SCHOOL OF Dr. Victoria Durrer Creative Arts [email protected]

‘Let’s see who’s being creative out Lessonsthere’ from the Creative Citizens programme in SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

INTRODUCTION

• Context • Creative Citizens 2014, 2015— Case Study • Insights for cultural policy at local level SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

NORTHERN IRELAND CULTURAL POLICY CONTEXT

• Understanding of arts, creative Cross Departmental Together: Building and cultural activity is vague and a United Community Strategy for ill-defined community relations (part of 2011-2015 Programme for Government) Inquiry into Inclusion in the Arts of Working • Approach to measurement limit Class Communities (2014 – 2016) our understanding of value, Department of Culture, Arts and impact and potential Leisure Strategy for Culture & Arts 2016-2026, Consultation Document Community Planning Framework for • People often interpreted as being Local Government Programme for at a deficit, rather than the Government 2011-2015, (Draft policies Programme 2016 – 2020 recently announced) Cross Departmental Delivering Social Change Framework • Hierarchical structuring of arts, to tackle poverty and social exclusion creativity and cultural activity in policy and practice SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

NORTHERN IRELAND CULTURAL POLICY CONTEXT

• Lack of clear strategic direction for arts and culture at Executive Level

• Heavily shaped by social, political and economic factors

• Local Government holds authority for arts and culture

• Growing emphasis on Physical Infrastructure

• Capital Provision for the Arts • Recreation and Youth Service Order, 1986 • To the millennium, ACNI strategy 1995

• New emphasis on ‘partnership’ and citizen participation SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

MID AND EAST BOROUGH COUNCIL SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

MID AND EAST Part 6 – Officers’ Management Structure

- Musuem and The Braid Arts Centre, - Museum and Civic Centre - Museum and Arts Centre

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SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

METHOD

• Case study Approach / Action Research

• Co-Produced - Period of focus presented today: March – September 2015 - Focus: development and delivery of programme

• Literature: existing Creative Citizens evaluations, local authority policies, academic research

• Observation and Interviews SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

ROUTINE OPERATIONS “…promoters would just come along and hire the theatre and we would • Emphasis on just do our promotion for it, and that programming would really be it, that would run and – Financial sustainability that would be the end of it. Maybe they would come back next year so – Narrow focus there’s no really a sense of local • Working with usual people, it’s just people coming in, doing their thing and then leaving suspects again . No legacies, no legacy really.”

“…it would just be very easy, when you’ve got 100 working arts groups in your borough…it’s a big enough job of work to work with them and deal with them. Just in the arts world. Um, and sometimes you get caught up in that. SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING THAT’S CREATIVE?’

KNOLWEDGE HABITS / ASSUMPTIONS EXPERIENCE / EXPERTISE OPERATIONS

“Much practical activity emanates from embodied and embedded capacities—learned through experience and retained as a store of competence, in the form of mental and manual procedures, which may be called upon more or less frequently as required” (Warde, 2014, p292). SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

CREATIVE CITIZENS

The Methodist Art Collection (MAC) on display at the Braid, 2015 SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

OPERATIONAL LESSONS

• New / increased “interaction” with the local community –”getting out of the office” • Explored a broader understanding of culture • Built relationships, expanded contacts, broadened the network • Developed new views on cultural assets / infrastructure • Felt reinvigorated, got a “fresh start” in their work • Opened up new areas of work and potential partnerships

Because you’re in an office. You can become very sort of focused on what’s going on there and then and not see the bigger picture… it’s really helpful for us to go out and talk to people and find out what they’re doing” SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

ASSUMPTIONS CHALLENGED

• The “big shiny palace” is not the only cultural asset • Perspectives on expertise • “Asking people for help” • Sharing expertise, not just offering venue space

“…[we don’t need] to feel that it’s us that has to provide all these creative opportunities for people….getting out of that mindset of ‘I’ve got to programme a 400 seat theatre here…’ SCHOOL OF Creative Arts

CONCLUSION

“In some ways, Ballymena is not a natural arts place but more of an industrial place… yet when you look, there are all sorts of arts groups doing things…. Local Councillor on Creative Citizens, 2014 SCHOOL OF Dr. Victoria Durrer Creative Arts [email protected]

THANK YOU

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