- design, architecture, fashion, so I was all mixed up. In other words, it is everything we see in our daily life when we go around newspapers and magazines. And I thought everything should come together. Because to me, it's -- everything is related. Everything is related to everything else. To me it's like a mosaic. What you see, what we all see, it all comes together. Everything influences everything else. Rather than doing books on a particular one design, I decided to do it on a collective aspect, and that was the first one. The next one I did was on Moscow. That was quite interesting. More difficult. Different environment. And there the authorities have got slightly upset with the content because it's very contemporary. We were not able to do a Russian edition of this. Using young people is very important.

Michael Grant:
Did you sneak out the photos?

Edward Booth-Clibborn:
No, it was all quite healthy -- it's all very good, don't worry, there's nothing like that. It's a whole different attitude there towards contemporary design. This is why so it's important for young people to work there. I specialize very much also in always getting young people to design my books. Terribly important to keep a freshness. Then I decided to look Brooklyn, because it's kind of part of New York, but it is a separate city in itself.

Michael Grant:
What does 718 mean?

Edward Booth-Clibborn: That's the area code.

Michael Grant: Oh!

Edward Booth-Clibborn:
This is the area code. And there again, this is what Nan saw, is how we looked at the city and looked at the city and collected it together. This is how the series began. And it's really grown. I think it's -- and then we come on to the famous one now, which is Phoenix.

Michael Grant:
"Phoenix: 21st century city," now, I -- it certainly doesn't have as much background as Moscow for --

Edward Booth-Clibborn:
Well, in that respect as historical cities, it's true. Phoenix is a very unique area, and unique in its experience. What is interesting at the moment in England is how all of a sudden everybody talks about Phoenix. In fact, the BBC have decided to do -- cover the election you've got now by sending the first reporter to Phoenix and start it in Phoenix, then went back across the country. So what is buzz? I don't know. But something is happening. A great interest in Phoenix. It's quite extraordinary.

Michael Grant:
There's an old expression here that all roads lead to Phoenix. But that's another interview segment. Who is the book for, Nan?

Nan Ellin:
Well, Edward talked about this buzz going on here, and that's really what got me wanting to do this. I thought there was clearly something going on in Phoenix, and that this should be documented. And it's for two audiences. One is for people who live in this area, I wanted to raise the awareness about this critical mass of creative activity that's going on here. And I think we notice a lot of negativity, people sometimes get caught up in saying, Phoenix is not a great city and it will never be a great city. But I think there's so much going on to show that we are emerging creatively, the problem is, in contrast to Brooklyn, you don't see it when you're walking down the street. And Brooklyn, you simply walk around and there it is. In Phoenix it's a bit more hidden, and it's also spread out very widely throughout the metropolitan region. The other audience is the national and international audience. I wanted others to look at us differently, it looks like that might be happening, and I'm not sure if it's because of the book or not.

Edward Booth-Clibborn:
We hope so.

Nan Ellin:
But I think that essentially we wanted to -- I wanted to boost the self-image that we have of ourselves, and to boost the image that others have of us, because I think perception is very, very important.

Michael Grant:
You think we're insecure, Edward?

Edward Booth-Clibborn:
No, I don't think so. I haven't discovered that. I found great confidence here amongst the young people. Remember, we had an enormous submission. There was three thousand pieces to look at to make the secection. And it does really reference what is going on in this town, and it's very exciting. I came here with a certain amount of -- I wasn't sure of myself when I came, so I came here, and I was very pleasantly surprised. It's terrific, I feel proud this is one of my books.

Michael Grant:
Myra, another big project for MPAC is buzz. We touched on that, talk a little bit more about it.

Myra Millinger:
Well, amongst the strategies MPAC is pursuing, one of our goals is to begin to enhance and build blocks of different activities that collectively will change perceptions of this region as a way of strategically positioning ourselves in what we know is a war for talent right now, so Nan has one perspective, which is very important of what she's trying to achieve, from the standpoint of MPAC and its investment in the initial funding of this effort, it's an economic development issue and a recruiting issue, because we are facing tremendous competition from Seattle and Austin, and Dallas, and Denver, and Portland, because they are viewed amongst knowledge workers and those young people we're trying to attract here as the places where all of this is taking place. And not here. So how do we collectively begin to build awareness and exposure and energy and buzz? And we felt that the pilot itself was a wonderful opportunity, particularly with its interface with the book and one of the artists represented in the pilot to bring some synergy together.

Michael Grant:

Okay. Well, Myra Millinger, thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate it. Edward Booth-Clibborn, our thanks to you as well. Nan Ellin, thanks for your input and thanks for the book. And as we talked about, we are debuting a new program on Thursday, November 9, at 7:00 p.m. Right here on 8. "Buzz" features the artists, designers, and performers of Arizona's creative community. And here's a preview.

Announcer:
Next on "Buzz." meet artist who's are part of an emerging arts community that's shaping the city. And redefining life in the valley. First, we'll take a walk on the wild side of high fashion and high-tech. With designer Galina Majalaba. Then "Buzz" catches up with violist, Mark Dicks who introduces chamber music to new audiences in downtown Phoenix galleries. Finally, meet urban designer, Duke Gallagher who envisions a sky harbor where airplanes, condos, and swimming pools might one day coexist. All that and more, next on "Buzz."

Michael Grant: In just an hour and a half "Horizon" is going to rejoin you to talk about election results, local political analysts will be joining us. That is at 9:00 p.m. Here on "Horizon." We'll start running election results for you at about 8:00, and then tomorrow night we'll have an hour-long special analyzing the results of vote 2006. Hope to see you in about 90 minutes or so. Thank you very much for joining us on this Tuesday evening for a regular edition of "Horizon." I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.