Notes from 'The Agency of Community Culture' Organisers: Blue Drum Equality and Rights Alliance – Date:
May 28th 2014, EU Parliament Offices, D2 Short Presentations Posed the following questions: Questions from Vita Geluniene and Ed Carroll 1. How to make effective cooperation in community culture? 2. How to mobilise communities, institutions and artists/activists for cultural rights? Questions from Rachel Mullen, ERA. 1. How might artists and those working to address inequality, social exclusion and human rights abuses, work collectively to scope out and articulate cultural rights in the broadest sense? 2. How might artists and human rights and equality activists ensure that cultural rights issues and concerns are inserted into areas for opportunity mentioned? Questions from Niall Crowley 1. Does the Community Culture strategy have a capacity to bring forward an effective cultural rights agenda? 2. What steps are required to begin implementing the Community Culture Strategy?
Table 1 – Notes by: Gillian Keogan (Blue Drum) Participants: Mark McCollum (Chair), Mary Doheny (Blue Drum), Niall O’Baoill (Fatima Groups United ), Nikaela Rusk (Children’s Rights Alliance), Rachel Mullen (Equality Rights Alliance), Yvonne Woods (FLAC) ‘Community Culture’ are two big words individually but when you put them together and they have a particular gravity. There are a number of elements to consider when speaking of community culture - language, interpersonal relationships, self-determination in shaping the cultural life of a community, what is culture? – an expression of humanity and identity, at present organisations working separately with similar objectives, the lack of importance put on the development of the individual through artistic endeavor in schools, the broken circuitry between communities and government, the lack of emphasis put on community culture in public spaces in the ROI as compared with UK and NI, it takes time, effort, good will, trust to build community arts work within communities and open it up beyond a community, ‘product’ versus ‘process’ – too much emphasis on the consumption of the arts, communicating and building an awareness around cultural rights when speaking of human rights, Currently there is emphasis placed on social and economic rights but there is a real need for individuals and communities to claim/own their cultural rights. Fear and over ‘analysis is paralysis’ and can lead to communities being set against each other therefore clarification of what community culture is needs to be arrived at. Cultural rights exist at present as the poor sister of rights based work and appears less than other rights related work within existing policies. The language around rights can be dry and its presentation not easily communicated. We need to look at a way of finding a language, visual communication to heighten its value. Shared knowledge and experience between rights based organisations, artists, activists and people working in this area for a long time can be drawn on and in turn would add weight to the up-coming UN submission on human rights where there should be an insertion about community cultural rights. How would this look? What would it say? How would we succinctly present strategic action/actions? Many communities may be unaware of the ‘duty’ of a government to its people in relation to cultural rights. We need to look at it in the broadest sense, how do we articulate it? Action around ERA’s submission to ESC shadow report on cultural rights submission - deadline of Sept for the ‘list of issues’
Simple strategic action 1. Open up the definition of ‘Culture’ at present it is extremely restrictive and narrow and defines culture for example as having access to a library 2. 3 intelligent reflections 3. Simplify language and possibly present visually 4. Cite an example of community arts work within an existing community. Then: Investigation - How to expand. 1. Constructive evidence 2. Speak of the cut made to community arts nationwide 3. Build a case. Advocate. 4. Look to Derek Spiers work that was presented at ‘The Art of Campaigning’ And then……How to develop – It is a journey: 1. Based on practice/engagement might a community define what ‘The Agency of Community Culture’ is? 2. Building a ‘philosophy’ from similar types of community arts practice 3. Outreach Rights – ‘Roadshow’ current ideas/examples of community culture. Roadshows around the country will give a sense of intention making it more personable to communicate to people. Legal rights language can be hard to access and become a turn off for people to learn more about it. Therefore it is very important that information is accessible to people. 4. Energy and intention - 3-4 strands will leverage a re-appraisal. 5. Learn from each other i.e artists from rights activists and rights activists from artists Next steps Look at the range of models that exist Create a space to find out how we speak and what do we say about cultural rights? ERA collaborate with Blue Drum on how to frame this area of emerging work. Imagine potential by practically sharing information Meet/Show & Tell Enhanced Next Steps Blue Drum to provide leadership in identified cities Develop more local leadership Outreach work Look to best practice in other countries Ask what is the content of cultural rights? MAKE IT REAL!!!!!!
From today’s conversation there is real potential and energy to safeguard cultural rights and foreground it to government/ local government by communities speaking about cultural work that has already taken place in their communities for decades. We need government to look at the way it thinks about its duty to uphold ‘human rights/cultural rights’. Practical actions: 1. Match up language - come at it from the same position 2. Match funding for human rights/cultural rights 3. Federated approach, residencies within communities, in-depth work 4. Provide a framework for this area of work 5. Further conversations leading out of today 6. Look at how to link/connect artists with cultural rights work
Table 2 Notes by Eleanor Phillips (Blue Drum) Participants: John Molloy, Vita Geluniene, Patricia Prenderville, David Struder (Limerick Creative Communities), Fiona Woods, Ken McHugh (SARI). Notes by: Eleanor Phillips (Blue Drum) Responses: Questions were asked within the group about what was meant by culture and this question was returned to at different points in the conversation. The group noted that cultural rights tend to be predicated on “the group” which can lead to problems of exclusion and that this must be avoided in the language and strategies we use, that there was need to pitch cultural rights as broadly as possible. A quote was provided as a means to understanding what we meant by culture: “Culture is production & negotiation of meaning and value” The group generally felt that the single most important thing was the ability of any group/community to create social spaces where people can connect, meet and which can hold capacity to negotiate. This also included acknowledging that traditional ways of meeting such as local community councils which are also avenues of cultural production and the ripple effects that these can have e.g. like something as simple as starting a community garden which led to meeting people within the community they did not know, one of whom turned out to be an artist who went on to work developing other projects with the community council. Mobilising effectively is about creating moments because otherwise it's overwhelming, one step at a time. People need to have personal experiences before they can truly understand/engage. Build on the motivations that arise in a community rather than focus on negative narratives
To look to models provided by community development and to develop closer relationships with them. Also that creating platforms for conversations (such as the one today) where people can discover each other, etc. and building on these conversations e.g. more of them, inviting different people to join, holding them in different settings. But also that in creating platforms for conversations that these should be a support to each others work and not an extra work load. The point was made that co-operation is not always a clear value within organisations and what we say about co-operation may not be clearly understood or even agreed by another. Many groups do a needs analysis but rarely do an assets analysis – this should be part of any grouping and may help us to unearth what talents/abilities are already present. Language and how it is used needs to be addressed, to take some inspiration from the language of advertisers who use a language which is clearly understood by all (cultural mining). But also that there are many level s we have to work at which means that we must be able to communicate to all these levels and even occasionally at the same time. Also sometimes we have to take on the language of the “enemy”. Powerful institutions are more than capable of using the language of cultural rights – to be aware of this – so we must challenge the “deficit model” set of thinking Using language that exists e.g. the social inclusion units in each county council could be used to include cultural rights. Questions were asked about how artists were selected/how to find artists/what would artists bring to the work? That very often the artist is seen as the leader when they may not want to be/may not be appropriate/should be an equal member of the community too. How then do we encourage/develop projects which approach an artist as a partner rather than a leader. It was noted that very often finding an entry point as a partner is often harder than entering as a leader. What mechanisms for connecting emerging artists to connect on the ground rather than going through large institutions can we develop? Does waiting for the “critical mass” hold or not? Is it necessary to wait until there is a large group to mobilise? Other thoughts • ISCSR is useless as they have no interest in engaging. • Demanding bodies to sign “intangible heritage charter” can be useful • The N.I. Bureaucratises experience we must not fall into this trap. • How do we replicate successful models? Economic Agendas are the driving force of most institutions e.g. DIT moving to Grangegorman – How could we subvert? E.g. Use the required GMT 30% mature/part-time student requirement for third-level
• Universalism needs to be more thought through/to make it very clear that narrow ideas are not the objective. To see today as the beginning of the connector (and maybe not to use the word “platform”)
Table 3 Notes compiled by Ailbhe Murphy (Artist) and written up by Ed Carroll (Blue Drum). Other participants at our table were: Ken Keogh (Chair), Chris Maguire (NCAD), Ciaran Finlay (Intern Children’s Rights Alliance), Sheila Deery, (Fingal Centre, Finglas), Fabienne and Pierre Klein (ATD Fourth World Ireland), Anne Lynn, Hayes Solicitors, Geraldine Murphy (FLAC). Questions from Vita Geluniene and Ed Carroll 3. How to make effective cooperation in community culture? 4. How to mobilise communities, institutions and artists/activists for cultural rights? What is meant by cooperation is worth consideration. Specifically in the context that civil/political and social/economic rights are more tangible gives a first impression that cultural aspects of rights is a Cinderella. It is neither tangible nor easy to tie down. Cooperation between and across organisations can be a strategy to respond to the lack of visibility of community arts work especially in the current context of austerity. There is a lot of meaningful work going on in community but a particular difficulty when it comes to the language we use to describe that work. This causes alienation between artists and many constituencies that artists would want to work with. Language is very important and we have to find a way to keep the language simple. Elitism was discussed because aspects of the arts are highly specialized. Linked to this is the popular feel that art is something exclusive. Many organisations work independently not always coming together. It doesn’t extend out beyond the immediate constituency addressed by the work. They don’t cooperate all the time. So you can have community arts work going on in community but it is dis-connected from other organisations that could engage with it. Speaking about cooperation you need someone or an organization to make cooperation a priority. It has to be embodied by someone as a value. Another aspect of cooperation is about , for example, how long does an artist have to work in an neighbourhood? It also has an aspect of giving value to the existing culture and of being receptive to value the culture of the people you are meeting. This negotiation is about cooperation. In human rights work language is also very important so that it is accessible to people. When it comes to the idea of cultural rights, the obligation of the
government to culture rights can be a unifying platform for arts and community groups. Questions from Rachel Mullen, ERA. 3. How might artists and those working to address inequality, social exclusion and human rights abuses, work collectively to scope out and articulate cultural rights in the broadest sense? 4. How might artists and human rights and equality activists ensure that cultural rights issues and concerns are inserted into areas for opportunity mentioned? Unfortunately we have to deal with the restricted coverage that cultural rights receives, which frames it solely in terms of ‘production’ or ‘access’. Put simply getting people into the gallery or theatre or rural isolation and the need for transport to venues. Of course it is much richer but we have a challenge that its richness is not tangible. Practically, we may look at opportunities e.g. framing a recommendation in the Shadow Report. What precisely are cultural rights is a difficult question to answer. What we do know is that there is a huge amount of work going on by and with artists in communities who are taking the long-term view and working in close proximity to community development organisations. This work is not just happening in Ireland. It is happening everywhere. A recent example given was the Creative Time Summit in New York which brought artists/activists from various settings to discuss art and social change. Link between the process of self-determination and cultural rights is a valuable insight and key to future developments. The challenge is in relation to a language, we have to find a language. There is the potential for a shared agenda arising from today’s exchange but we have not met enough work work out that agenda. This could be the next step i.e. a follow-up series of conversations to frame a national agenda. Part of that process could involve drawing out the practices that are active but not seen. The key question is how to link the artists agenda with that of activists for cultural rights? It was noted that while social and economic rights are often fore grounded, by default cultural rights is hidden or dismissed. This led to a discussion about how we define culture. If culture is just ‘product’, just ‘venue’, just a place to ‘visit’ then it is limited. If culture is a richer dimension of what gives us meaning and makes our community significant then the framework is more accommodating to develop. This involves advocacy work and this is beyond the reach, and indeed, the training of the artist. But it is important to note that not all artists produce something for ‘consumption’ and that great parity of esteem needs to be forthcoming to work that is not for consumption. An important aspect of civil and political rights is how it evolves from human freedom. What makes us human is our culture. We heard an experience about the difference between ‘survival’ and ‘living fully’ illustrated by a story of whether to sell a piano to keep the child warm and fed. This story tells us about how culture can give
hope and resilience. A reference was made to a quote by Tariq Ali about keeping our history alive and its memory living especially in a dominant culture of globalisation. This all led to the question: Can we push the equality and human rights agenda as a ‘place’ for convening artist, arts organisations, institutions and community organisations? If we can find a way to explore this question more in-depth, we may access a new agency in which to draw in others at a political level. The link between the lack of visibility and advocacy from the field of community arts activity including work that does not ‘label’ itself in this way AND the poor visibility of cultural rights tells a story even if perplexing. Specifically the fact that much work in this field calls itself by various names like collaboration, socially engaged, pedagogy, arts education, etc gives it poor efficacy in the wider political field. Outside of the arts field e.g. in the Department of Children and Family or Social Protection the term community arts seems to have ease of understanding. That said, language is about shared meaning and the fact that we don’t have a shared language is an indicator of the lack of shared understanding in the field. A useful analogy was made to the power of TG4 to give an alternative field of information to the lives of rural Gaeltachts and those who live there. Could such an alternative field of information be imagined if we think that ‘community culture’ is part of the wealth of Irish life. Maybe we should look to engage with DCTV and other community producers to begin to give it more efficacies. A fear expressed about progressing cultural rights and specifically the public sector responsibility is how to ensure that we overcome a set of technocratic actions which actually confirm the restricted nature of cultural understanding within the State i.e. culture is production and site. The example of the Northern Ireland Arts Council’s statements for access and participation of older people illustrated well the potency and shortcoming of having a ‘framework’ but hugely restricted by an narrow interpretation of culture e.g. get more older people coming into the gallery alone. We ended with a perception that Blue Drum and the ERA might look at working with the Community Culture Strategy as an action within the equality and cultural rights advocacy work. More specifically, these organisations could use it as a calling card to bring people together to advance this conversations in the Autumn and to include new actors like the CRA, FLAC and others into this process?
Follow up: The Equality and Rights Alliance put together a submission to Free Legal Aid Centres which is developing the Shadow Report on Cultural Rights. It is available to download here: READ