When the Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) moved into a new building in downtown Jackson, it had a surface parking lot as its neighbor. With a growing number of people living downtown, MMA set out to transform the parking lot into a public open space that the museum could be used as a performance and gathering venue. By providing new green space in the downtown area, the museum was able to enhance the livability of the district while bringing the visual and performing arts to a broad new array of Jackson residents.
Situated on the banks of the Pearl River, Jackson is Mississippi’s state capital and its major hub of transportation and commerce. It is the state’s largest city, counting more than a half-million residents in its larger metropolitan region. Its downtown area—a mix of historic structures like the old and current State Capitols with a central business district—has become the focus of much redevelopment in the last several years. Near downtown’s Jackson Convention Complex, there is an aggregation of several cultural organizations, including the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Thalia Mara Hall, and the Mississippi Arts Center. In 2007, the Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) moved into a new building, designed by Glavé and Holmes with Dale & Associates, next to a large surface parking lot.
Jackson is home to a growing community of cultural and educational organizations, including five institutions of higher learning (two of which are historically black colleges and universities). With a diversity of residents, the state continues to confront challenges of its segregated history. In spite of, and often because of, the state’s turbulent past, Mississippians have created profound literature and music that has influenced the world. The musical traditions of gospel and blues filled the streets of a thriving African-American business district of Jackson in the early decades of the 20th century. Significant community anniversaries, especially those related to major events of the Civil Rights Movement, have resulted in the advancement of relationships between all parts of the community—economic, political, social, and cultural. Like other cultural institutions in Jackson, MMA continues to address social issues in efforts to overcome tensions that have manifested in Jackson’s downtown area, with land-use and development patterns reinforcing historic divisions.
These historic divisions could be felt in Jackson’s creative community as well, since there was a perception that art is a luxury. To address these divisions, project managers felt the need to democratize the art and cultural experiences, emphasizing that they were for residents of all socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, Jackson was in need of public spaces that would attract the entire community, especially in its denser downtown area where parks were scarce. This lack of space had historic roots. Demographic changes in Jackson mirrored those of other large cities in the past: families with school-age children moved into growing suburban communities that offered outdoor recreation for families but left a diminished tax-base and distressed urban areas behind. As the number of downtown residents began to grow again, many nearby parks became home to a disenfranchised, transient population, deterring local residents from using them frequently.
As a way to more directly engage its surrounding community, the Mississippi Museum of Art set out to transform the city-owned parking lot adjacent to the museum into a landscaped park open to the public, something it would call the Art Garden. By activating this 1.2-acre outdoor space, the museum felt it could more fully become, as its missions statement says, a “museum without walls.” With a lawn and a performance space, the outdoor park, designed by Madge Bemiss, would also allow the museum to launch public performances and programs that would engage the community with art in a very accessible way. As the first green space to open in the downtown area since the 1970s, the park would serve as an invaluable civic space for those liv