Arts with Communities: Practices and Possibilities

Copyright © 2015 by Felicia Low.

ISBN:         eBook         978-1-4828-5366-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

Contents

Part 1: Artists Essays

What’s in a name- CCD in Australia

Lisa Philip-Harbutt

Community Cultural Development – Why Construct an Asian Perspective? Felicia Low

Translating Agency and Experience: Integrating theatre-making to US refugee resettlement in West Thailand Matthew Yoxall

Community Art in China— The Experiments of IFChina Original Studio IFChina

The Cloak Of Visibility

Estelle Cohenny & Raquel Meseguer

Part 2: Artists profiles

Thila Min (Theatre, Myanmar)

Sai Nyi Nyi (Music, Myanmar)

Caitlin McKimm (Music, Thailand/ Australia)

Tai Shuxia (Visual Art/ Photography, Singapore)

Estelle Cohenny (Visual Art, Thailand/ Myanmar)

Raquel Meseguer (Dance, Thailand/Myanmar)

Lisa Philip-Harbutt (CCD, Australia)

Matthew Yoxall (Theatre, Thailand/Myanmar)

Jian Yi (Multi-disciplinary, China)

Alvin Tan (Theatre, Singapore)

Angela Liong (Dance, Singapore)

Figures

Figure 1.1 Philip-Harbutt 2003 Thesis Last Word online

Plates

Plate 1: The fictional Karen family debates their resettlement decision

Plate 2.1: Photo from Memory Donations

Plate 2.2: ‘Fly and Return’

Plate 2.3: School Photographer’s Project

Plate 2.4: Participants from Happy Rooms Mural Project

Plate 2.5: Photo of scene in Cangkou

Plate 3.1: Scene from performance

Plate 3.2: Scene from performance

Foreword

This publication is the result of the first symposium on ‘Community Cultural Development’ held in 2012, Singapore. This symposium aimed to bring together artists who had worked in various community settings in Singapore and Asia. These community settings include governmental social institutions which seek to transform marginalized individuals as well as independent settings, where their independent, informal and even illegitimate status may result in a lack of recognition for the people in these communties.

The following essays discuss the framework of community cultural development, and the resulting work and politics that emerge from artistic ventures into the margins of society to work with communities. Both the symposum and these essays mark a small start in a journey of discovery for both the artist and communities, in articulating the complexity of relations which surround the agendas of ‘intervention’, ‘representation’ and social transformation. A series of artists profiles has been included in the second part of this publication, to trace the inspiration, insight and challenges that each artist face in the process of their work.

It is hoped that this publiciation, as with the symposium, contributes to the deepening of the process of work with communities to create lasting, sustainable and truly significant socially-engaged artistic forms that address the contemporary issues of the 21st century faced by local communities throughout the world.

Felicia Low

25th April 2015

Singapore

Part 1:

Artists Essays

What’s in a name- CCD in Australia

Lisa Philip-Harbutt

An Introduction to this story

This article examines the development, definitions and possible demise of the term Community Cultural Development (CCD) in Australia. I am writing informally, weaving a story from both personal experience and research. I take this approach as I believe it allows the greatest diversity of readers’ to find their own place within this article.

My name is Lisa Philip-Harbutt. I live in Adelaide which is the capital city of the state of South Australia. I am an artist who has spent 35 years exploring the overlaps between visual, performing and community arts. My passion is initiating cultural development and social change through arts practice. I have worked in rural and urban contexts, in schools, workplaces, theatres, galleries and community settings. I have designed sets and costumes, painted murals, made sculptures, puppets and temporary installations, created plays and short films, taken photos and edited videos.

Around the turn of the century I enrolled in a Master’s in Business by Research undertaking a thesis that looked at decision-making in the arts sector in South Australia. My methodology was Action Research.

Between 2003 and 2013, I was the Director of Community Arts Network South Australia (CAN SA). During this time CAN SA worked to ensure that the field of community arts was recognised for its highly skilled practice and critical role within communities. For over three decades CAN SA staff had contributed to building the expertise of the sector through our research, development work, mentoring, skills training, presentations, publications and peer support. At the core of CAN SA’s recent work was our broad based arts program. Arts projects within this program involved individuals and organisations across diverse sectors spanning the arts, community development, disability, housing & homeless, youth, justice, aged, education and health & well-being. All of these projects involved communities in high areas of need, targeting critical social and cultural issues and focussing on both the art product and the community development process. By working in partnership with others, we maximised community arts outcomes and promoted local ownership and empowerment. We consistently evaluated, learned from and documented projects to better inform both CAN SA’s work and that of the sector. CAN SA was also a Registered Training Organisation (RTO). We developed and delivered a university level Graduate Diploma in Community Cultural Development, and vocational training courses in Creative Volunteering and Business skills for Creative people.

For the last few years CAN SA’s Mission was to support Cultural Democracy through strategic work with a diverse range of artists, organisations and communities. And our stated Values included … Creativity, Collaboration, Pluralism, Active Citizenship and Social Inclusion. Noble intentions that were built on the needs expressed by the community. With hindsight they could however be seen as being out of step with the funding bodies. In 2012 when changes occurred within the Community Partnership section of the Australia Council for the Arts, CAN SA struggled to find a place to apply within their new funding program. Previous funding agreements were deemed no longer relevant. In 2013 CAN SA did not receive its state based organisational funding from Arts SA. My position as Director finished up in December 2013.

CAN SA is currently (2014) a project based organisation managed by a volunteer board of management. It still receives non- arts project funding but currently has no state or federal arts funding. It is currently re-focusing its future as a Community Arts Production House.

What is Community Cultural Development (CCD)?

I have been using a CCD philosophy for most of my working life although I admit I have struggled with the words on and off. So what is CCD?

Many arts practitioners believe that CCD is in the doing and therefore based within the name itself:

Community – the Who; Cultural - the What and Development - the How.

I have always been fascinated on CCD as the Why- (or Philosophy) within my Community Arts work. In the 1990’s when I was working on the module material for the Graduate Diploma in CCD, a former Director of CAN SA Deidre Williams and I had long conversations about definitions. In my Master by Research thesis I distilled these conversations and the module material down to the following:

CCD work is concerned with fostering an environment in which cultural democracy can occur. It values community expression through the arts as ways in which communities can:

• create a sense of place

• affirm their values

• assert their differences

• communicate their aspirations.

I have continued to use this explanation since, less as a definition but more as a way of describing what people may mean when they use the term CCD.

The term Community Arts has been used around the world since the late 1960’s. The term Community Cultural Development is much more recent and has been more popular in Australia and the United States but over the years it has gained recognition elsewhere through its use by UNESCO.

The theories behind the words have been discussed in Australia in many different articles, journals, theses and conferences. From 1988 to 2007 CAN SA regularly published the Artwork Journal with many articles picking up the changes in language and practice. In Artwork Issue 56 2003 Jon Hawkes reviewed 2 seminal books by Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard, published by the Rockefeller Foundation. When these books first came to Australia it gave an opportunity for practitioners to contextualise their own work with what was happening on the other side of the world.

Community Cultural Development describes a range of initiatives undertaken by artists in collaboration with other community members to express identity, concern and aspirations through the arts and communications media, while building cultural capacity and contributing to social change. (Adams & Goldbard 2001, p.107)

People working in this area understand the important role community can play in fostering cultural expression along with social interaction and artistic production. From this perspective CCD practice is concerned therefore, with equitable access to resources for the means of artistic process, production and distribution. And it identifies community participation in cultural and artistic expression as an indicator of that community’s long term resilience and viability. CCD values community expression through arts practice and can also include ritual, celebration and the built environment. It does not however, link the value of the community’s artistic expression to the dominant art hierarchy that may espouse elite ideas of arts excellence. It supports and advocates the social value of art through its direct relationship with the perception of added value and /or meaning within people’s lives. CCD depends on the dynamic interaction created due to the relationship between the art and its context. CCD projects provide opportunities for communities to communicate individualism, eccentricity, diversity and create inspirational examples. They can also use artistic expression to challenge, mobilize, or resist. It provides room for people to participate in the arts, to create and express, as well as spectate. CCD is therefore the engaging of a group of people who identify as a community in taking action to build on or improve their shared culture. ‘If culture is what connects us, then Community Cultural Development is the tool that tempers and strengthens that connection.’ (Flood 1998, online)

Is Community Arts the same as CCD?

In 1999 Feral Arts published They shoot ferals don’t they?: debates in community cultural development after a successful Symposium of the same name. They concluded:

In simple terms the descriptions of Community Arts and Community Cultural Development change over time loosely reflecting the changing political, economic and cultural climates. (Feral Arts 1999 Online)

As mentioned earlier the term Community Arts has been around for a lot longer than Community Cultural Development and it has gone in and out of favour with practitioners, funders and community alike. Where CCD describes the philosophic approach that drives the exploration, Community Arts often describes the artistic activities or expression of the community. It describes art produced within a community and relating to that community’s view.

In searching for ‘pithy’ earlier definitions of Community Arts I went back to the old books of the 80’s and early 90’s when in Australia we were searching for the theory behind the practice. Books like From Nimbin to Mardi Gras by Gay Hawkins and Community and the Arts – Australian Perspectives edited by Vivienne Binns. It is from the back cover of the later that I have pulled a quote that gives insight for me into how the practice developed in Australia in the early days.

It is a lack of [written] history that has forced each community artsworker to interpret and define a place for themselves without the benefit of inspiration from the recent or distant past. (Binns 1991 Back Cover)

Yet it is the past that is the starting point for Graham Pitts in A Brief History of the Community Arts

Graham Pitts is an Australian writer who has worked on many community arts and public arts projects. He has also been the editor of the online journal …such fertile ground… critical analysis.

In Australia what is now called the community arts or community cultural development dates back to at least sixty thousand years. The ancient arts of the indigenous people were presumably not greatly dissimilar to those used to describe the community arts….. (Pitts 2002 online)

It is not that practitioners had refrained from discussing and debating the possibilities, in the 1970’s and 1980’s there had been 2 national conferences in Australia and many publications. And in 1990 even the usually mainstream Art Journal Artlink had published a special issue called Community Art. The cover of this Journal hits the nail on the head I think when it chooses to ask questions rather than make a statement.

Yes but what IS Community Art?

- A strategy for social reform?

- A way of life?

- A political movement?

- A victory for the margins?

- A type of social welfare?

- A radical challenge to the art institution?

- A model for a new culture? (Artlink Journal 1990, front cover)

When I try to define Community or Art I find I am just playing with words; but I think if it improves the conversation and works toward shared understanding then playing with words is worthwhile.

After 35 years as an artist I have been playing a lot with that word art. Now when I am asked the question What is art? I tend to answer Art is a verb. This stops people in their tracks and they think. Usually What is she on about? but still it makes them think and therefore raises the potential for a meaningful conversation to occur. For me art is an action word, it is not just about the artefacts that fall out of the process. In my practice these could be as diverse as performances, sculptures, videos, installations, poetry or a thesis- The art is the creative activity which occurred that allowed these artefacts to manifest.

But my provocative definition of art doesn’t always cut it with the communities that I work with, so I have also developed a visual description of art. I like to think of the shape of circle on a stick when I think of the function of the arts. For me this is the shape of Art…..

• It is the shape of a hand held mirror. And Art often reflects back what is going on around us asking us to engage with it again.

• The shape is also that of a magnification glass. This kind of art allows us to examine something up close in minute detail which we may not be able to do without the art.

• And the shape is also the magical looking glass the thing that we look through and fantasize all sorts of possible futures.

This shape and the ensuing discussion has been useful to me when working in communities who have an interest in art but who are unsure if it