Clyde Valentin of One Nation / One Project is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural producer who has focused his career around uplifting community. Often focusing his work around the intersection of art, technology, and social justice, he recently produced the 18-city single-day event Arts for Everybody that underscored the connection between the arts and health. In conversation with show host Nathaniel Kressen, Clyde cites the centeredness of creativity to shaping culture, and makes the case for investors to consider artists as they might consider visionaries in tech.

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What if artists weren’t just shaping culture—but helping redesign the systems that shape our lives?

Artist-Led introduces a new class of creative practitioners working at the intersection of community, capital, and systems change.

Some are embedded within communities—listening deeply, surfacing shared values, and helping translate them into action. Others are working at the structural level, rethinking how community development is funded and who gets to lead.

Rooted in the work of CultureBanq, the series follows three place-based projects as proof of concept—offering a ground-level look at how artist-led enterprises can drive meaningful social outcomes while modeling new approaches to community investment.

Both intimate and expansive, Artist-Led makes the case for artists not as afterthoughts, but as essential collaborators in building more responsive, human-centered systems.

To explore more shows that focus on creativity, community, and social good, join the Jackanoid Paralope community on Substack.

Jacksonville Parallel.

The essential role of the artist is to be able to see what's unseen.

The role of the artist can vary, but principally I think it's about cultivating the imaginary.

Being a creative puts you back in touch with what it means to be a human.

And there's so much in the world right now that kind of seeks to.

Strip us of our humanity.

From Jacksonoid Paralope this is artist led a podcast about artists who have moved beyond the proverbial studio to lead efforts around systems change and community well being.

The first episode of this season guides on the Ground introduce listeners to the key players and concepts surrounding this work and the sector of community development investment.

This episode will hear excerpts from a conversation between show host Nathaniel Cresson and Clyde Valentin, a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural producer.

Hey, Glad.

Good morning, Nathaniel.

How are you Doing well?

How are you, man?

I'm good.

I'm good.

I've given this some thought, you know, and I want to provide an example from my own experience, you know, if that's okay, Nathaniel, because it is.

Feels like a thread that I want to keep pulling, you know, for us.

And I think it is about sort of the future of this work, thinking about founders and culture workers and artists in the community cultural context as, you know, treating them with the same veracity, you know, and enthusiasm and resources as venture capitalists would treat a founder of a new tech company, you know, because I, you know, I understand one is about making money and it's the market.

And I think part of what's missing for us systemically in our society is the value on people and culture.

Right.

And we've, you know, both.

Both are needed.

Both have existed through the history of time in different forms, you know, so we don't have to pretend about that at all.

Like that's just a, you know, part of, you know, human society.

But where I think we've been skewed a little bit, specifically in the United States and where we have, like, an extraordinary opportunity ultimately, you know, because of, you know, the.

The.

The youngness of our nation, the wealth of our nation, you know, and the extraordinary diversity that exists here, you know, is to just maybe in certain instances, you know, create a different kind of market condition and point of view around how we invest in ourselves, in each other, to society built, you know, from the ground up.

Right.

So I think about the organization I. I didn't grow up in, but around that I really have admired it was organization in the south side of Brooklyn, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, specifically, which is now internationally known, it's a destination.

It has some of the high market real estate market value in New York City.

It's called El Puente Puente center for Peace and Justice.

Like, you know, we're not talking about a community that's since been transformed, but you know, the, the organizers of El Puente stepped in and said, well, you know, education is important, art is important, the environment is important, right.

So they were all early sort of environmental justice activists and workers in that space.

And all of this leads to leadership.

The organization is now well over 40 years old.

And personally I sort of stepped into the world of El Puente through my wife and partner and she grew up there, right.

So through that lens and you know, I was someone from the outside looking and admiring this organization and its work in a, in a community that looked like mine.

I think about the generations, and I personally have witnessed the generations of people and families that El Puente as a nexus in this formerly distressed community served and how they, they completely changed the trajectory of many individuals and thus families now to a third generation.

When I came of age.

And I think about the, the wealth that that's produced, you know, by way of stabilizing families, folks moving from, you know, not being able to speak English, to be able to speak English, to be able to take on apprenticeships, to be able to come teamsters and union workers, to be able to a large family and then have those children all graduate from college who are now like cybersecurity engineers and lawyers and entrepreneurs, programmers people, folks who work for tech, Google and Microsoft.

This is in the span of one generation for me, all emanating from one organization that focused on distinct elements of what was missing in their community.

Right.

So as the real estate game, you know, was beginning to emerge in a place like Williamsburg, right.

When they were there and invested in well before anybody gave a shit about that particular community.

And it's real estate and those buildings and that waterfront property, and they were working to revitalize it.

They didn't necessarily take a stake in any hard assets.

Right.

So the concept of ownership or, or even like purchasing buildings didn't really, you know, manifest because there was no interest in that work.

It was interest in, I would say, very important soft assets.

Right.

Which is like people ultimately in culture and conditions.

So for me, that's part of what's missing, what's required today and what was required then, and I think folks are coming back around to this in general is understanding that we also need to factor in and figure in the economic conditions that are around us and understand these economic systems, not shy away from them if we're going to operate through them and make them work for ourselves.

Because that has also been proven through the history of our country.

If I can echo back what I'm hearing, hearing you say is that thinking about community well being is inherently tied to folks who can think holistically and see what is lacking and think through how to create it.

But the impediment so far is that the hard assets, the economic realities, the systems within which kind of like the whole system runs, it's kind of been seen as something separate from that, but it actually has to be integrated in order to foster ongoing well being and kind of take stake in ownership.

Would you say that's kind of like on point?

I'd say so.

And if I could double down on that.

The thing that I think is also missing for us, and this is translation in two directions, right?

And knowledge transfer in two directions.

And, and that is for the investors operating in and around social impact and community development, of which, no, it's part of the marketplace that we're looking to reach out to.

Probably need more hard data to help in addition to great storytelling, you know, in, in addition to tangible examples that you can see, touch and feel on the ground, you know, need access, I believe, you know, for the economists on their team, hard data.

Right.

And if I had the resources right now, one of the things I would do is hire an economist and just look at an organization like @Pointe and attempt to quantify through the generational shifts that they've been able to help foster and create actual numbers around lives saved, you know, health conditions of their constituents.

Like do do some hard math around that generational work to see what's been produced.

You've obviously touched on a lot of different industries and built a lot of different communities face down similar work where adjacent work, like in a lot of different ways.

Is there like a story you can share as a moment where a light bulb went off in somebody's eyes when you're talking about this work?

A moment where you kind of got through, did it take that data or, or was there a moment where an investor kind like got it and was like, yeah, let me work with you.

Here's what we need to find out.

I think most recently, with my experiences around one nation, one project in arts for everybody, which was a distinct project that was like arts and health, Right.

And I would say the transformative moments that I've experienced in and around this project has been from some folks in the healthcare sector who understand, who have valued arts and culture, but really began to see as health care providers the real potential long term savings around how this work could impact both their clients, but also their employees, their practitioners.

But if we apply the same value to that level of output to humans based upon the things that, the conditions that could create it, so folks could generate meaningful lives and purpose free from exceptional violence and trauma, which is too often present in many of our communities, then that to me, has a tremendous amount of value and work.

So in that context, what does that actually look like in terms of them helping foster those outcomes?

You know, for me, what does it look like?

I think, you know, ideally a group or in, you know, a handful of practicing artists from a particular community who are integrated in that place already, who, you know, have some real ideas, let's say, around the revitalization of a block or a particular neighborhood who maybe have varying degrees of this kind of understanding, but where there's already distinct value.

And this is where the literacy part comes into play.

They're completely trusted by the individuals in that community.

They've demonstrated vision and the ability to make things happen.

Right, so not just ideas, right?

Because ideas are never the problem.

At the end of the day, people often are the problem.

Right.

And again, this is just broadly speaking, so being specific, you know, all those, all those boxes are checked in terms of, you know, an individual or group's ability to see and accomplish a thing.

So there's demonstrated success, and you could define that very specifically.

I think the other layer that needs to be factored into this work is the sustainability of it.

Right.

And thus the stabilization.

Back to the idea of hard and soft assets.

This, this notion of perpetual growth, that our market is going to infinitely grow like this might be true for some things in the marketplace, but it can't be true for everything.

And it is not the only indicator of success.

It cannot be in A society that relies and functions around people.

It also goes back to and is underlined by those value propositions that I think also need to be incorporated into the knowledge transfer and literacy building, you know, for both investors and folks on the ground who are interested and serious about this kind of work in their respective communities.

So how do you think you get investors in this kind of work, in this long impactful work where it isn't necessarily always going to be one trajectory?

How do you get them to understand that profit is the only metric of success here?

That it's also about impact, it's also about investing for the long term?

I do think it takes some more work around data and quantifying it.

Quite frankly, this is about a market that exists, but we haven't quite defined and helped realize and create some borders around, you know, some parameters around.

And I think that that's our challenge right now, that, you know, we have to create some modeling that allows folks in who have spent decades thinking about this in a very specific way and are well trained in that regard, but aren't necessarily, you know, who and are looking for the tools that they could use potentially right, to consider investment.

So that I think that factors in timeline.

I think that factors in some real quantification around generational impact.

I think that factors in the kind of hard.

The combination of hard and soft assets and what that actually looks like in terms of what's being made.

How would you articulate.

And you've touched on this a little bit, but I'm curious how you thought about this answer.

How would you articulate the role of the artist, the role of the citizen and the role of the human?

The role of the artist can vary, but principally, I think it's about first and foremost cultivating the imaginary and what is possible and being able to interpret that through expression in any way, shape or form.

So, you know, multimedia, it's not just theater art, it's all the things, right?

So that that sort of level of interpretation of a mat of the imaginary, right?

And drawing that in, I would say that, you know, artists with a particular practice are uniquely suited in that way.

For me, that broadens to the citizens of a place, an active civic engagement, which is another point of deficit for us as a country at this particular moment, you know, we've confuse that to mean a few different things.

It's also like lacking.

Because active citizenry, active civic participation really requires, I think, a degree of critical thinking and analysis around the immediate things around you, right?

And understanding that in the midst of, you Know, individualism, right?

And rugged individualism.

There's also a neighborhood and a block, you know, and.

And maybe a municipality or town or village.

And you all have to function together in that regard.

You've already covered a whole bunch.

I have a few more questions here that, like, we can speed through or, like, you know, just happen, whatever speaks to you most.

So some of these questions are like, which components of this work drive your passion?

Why is this work important to you?

What.

What keeps you moving forward with optimism?

How do we heal our communities and realize full potential?

And how can investors play a role?

So if any of those really jump out at you, we can dive into, you know, those ones.

So why this work is important and how investors can play a role, to me, go hand in hand.

And that is, if not this as one of the possibilities and trajectories to create meaningful and viable change in our community, in our communities, in our society, then what else?

What's the alternative?

Right?

Sort of like, what are the ideas?

The role that investors play is that we know, given the changes and the shifts that are happening fundamentally in our society today, the disinvestment in federal resources out to communities or out to distinct forms of research, and the increased reliance on privatization of services and so on, we actually need private investors to look at their portfolios and to see what small percentage.

So we took a small percentage of our portfolios, and by that, maybe it's 2%, maybe it's 3%, maybe it's up to 5%.

And we started creating a different product pool or investing in a different product pool.

Along these lines, again with the data and the metrics that we need to sort of continue to measure returns on investment over the long term based upon whatever we were able to quantify with some of our research and analysis.

Then we're putting something together that doesn't exist and that could rival other places in the world that have even relied more on government sector support.

I think we need to strengthen and improve upon the private public mix because it has to go in that direction, sort of given where we are at the moment.

And if we could put not only money, but the resources that go behind potential, you know, so what are you missing as a founder?

We're going to make sure that we're filling that in around you or you as a group, so that, you know, you have the best possible chance of success, because VCs don't sit back.

Investors, you know, there's different kinds of investors, there's activists, and then there's the one you know, so we're talking about, again, different types of investment, too, that I think will equip us, you know, with some distinct and growing opportunities to achieve these kinds of transformations that we want to see in our communities over time.

The uncut version of this interview is available on the Jackanoid Paralobe Substack Channel.

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