Evan Snow: On Community, Zero Empty Spaces & FTLADW

In this episode of the Artmatcher podcast, Evan Snow speaks with Reilly Clark about Zero Empty Spaces and the Fort Lauderdale Art & Design Week. Hear Evan’s thoughts on the importance of artists and communities supporting each other and the upcoming partnership between Artmatcher and FTLADW.

About Evan Snow

Being one of those rare "Native South Floridian's" hailing from Broward County, Evan Snow takes a lot of pride in his community. With a passion for The Arts, Culture, Community, and now yoga - Evan has been pursuing his passions by doing work that he finds not only rewarding & fulfilling, but that can impact his community. 

These are some of the reasons why he started Choose954, a social movement aimed to Cultivate Culture & Community in Broward, which lead to Art Fort Lauderdale - THE "Art Fair On The Water" aimed to help elevate the arts locally in his community while putting FTL on the Art World map as an international destination to view & interact with art. 

These initiatives lead to the creation of Zero Empty Spaces (ZES), an initiative to activate vacant commercial real estate locations to make affordable artist studio spaces starting @ $2.50/sqft on a month to month basis. In it's first 3 years ZES has grown to 27 locations with over 300 artists having worked in formerly vacant spaces with national expansion plans underway to support the commercial real estate crisis & communities across the country to use the arts as a problem solver.

Somewhere in between there in his spare time Evan watched the eye opening "Chasing Coral" documentary & became focused on another mission outside of art - to help save the Coral Reefs. As a native South Floridian, he saw the majority of his community not understanding or valuing the dying natural reefs, & used art to help raise awareness and provide restoration through the formation of the Ocean Rescue Alliance & 1000 Mermaids Artificial Reef Project where Evan still serves as Pro Bono Executive Director for 5+ years.

Evan continues to give back and pay it forward by Co-Hosting & Organizing a monthly breakfast lecture series called AAF Creative Zen with support from his local American Advertising Federation chapter who his business partner has been the president of. This event, initially serving as Evan's "ah-ha moment" that lead him into the work he's doing today, serves to connect, engage, & inspire our community the 2nd Friday morning of every month. The events remain free with complimentary coffee & a guided meditation before a thought provoking & inspiring talk from a local member of the community sharing their story.

Be it talking about Startups, Technology, Community, Culture, Art, Food, or all of the above, you're likely to spark up some interesting & intellectual conversation either way. He is a huge proponent of "Kind Collaboration" & welcomes any ideas or opportunities to collaborate you may have.

Zero Empty Spaces

Zero Empty Spaces creates affordable artist studios in vacant storefronts around the country where artists can create and collaborate at an affordable price and have the ability to be discovered and sell work at their studio.

With the goal of expanding the appreciation of various genres of visual art and helping to create a thriving cultural community in various cities across the world, Zero Empty Spaces is an important stakeholder in the Florida art scene.

Recommended Links

• Evan Snow on LinkedIn
• Zero Empty Spaces
• Fort Laude