[ecrea] Imagining Possibilities, 1st March 2013

Creative Futures Institute, School of Creative and Cultural Industries, 
University of the West of Scotland, Paisley Campus, High Street, Paisley 
PA1 2BE

Friday 1st March 2013

9.30am – 5.00pm

A conference exploring the findings of Remaking Society, an Arts and 
Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Connected Communities ‘Pilot 
Demonstrator’ project.

Participation in cultural activity is an essential ingredient in making 
healthy communities. The Remaking Society project explores how 
neighbourhoods experiencing multiple deprivation, in particular, might 
harness engagement in creative activity to build capacity for social 
change. The project takes a broad view of wellbeing as a social 
construct: that is, more than an individual’s state of physical and 
mental health connected with income and wealth, and with life 
satisfaction, wellbeing is “related to our sense of social 
connectedness, inclusion and participation, existential security and 
safety, political citizenship, self-development and actualization, and 
opportunities for education, recreation and creative expression.” [1]

The Remaking Society project is made up an interdisciplinary team of 
researchers, partnering with experienced community arts organisations, 
working in four contrasting contexts of deprivation, alongside the arts 
and health programme of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Cadispa Trust, 
and www.poverty.ac.uk.

 It aims to:

    * Demonstrate how participation in cultural production in locations 
where people are  experiencing increasing economic hardship can catalyse 
the creation of community and wellbeing.
    * Explore the ways in which, through creative engagement with arts 
and media processes, participants can re-vision collective futures
    * Compare the different working principles and theories of 
community arts practice in the demonstration site organisations
    * Test methodologies for evaluating cultural practice as an 
integral component of socioeconomic regeneration.
    * Provide a set of narrative insights, through cultural production, 
into the lived experience of poverty and social exclusion; broadening 
the range of evidence contributing to the UK national Poverty and Social 
Exclusion (PSE) Study (www.poverty.ac.uk).

This conference will explore those aspects of the project which 
complexify current understandings of the ‘social impacts’ of the arts:

    * providing a grounded analysis of histories of practice and 
specific creative processes
    * exploring different ways of activating arts and cultural 
practices as community assets (i.e. arts not simply ‘brought in’ from 
outside to impact communities
    * showing arts working within multi-agency arrangements;
    * exploring conflicts over the rationales for arts project design 
and evaluation by different organisations (government, NGO, corporate, 
commissioning, funding, etc.
    * questioning key concepts of power, participation, representation 
and agency in participatory arts and media practices

Although cultural policy debates are entrenched, the situation on the 
ground is dynamic, and tends to be driven by urgent pragmatism rather 
than ideological purism. Moving beyond a reliance on arguments about 
‘instrumental’ versus ‘intrinsic’ benefits of arts participation, the 
project explores the role of creative participation in acting as a 
catalyst for social change, exploring the proposition that  “there is a 
fundamental connection to be explored between creativity and health as a 
pathologically optimistic expression of survival.[2]” Whilst concepts of 
‘community’ and ‘participation’ with arts and media practice remain 
contingent, contested and partial, under some circumstances they may 
also retain the potential to articulate alternative values and visions 
to the dominant socio-economic order.

Connected Communities

Connected Communities is a RCUK cross-Council programme designed to help 
us understand the changing nature of communities in their historical and 
cultural contexts and the role of communities in sustaining and 
enhancing our quality of life. The programme seeks not only to connect 
research on communities, but to connect communities with research, 
bringing together community-engaged research across a number of core 
themes, including community health and wellbeing, community creativity, 
prosperity and regeneration, community values and participation, 
sustainable community environments, places and spaces, and community 
cultures, diversity, cohesion, exclusion, and conflict.
What will participants in the conference gain?

    * learning from examples of interesting work elsewhere
    * heightened awareness of the key issues and challenges facing the 
field of participatory arts
    * access to resources/expertise/networks
    * broadening perspectives on the histories, values and politics of 
participatory arts and media practices
    * some ways to think beyond entrenched positions, views, and 
criticisms of participatory/community arts practices


Programme Outline

Sharing findings - with examples from each of the projects:

·      Theatre Modo working in Fraserburgh: the Maelstrom Project
·      Odd Numbers project (NADFLY/Baxendale/Love Milton) in Milton, 
North Glasgow
·      Bradford Community Broadcasting, Bradford
·      Swingbridge Media, North Tyneside

Keynote Speakers

Rahila Gupta, Southall Black Sisters: Imagining 'Communities'
François Matarasso: Community arts: histories, values, futures

Workshops:

Learning/training/mentoring/skills exchange for the field (Creative 
Scotland/Paul Hamlyn Foundation 'Artworks' project/Mary Dowson/Graham 
Jeffery)
2     The value of this work to individuals and communities (Tom 
Wakeford/BCB)
        Cultural participation and relationship to health and wellbeing 
(Kerrie Schaefer/Theatre Modo/NHSGGC)
        Myth, magic and regeneration (Neill Patton and Nicola Atkinson)
        Relationships to policy (Graham Jeffery)
        Creation of alternatives (Tom Wakeford/Kerrie Schaefer)

Who should attend?

Researchers, practitioners, policymakers, commissioners, evaluators, 
activists, curators, artists, citizens – people with an interest in the 
roles of the arts and media in community development and regeneration.

We welcome proposals for additional workshops, relevant to the 
conference theme, of 1 hour 15 minutes. Please email 
(graham.jeffery /at/ uws.ac.uk) with details of your proposal, no later than 
Friday 15th February.

Registration details

An online system for registering for the conference will shortly be 
available. In the meantime please email (Gillian.Dyer /at/ uws.ac.uk) to 
reserve a place. The cost of the day, which includes lunch/refreshments, 
is £50 (£40 for voluntary sector/students/unwaged participants).


The Remaking Society research team is made up of

Nicola Atkinson       NADFLY/Love Milton
Martin Danziger       Theatre Modo
Mary Dowson           Bradford Community Broadcasting
Lee Ivett                    Baxendale/Love Milton
Graham Jeffery        Reader in Music and Performance, University of the 
West of Scotland
Hugh Kelly               Swingbridge Media, North Tyneside
Neill Patton              Fieldworker and Researcher, The Cadispa Trust
Kerrie Schaefer       Senior Lecturer in Drama, University of Exeter
Tom Wakeford         Senior Research Fellow, School of Health in Social 
Science University of Edinburgh





****
Graham Jeffery
Reader: Music and Performance
Chair:  Art, Music and Performance Subject Development Group
School of Creative and Cultural Industries
University of the West of Scotland
Paisley Campus
High Street
Paisley
PA1 2BE

generalpraxis.blogspot.com
www.uws.ac.uk/cci
twitter.com/grahamjeffery
twitter.com/UWScreative

skype: generalpraxis

(+44) (0)141 848 3000(work)


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