Regenerating Community Art, Community and Governance Identity, Security, Community
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Identity, Security, Community Volume Seven, 2010 Seven, Volume ReGenerating Community Art, community and governance Identity, Security, Community Local–Global is a collaborative international journal concerned with the resilience and difficulties of contemporary social life. It draws together groups of researchers and practitioners located in different communities across the world to critically address issues concerning the relationship between the global and the local. It emphasises the following social themes and overarching issues that inform daily life over time and space: Authority–Participation Belonging–Mobility Equality–Wealth Distribution Freedom–Obligation Identity–Difference Inclusion–Exclusion Local Knowledges–Expert Systems Mediation–Disconnectedness Past–Present Power–Subjection Security–Risk Wellbeing–Adversity LOCAL–GLOBAL Volume Seven, 2010 Contents Foreword The great good neighbour: expanding the community role of arts organisations Excellence in civic engagement Lyz Crane 54 Kathy Keele 6 Research papers Editorial Mapping culture, creating places: collisions of science and art Martin Mulligan and Kim Dunphy 8 Chris Gibson 66 Lead essays The case for ‘socially engaged arts’: navigating art history, cultural development and arts funding narratives Finding the golden mean: the middle path between community imagination Marnie Badham 84 and individual creativity Anmol Vellani 14 How can the impact of cultural development work in local government be measured? Towards more effective planning and evaluation strategies Contemplating community: notes from a singer on the road Kim Dunphy 100 Robyn Archer 18 Remembering and un-remembering a century of prairie settlement: Life is more than a set of commodities: response to Robyn Archer community-triggered performance Jane Crawley 30 Kathleen Irwin 120 Art, governance and the turn to community: key findings Creating a profile: reworking ‘community’at Footscray Community from the research on the Generations Project Arts Centre Martin Mulligan and Pia Smith 34 Rimi Khan 134 The world in the village: lessons from K.V. Subbanna’s inspirational The hindrance of holding a raw egg: storytelling and the liminal space life in theatre and community Iris Curteis 150 Anmol Vellani 42 EDITORS FOR THIS ISSUE Martin Mulligan (RMIT University) and Kim Dunphy (Cultural Development Network) Cover image: SERIES EDITORS Martin Mulligan, Yaso Nadarajah and Peter Phipps (RMIT University) Spirit Birds on Big Rock, M2M Journey’s end (image: Andrea Rotondella) ASSOCIATE EDITORS Thangavelu Vasantha Kumaran (Chennai) and John Callinan (Hamilton) MANAGING EDITOR Todd Bennet GENERAL EDITOR Paul James Local–Global welcomes contributions from interested authors and researchers. Authors should consult the style guide in the back of this edition. Please email contributions as a Microsoft Word file to [email protected]. COPY EDITOR AND PROOFREADER Todd Bennet and Pia Smith Papers in the ‘Research Papers’ section of LOCAL–GLOBAL are academically refereed articles. Manuscripts are read initially GLOBAL ADVISORY BOARD Professor Jon Altman (Australian National University, Canberra), Professor Dennis Altman (La Trobe by the editors. If considered to fall within the journal’s brief, the manuscript is forwarded to two referees who conduct a blind University, Melbourne), Professor Perry Anderson (University of California, Los Angeles), Professor Terrell Carver (University of review. Referee’s comments are forwarded to the author, and the editors determine whether the article has been adequately Bristol), Dr Alan Chun (Academica Sinica, Taipei), Professor Lane Crothers (Illinois State University, Bloomington), Professor corrected or adjusted for publication. The editors reserve the right to alter the normal refereeing process in exceptional Jonathan Friedman (Écoles des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris), Professor Barry Gills (University of Newcastle- circumstances. upon-Tyne), Emeritus Professor Jack Goody (Cambridge University), Professor Bruce Kapferer (University of Bergen), Associate Professor Glen David Kuecker (DePauw University, Greencastle), Professor Krishan Kumar (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), Local–Global is published by the Globalism Research Centre, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, Australia, 3001. Professor T. Vasantha Kumeran (University of Madras), Professor David Lyon (Queens University, Ontario), Professor Walter www.rmit.edu.au/globalism. Mignolo (Duke University, Durham), Professor Juliet Mitchell (Cambridge University), Professor Ashis Nandy (Centre for the Study JOURNAL WEBSITE www.rmit.edu.au/globalism/publications/journal of Developing Societies, Delhi), Professor Brendan O’Leary (University of Pennsylvania), Professor Jamal Nassar (Cal State University, San Bernadino), Professor Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago Law School), Professor Chris Reus-Smit (Austral- ISSN 1832-6919 ian National University, Canberra), Professor Fazal Rizvi (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Professor Jan Aart Scholte (University of Warwick), Professor Jukka Siikala (University of Helsinki), Professor James Spencer (University of Hawai’i-Manoa), Professor Gayatri Spivak (Columbia University, New York) LOCAL–GLOBAL Volume Seven, 2010 Contents Realigning community, culture and development in dispersed urban settings Shanene Ditton 164 Practitioners’ perspectives Holding the space: the Seagrass Model Ian Cuming 186 The inclusive aesthetic: inclusion is not just good for our health, it is good for our art Myfanwy Powell 198 In 2006 a scoping study for the Australia Council’s new Community Foreword Partnership section identified the need for our council to work more closely with local governments if we were to achieve our aim of building culturally vibrant communities. As a result, Community Partnerships is now highly-attuned to the Excellence in civic engagement opportunities of working partnerships with state, territory and local governments. This truly is ‘co-operative federalism’. It is all three spheres of Kathy Keele government pooling its limited resources to support excellence in the arts, CEO, Australia Council for the Arts to strengthen culturally vibrant communities and to allow more people to explore the intrinsic benefits of being involved in cultural activities. In the three-and-a-half years I have been at the Australia Council I have witnessed the growing commitment with which the organisation has embraced the role arts and culture play in community wellbeing. I am pleased to present the foreword of this special edition of Local- Global. The articles in this volume evolved from the ReGenerating Community It is a myth to suggest that this commitment is incompatible with council’s Conference held in Melbourne in September 2009. This conference other commitment: to support excellent art. Artistic excellence can be featured presentations from the landmark Generations project, a three-year delivered by artists working with communities as well, and there are initiative supported by the Australia Council for the Arts that involved countless examples. five councils from three Australian states. Martin Mulligan and Pia Smith’s What’s more, artistic excellence can be actually enriched by facilitating this article presents findings from their research on this complex and far- community process of art-making. The exciting thing about community reaching project. The other articles, keynote presentations, research papers partnerships is that it can open our eyes to new notions of excellence. They and articles from practitioners are developed from presentations at the can create new Australian narratives around individual and community conference on topics relevant to local government and the empowering of relations. local communities in and through the arts. The Australia Council’s engagement with civic wellbeing, and the use of art- A key question at the ReGenerating Community Conference, and one which making to achieve it, is built on research which in turn shapes our strategic local governments and the Australia Council are working to answer, was: priorities. how can community relationships be built across the divide of those who govern and those who are governed? The five local councils involved in this conference identified key issues that continue to challenge the governed and the governing. How can we Throughout Australia’s history local governments have played a vital role increase a sense of belonging for Australia’s ageing population? How can we in supporting Australia’s arts and cultural infrastructure. From the local engage marginalised and culturally diverse youth, or empower Indigenous library to the neighbourhood centre, to galleries and performing arts venues, communities? How can we give regional Australians the opportunity local governments are those best placed to understand the needs of their to participate more fully in the arts? How, for example, in a polarised communities. They know best the types of cultural assets and programs community, can we create a space for debate about climate change or needed to develop and express that community’s cultural and artistic life. identity? The Australia Council has a long and rewarding history of working with As one of the conference’s keynote speakers, Anmol Vellani, writes, ‘The arts local governments. Since the early seventies we have been funding cultural make it possible to stimulate development from within cultural contexts, development officer positions in councils across the country. In the