Lanier hopes that the resident artists will stimulate the development of the DCCA as a place where art and society interact regularly. They're coffee shops in commercial bookstores. We need more spaces like this, and this is a role that contemporary art can play. But the organization's former quarters in a city-owned building on the northern edge of downtown could accommodate only three. The artists who work in the building are chosen by lottery from a pool of applicants.
Leases run for three years.
When they expire, artists who wish to continue working in the building must re-enter the lottery. In moving to its new home, the DCCA is assuming a role of urban catalyst that's familiar to arts organizations in many cities. The DCCA eventually will become one of two cultural anchors for the riverfront district. The Delaware Theatre Company, a few blocks away, is the other. At the moment the Christina riverfront has three cultural attractions, but one will expire in a few months.