Main Content
Our Belief
Art Builds Business Builds Art.
Our Mission
The AIR Institute provides rural and under-resourced communities with programming that inspires new connections and ignites the creative economy. Creative people expand business skills, businesspeople get more creative; they learn to collaborate, adapt, and thrive together.
Our Values
The AIR Institute is built upon values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We believe diversity of people, opinions, and experiences, at decision-making tables, make communities and economies stronger. We believe that historical and current inequities must be addressed and remedied. We work to ensure that our communities have full access to essential education, tools, and resources that build self-determination, resilience, cultural equity, and creativity. We practice and teach consensus-based collaboration. We believe every community is unique and should define its own measure of success: quality of life, economic stability, individual accessibility, and opportunity.
What if more of us developed our creativity? And then we applied that creativity to everything we do. What new ventures would be started? What revolutionary ideas would emerge?
The world would be different. And not just for artists and people in the art world, but for all of us.
It sounds so simple. And yet, so much of our society is broken into silos, dividing those who are “creative” and those who aren’t.
The AIR Institute Story
Appalachian creative economies network
Participating States
ARC Designated States
AIR is helping seven states grow one of Appalachia’s most under-appreciated assets— its rich history and culture of making and creating.
Click on the interactive map to learn more about each individual state or follow the link below to learn more about the whole network.
COMMUNITY PROJECT STORY
Join the movement
We’re on a mission to raise the value of arts and culture in every community. We believe that our human, creative, nature is what can solve our ills – if we can get folks together to collaborate and create together.
We’ve got a plan and a process that you can use in your community to help bring together the artists, creative types, makers, crafters AND the farmers, mechanics, accountants, lawyers, restaurant owners, outfitters, and retail store owners who are all trying to figure out how to thrive in the new economy and fast-paced world.
