NET/TEN Shareback: DNAWORKS - Engine, Biddeford, ME

Spring 2022 Travel Grant

Our four-day visit to Biddeford and Engine was all too brief. It was wonderful to see how the small staff at Engine are fully immersed in the community and have created activities and initiatives to bring people together – both in macro at the arts walk but also with individual activities, such as the business bingo card encouraging participants to visit new local businesses and make contact with the proprietors (I was resistant at first, but it was so much fun!). 

Engine is right in the middle of the main street and is a welcoming place where people stop in to see student artwork, performance during the art walk, and visit the artist co-working space. I attribute this environment and openness to the multiple types of projects Engine initiates, including skills of local interest, such as boat building. 

Yet the perennial and pervasive challenges of being a small arts organization persist — a small staff attempting to serve a broad swath of the population, especially building relationships with underrepresented groups in terms of the town’s demographics. The set-up of being one of only a few organizations mindfully working to make themselves accessible and welcoming to multiple disparate groups resonated for me, as we continue to hone the mission and programming of The Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing in Fort Worth, TX—a project to repurpose the former Ku Klux Klan auditorium built in 1924 to serve and return resources to the multiple constituency groups that the KKK targeted for violence and economic marginalization. Fortunately, The Center has an active board that represents and serves these groups—but the lesson is clear: it takes time and ample people-power to bring these groups together consistently and in meaningful ways. Our contact at Engine has worked diligently and dutifully to create such an environment and also ensures that her staff represents a plurality of identities. But there are inherent structural challenges in a small New England town that will take, perhaps, more time to scale impact than in a larger, urban setting. 

We very much enjoyed our time in Biddeford and were warmly greeted all around. We began relationships with two other local organizations and hope that future collaborations will be possible with all three. We see great potential and sincerity of intention. Four days was too short to go beneath the surface of embedded societal and historical structures; nevertheless we were inspired by the folks we met, their vision for their town, and the work that they are doing collectively. We thank NET for the opportunity to get a glimpse of a unique place and we are inspired to continue the work we are doing in Fort Worth, knowing that taking time, staying mindful, and, as adrienne maree brown writes, “moving at the speed of trust” are key.