Rick Lowe has given all new meaning to the phrase "artist-in-residence". He is the founder of Project Row Houses, an organization that merges art and architecture with social activism.

In 1990, as an artist depicting the social problems facing African-Americans, Lowe was confronted by a young student touring his studio. "We don't need people to tell us what the issues are; we know how hard it is to live in our community. We need solutions. If you are so creative, why don't you create some!"

Host Tim Zak asks Rick to describe his experience in using creativity--both his own and other's--to move a broad and diverse community to action.

In 1992, Project Row Houses bought the first eight of eventually 22 tiny, dilapidated “shotgun” houses in the middle of a poor Houston, Texas neighborhood, with a goal to transform the historically significant structures into a vital community resource. Two short years later those original eight structures served to house art installations by a variety of African-American artists intent on relating to the neighborhood’s past and present.

What followed were new art galleries, workshop spaces, offices, housing for young single mothers, after school educational programs taught by local artists, and perhaps not surprisingly, the emergence of real estate developers. Money is following the art instead of artists following the money. A Heinz Award winner and former Loeb fellow at the Harvard School of Design, Rick Lowe is creating "urban villages", an art-as-social-action experiment that is redefining the role of art and artists in society.