ARTS FACILITATION AND CREATIVE COMMUNITY CULTURE: A STUDY OF QUEENSLAND ARTS COUNCIL by Michael John Richards ADVA, MA. Submitted to the Faculty of Creative Industries at Queensland University of Technology, in support of an application for admission to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, January 2005. 1 LIST OF KEYWORDS Civil Society Community Arts Community Cultural Development Community Revitalisation Community Engagement Creative Class Creative Industries Cultural Industries Cultural Policy Excellence Elite(s) Knowledge Class Meritocracy Regional Arts 2 ABSTRACT This thesis adopts a Cultural Industries framework to examine how Queensland’s arts council network has, through the provision of arts products and services, contributed to the vitality, health and sustainability of Queensland’s regional communities. It charts the history of the network, its configuration and impact since 1961, with particular focus on the years 2001 - 2004, envisages future trends, and provides an analysis of key issues which may be used to guide future policies and programs. Analysis is guided by a Cultural Industries understanding of the arts embedded in everyday life, and views the arts as a range of activities which, by virtue of their aesthetic and symbolic dimensions, enhance human existence through their impact on both the quality and style of human life. Benefits include enhanced leisure and entertainment options, and educational, social, health, personal growth, and economic outcomes, and other indirect benefits which enrich environment and lifestyle. Queensland Arts Council (QAC) and its network of branches has been a dominant factor in the evolution of Queensland’s cultural environment since the middle of the 20th century. Across the state, branches became the public face of the arts, drove cultural agendas, initiated and managed activities, advised governments, wrote cultural policies, lobbied, raised funds and laboured to realise cultural facilities and infrastructure. In the early years of the 21st century, QAC operates within a complex, competitive and rapidly changing environment in which orthodox views of development, oriented in terms of a left / right, or bottom up / top down dichotomy, are breaking down, and new convergent models emerge. These new models recognise synergies between artistic, social, economic and political agendas, and unite and energise them in the realm of civil society. QAC is responding by refocusing policies and programs to embrace these new models and by developing new modes of community engagement and arts facilitation. 3 In 1999, a major restructure of the arts council network saw suffragan branches become autonomous Local Arts Councils (LACs), analogous to local Cultural Industry support organisations. The resulting network of affiliated LACs provides a potentially highly effective mechanism for the delivery of arts related products and services, the decentralisation of cultural production, and the nurturing across the state of Creative Community Cultures which equip communities, more than any other single asset, to survive and prosper through an era of unsettling and relentless change. Historical, demographic, behavioural (participation), and attitudinal data are combined to provide a picture of arts councils in seven case study sites, and across the network. Typical arts council members are characterised as omnivorous cultural consumers and members of a knowledge class, and the leadership of dedicated community minded people is identified as the single most critical factor determining the extent of an LAC’s activities and its impact on community. Analysis of key issues leads to formulation of eight observations, discussed with reference to QAC and LACs, which might guide navigation in the regional arts field. These observations are then reformulated as Eight Principles Of Effective Regional Arts Facilitation, which provide a framework against which we might evaluate arts policy and practice. 4 ARTS FACILITATION AND CREATIVE COMMUNITY CULTURE A STUDY OF QUEENSLAND ARTS COUNCIL TABLE OF CONTENTS Preliminaries List of Keywords 2 Abstract 3 Table of Contents 5 Statement of Authorship 8 Acknowledgements 9 List of acronyms, abbreviations and specialised terms 10 1. Introduction 12 1.1. Introduction to QAC and the project. 12 1.2. The Research Questions. 13 1.3. Methodology 15 1.3.1. Research Paradigms 16 1.3.2. Data Collection 20 1.3.2.1. Qualitative Methods 20 1.3.2.2. Quantitative Methods 23 1.3.3. The Case Studies 24 1.3.4. Inside and Outside the Whale 25 1.4. Map of the Thesis and Key Findings 29 2. Key Concepts and Definitions 32 2.1. The City and The Bush 32 2.2. Art and Culture 35 2.3. Cultural and Creative Industries 39 2.4. Community and Identity 44 2.5. Configurations of Power 47 2.5.1. Hierarchies, Networks and Systems 47 2.5.2. Elites, Excellence and The Arts 52 2.5.3. Embracing Excellence 59 3. The Arts in Regional Queensland 62 3.1. The Origins and Birth of the Arts Council Movement. 62 3.2. The Role of Government and the Question of Subsidy 67 3.3. Models of Arts Facilitation – The Orthodoxies 72 3.4. Convergence Models 80 4. Fluctuating Fortunes 84 4.1. The Measures 85 4.2. Network Growth and Decline 87 4.3. Before Arts Council 90 4.4. Arts Council Delivers 94 4.5. The Evolving Cultural Environment 101 4.6. Not Just a Bus Company 109 4.7. Competing Paradigms 112 4.8. Dancing on the Roller Coaster 120 5 5. Brave New World 124 5.1. Crisis and Restructure 124 5.2. Taking Stock 128 5.3. The New Agendas 133 5.3.1. Arts Access Statewide 133 5.3.2. QAC as an Arts Touring Company 135 5.3.3. QAC as an LAC Support Organisation 140 5.3.4. Policy and Program Innovation at QAC 144 5.4. The New Critical Role of LACs 146 6. Case Study Profiles 151 6.1. Gympie – Cooloola Community Arts Council Inc. (CCAC) 151 6.2. Maryborough – Maryborough Regional Arts Council Inc.(MRAC) 156 6.3. Hervey Bay – Hervey Bay Council for the Arts Inc. (HBCFA) 161 6.4. Biloela – Biloela Arts Council Inc. (BAC) 166 6.5. Moranbah – Moranbah Arts Council Inc. (MAC) 171 6.6. Tablelands – The Arts Council Tablelands Inc.(TACTIC) 177 6.7. Tambo – Tambo Arts Council Inc. (TAC) 183 7. Case Study Demographics 188 7.1. Comparing the Case Studies 188 7.2. Catchment Demographics – Lifestyle & Labour Sites 191 7.3. Community Population and Membership 199 7.4. Attendance and Membership 201 7.5. The ‘Typical’ Arts Constituency 209 7.6. The Cultural Omnivores 215 7.7. The Fragmented Community 218 8. The LAC and The Community 222 8.1. Four Attitudinal/Policy Vectors 222 8.2. The Attitudinal/Policy Vectors in Action 226 8.3. LACs – The Strong, The Weak and The Willing 234 8.4. The Volunteers 243 8.5. Local Cultural Leadership 248 8.6. Melding the Fragments 254 8.7. The Relationship with QAC 259 9. Summary and Conclusions 263 9.1. Introduction 263 9.2. Cultural Networks and Creative Community Culture 264 9.3. Transitional Findings 269 9.4. Facilitating Regional Arts – Eight Observations 274 9.4.1. Ob #1: (Local Autonomy) 277 9.4.2. Ob #2: (Ubiquity of Benefits) 283 9.4.3. Ob #3: (Plurality of Practice) 286 9.4.4. Ob #4: (Diversity of Stakeholders) 288 9.4.5. Ob #5: (Specificity of Benefits) 291 9.4.6. Ob #6: (Integration into Community) 294 9.4.7. Ob #7: (Contribution of Elites) 297 9.4.8. Ob #8: (Planning and Investment Timeframes) 299 6 9.5. A Framework for the Future 302 Appendix A: Table of Branch/LAC Formation & Recession, 1961-2004 306 Appendix B: Statement by Sir Robert Garran - the ideals of CEMA 311 Appendix C: QAC Strategic Plan, 2004-2006 314 Appendix D: Seven Principles of Community Cultural Development compiled by Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard 317 Appendix E: Sample Extracts from Research Journal 318 Appendix F: Sample Discussion – E-Mail Exchange 323 BIBLIOGRAPHY 328 A General Note on Data Sources 355 LIST OF TABLES 7.1 Case Studies – Characteristics of Lifestyle and Labour Sites 193 7.2 Case Study Sites – Host Town & Catchment Populations 194 7.3 Case Study Sites – Distribution of Gender within Communities 196 7.4 Case Studies – Catchment Population and LAC Membership, 2003 200 7.5 Attendance and Membership Trends, 1991-2000 203 7.6 Educational Qualifications in Community and LAC Membership 214 8.1 Four Attitudinal/Policy Vectors 223 LIST OF GRAPHS 4.1 QAC: Trends in Number of Branches, Participation and Total Activities, 1965-2003 88 7.1 Case Study Sites – Average Attendance at QAC Touring Events, 1991-2000 205 7.2 Case Study LACs – Average Number of Members, 1991-2000 206 7.3 Gympie – LAC Membership and Av. Attendance at QAC Touring Events, 1991-2000 207 7.4 Moranbah – LAC Membership and Av. Attendance at QAC Touring Events, 1991-2000 208 7 STATEMENT OF ORIGINAL AUTHORSHIP This work contained in this dissertation has not been previously submitted for any graduate or post-graduate qualification. To the best of my knowledge it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made. Signed: …………………………… Michael John Richards Date: …………………………… 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis results from a research partnership between Queensland University of Technology and Queensland Arts Council (QAC), funded by an Australian Research Council Strategic Partnerships with Industry – Research and Training grant that provided the writer with an Australian Postgraduate Award Industry scholarship. Thanks are due to many people, so many that – faced with the dilemma of appropriately acknowledging every contribution over more than three years, and wary of inadvertently offending some by omission – I do not name those to whom I owe thanks, other than those few whose contributions have been so crucial that the project could not have been completed without them.