April
1, 2000
|
Aspects of commonality that exist between people
define a community. People that share common beliefs, have a common origin,
share common experiences or merely live in a specific location can be defined
as a community.
Community is that entity to which we belong, greater
than kinship but more immediate than the abstraction we call society. It is the
arena in which people acquire their most fundamental and substantial experience
of social life outside the confines of 'home', it is where one learns and
continues to practice how to be social and where one acquires culture.
Arts practice has long been concerned with cultural identity and the expression of cultural values within specific communities.
Art in the Community provides an opportunity to communicate individualism, eccentricity, diversity and inspirational example. It is an essential and powerful medium through which communities can add value and create meaning in people’s lives.
'Art' provides a way in which people can build and rebuild community, release creative energy and transform minds, organisations, institutions and society in general.
Cultural Development provides the means for the cultural identities of groups within a community to be recognised, nurtured, and exposed through a range of arts and cultural activities. It is a means by which communities advance their artistic, social and economic aspirations thus essentially developing itself via one or a combination of many cultural processes.
A broad definition of culture includes all of the customs and activities that constitute lifestyle; those that provide a sense of local identity and heritage of a particular group of people; the means by which the community’s identity is expressed, interpreted or by which it is acknowledged.
Culture includes history, heritage, language, symbols, images, ideas, values, way of life and aspiration. It is expressed through anthropology, religion, the natural and built environment, science, technology, the humanities and social sciences, the arts, media, sporting and recreational activity, community events and other forms of human activity. It is, in fact, the core of human activity.
Within this broad Cultural Development framework the arts have a special role when practiced with and within a community. This practice is called Community Arts.
Community Arts
practitioners have long recognised that a specific type of arts practice
includes both process and product, the ‘Art’ residing in both aspects, and, as
with Community Cultural Development (CCD) practices, the role being predominantly
about the ‘journey’ as opposed to the ‘product’.
Community Arts practice celebrates the diversity of our identity as Australians and encourages grassroots involvement in arts programs. Often seen as a fluid process, it provides an opportunity for the community to look and learn. Importantly, Community Arts is also seen as a way of counteracting some of the uncertainty brought about by the pace of social and economic change.
The qualities identified and the challenges associated with exploring community identity provide the springboard for ongoing community development through an Art in the Community Culture.
The long-term value of Community Arts and the means for evaluating Community Arts programs focuses on the potential of the practice to build ‘social capital’ in local communities.
Art in the Community cultures play a vital role in building a cohesive and ultimately viable society. People don’t have the concepts of community they live and remember them. The value of 'Art in the Community' lies in its capacity to express community culture, as part of the culture of a wider society.
Community facilities and community projects give people a structure, a focus, and a way of doing things which allow communities to build unity through action, not by talking ideals or abstracts, thus providing a mechanism to challenge the tendency of ‘mainstream’ arts to impose ideas on an audience.
It is extremely important that government (in the broadest sense) have an established commitment to cultural development and Community Arts. Artistic expression plays an integral part in the process of Community Cultural Development, because it is an important way in which communities can create a sense of place, affirm their values, assert their differences and communicate their aspirations.
Collaborative artistic practice, at a community level, can be a potent forum for the communication of ideas and values. In the quest for seeking new ways forward, the arts draw on the intuitive, the non rational, the mythical and the symbolic, and becomes a powerful tool for cutting through existing patterns of thought and behaviour.
Community Art has been referred to as the 'poor cousin in the art family'
or the naïve newcomer to the social work family. But Community Art is not necessarily
concerned with social work as we know it, nor is it focused on the production
of art as a commodity, rather the production of art as an expression of
community culture.
A sociological definition of culture provides an ideal context for
understanding the importance of community cultural expression. In 1982 the
Second World Conference on Cultural Policy, in New Mexico, ratified the
following statement on culture;
Culture ought to be considered today as the collection of distinctive traits, spiritual and material, intellectual and affective, which characterise a society or social group. It comprises, besides arts and letters, modes of life, human rights, value systems, traditions and beliefs.
This view of culture provides a starting point to explore the importance
of 'community culture' within a nation and more specifically within a
pluralistic contemporary society. This view of culture emphasises the
importance of expressing community values, creating a sense of place, gaining
new insights and learning new ways of doing things.
The concept of ‘social capital’ is a way of defining or describing the health of the social fabric that binds our private and public lives.
The social and cultural impact that allows for a vibrant artistic community can be evaluated by many measures, some include;
The need to foster connections between people in cooperative enterprise leads to recognition that the culture we foster, through the ways we work together, and as product, is much more valuable than any other commodity.
But to pursue economic goals without a broader commitment to the interrelationship between the economic, social and educational dynamics is unlikely to deliver the expected financial results.
Community building and social capital goals are valid and vital in themselves; economic results are flow on benefits, but are not the ultimate objective. Art in the Community provides a basis for cultural development through acknowledging diversity, encouraging cooperation, and celebrating the strengths and unique qualities of communities.
These basic processes establish networks, norms and trust, facilitate coordination and increase levels of cooperation for mutual benefit, which in turn leads to the generation of social capital.
Interestingly, theories on social capital suggest that humans achieve more by cooperating than competing, and that experiences that develop trust discover a common ground allowing people to move from the defensive ‘I’ to the mutual ‘we’.
We must recognise that in any society there are many forms and legacies: intellectual, artistic and spiritual, through which different people express their views of the world and their identities. The socio-political conflict that arises from these cultural diversities can be viewed positively and Cultural pluralism can be seen as an essential to the vitality of the arts today.
So when we address the question of identity in the Arts, we must bear in mind that the Arts do not exist in a vacuum and that arts practice reflects the society in which we live. It is logical for minority cultures to counter entrenched policies of dominance and assimilation with the post-colonial rhetoric of multiculturalism and its social justice agenda.
However the nature of arts development and identity is not so easy constructed. There are several notions to grapple with, such as the emphasis on excellence, innovation and works of art being ‘Australian’.
Often the vitality and dynamics of Community Arts can be underestimated when evaluated in this framework. Notions of culture, art and excellence can be easily confused and far too much is made of the idea of innovation as being the preferred opposite to the traditional.
In addition, the issue of what is professional and what is not continues to plague the community development process. Interestingly, the ideas of contemporary and traditional are not really opposed as they are so often thought to be. Rather they form a continuum in society and are part of a process of redefinition and reinterpretation.
Societies that do not examine their cultural history allow dominant cultures to impose and thus justify the culture of the ‘here and now’. This overemphasis and innovation without drawing upon a varied and diverse cultural memory will end in mediocrity and parochialism.
Defining identity can occur at various levels. It is found in the relationships people have in the community and their resulting roles and it can also be found in belief, but as with most people predominantly it is found in work.
Unfortunately employment is increasingly an uncertain basis for identity for many people in our society. Many will spend their working lives in and out of work and under doubtful working conditions. There comes a time when paid work ceases to exist, relationships come to an end and so in the midst of this transition we need a less contingent basis for our identity.
A brief review suggests we find bases for identity at three levels being functional, relational and symbolic. These three levels apply to us as a community and that any healthy, sound community needs to develop each level.
Social health of the whole nation depends upon the well being of its local communities and it is in these more immediate settings that we experience and begin to value our sense of belonging to one another.
We need to nurture the connections between people to ensure human contentment does not lie in another cappuccino, another throw of the dice, another grand final or another board meeting.
Human contentment lies in ‘what I am, what I have found or what has found me’. We all need symbolic occasions and rituals that allow us to get in touch with who we are as a nation and to celebrate our nationhood.
Insecurity and a heightened
sense of awareness are natural consequences of great social change. We need to
capitalise on this to ensure our identity accurately reflects the rich
complexity of our society.
Peaceful coexistence requires a mature sense of our own selfhood. We need to be connected to our immediate social setting by developing our connectedness in our work, our relationships and our symbolic lives.
Basically we need to look at new ways of exploring the sense of ourselves and our place in the world. We need to look at new ways of learning and we need to be fully aware of the environment we live in.
The effects of globalisation of national economies and cultural expression have been felt at a local level, undermining the infrastructure of local communities, changing the patterns of work and leisure, and influencing the way we create and consume our culture.
It is therefore
important that we engage the whole community in debates about what any new
opportunities might look like and achieve, while embracing the issue of
diversity and real participation of different cultures, age groups and
localities in future arts projects in the community.
It is an opportune time to evaluate the role of Community Arts in the local cultural landscape.
With the erosion of community infrastructure and the pressure on community based organisations, the need has never more crucial to contrast the competitive, individualistic, consumer driven culture and the cooperative values that have been the driving force in Community Arts in the past.
In evaluating the impact and strengths of Community Arts practice the importance of high quality participation and the opportunities for local cultural expression need to be given priority.
There is a strong sense that Community Arts need to evolve to fight against cultural standardisation and the fragmentation of community identity.
The broadening of the contribution of artists and the impact of cultural issues on wider policy and planning agendas is seen as critical and requires a commitment to multidisciplinary planning, and preserving the integrity of local communities through a sensitive encouragement of community debate.
The potential to attract new artists to community based practice through mentoring and professional development is an important factor that needs to be explored to ensure the identity and integrity of experience within communities within a precinct, city or region.
The importance of the process and the outcomes of Community Arts practice must be put firmly on the government agenda, these values must be observed, for artists are the leaders in a creative revolution; not ‘developing’ culture but ‘inspiring it’, providing the vision for society to place the spirit and the aesthetic sense above the economics of materialism.
Vision of
Reality – Art in the
Community and The Future - City of Melbourne 1998
Forum Preamble – Michelle Howard, p9
Building Community and Social Capital Through The Arts
– Deidre Williams, p11
D. Williams, Creating Social Capital, CA Network of South
Australia, p117
A. Cohen, The Symbolic Construction of Community, Routledge,
London, 1989, p15
E. Cox, A Truly Civil Society, ABC, Sydney 1995, p15-18
R. Putnum, Making Democracy Work, Princeton University Press, New
Jersey 1993
Exploring Our Identity Through The Arts – Chandrabhanu, p15
The Social Impact of Arts Programs -
How The Arts Measure Up,
Australian research into social impact, Working Paper 8: Deidre Williams, COMEDIA
ccd_debate@egroups.com, CCD Debate –
Feral Arts 2000
Better Places,
Richer Communities,
Australia Council 1994
Feral Arts
Symposium Papers – 1999
CNPO Policy and Procedure (for Community Not
for Profit
Organisations) – Community 1997
(see www.artshaus.com.au/communityarts
)
Defining Art in the Community, Realtime Publishing, 2000
Produced by Andrew Macdonald. Contributions and editing by Catherine Croll and Vicki Newman