Connecting
Cultural Communities through Creativity
KEVIN RYAN
Beyond
the social inclusion agenda, new Government initiatives
could have far-reaching impacts on participatory and
cross cultural arts practice. There are new, more inclusive
considerations of what Britain as a whole will become.
What is this area of cultural and social policy that
looks at the very nature of the society in which it
would be a 'good thing' to be included?
Kevin Ryan of Charnwood Arts looks at the inauspicious
beginnings of the Home Office's Social Cohesion Unit,
the impact of this new area of policy development on
his organisation and its implications for the participatory
arts sector and its partners.
a First Floor
Faces workshop
in a local school
— the life-size
figures were
created to
populate
Loughborough
town centre
If we were to ignore 23 years work developing cross-cultural
programmes, youth arts, community arts projects and
festivals, work with young offenders, community video,
music, drama, photography and dance initiatives and
the relatively hidden production of copious amounts
of 'social glue', then our story would begin in summer
2001. In response to public disorder in Bradford, Burnley,
Oldham, Leeds, and elsewhere, the Home Office released
significant funds for 'diversionary youth activities'
to targeted areas. Locally, this created the potential
for us to spend more, in one month, than our core funding
for a whole year. Tipped off by a friendly councillor,
we had under 24 hours to write a bid. Our initial reaction
was annoyance and an inclination to reject the 'opportunity'.
3 hours before the deadline we changed our minds, conceiving
a bid which would use the coming month of superheated
activity to launch and build approaches we could sustain
by 'mainstreaming' elements into our everyday work.
We bid for 4 projects totalling just over half our annual
core grant.
Two exhausting months later we were in a meeting with
County and Borough Council officers and members, and
representatives of regional Government Office, youth
service, community education, the Racial Equality Council,
the Youth Offending Team and the local CVS. They were
interested in our 'youth and community consultation'
(mid- to long- term community arts projects) using 3D
virtual modelling, video, drama, photography and paper-based
publications. We were introduced to early manifestations
of the 'social cohesion' agenda, and the Government's
intention to run 30 or so 'community cohesion' projects
around the country.
Over 2 months of debate we realised we could make a
reasonable bid to manage the project ourselves, on the
basis of our flexibility, ability to create spare capacity
quickly and specific skills and expertise. The statutory
organisations could not respond quickly enough to meet
the deadlines. Deliberation and feedback resulted in
a plan involving training 20 local people as 'community
facilitators', developing new web-based tools and producing
2 publications, within the framework of a wide-ranging
participatory arts and media project.
The core of the first 6 months was talking to people
across Charnwood - rural and urban environments, people
of different ethnicities and social backgrounds, people
of different ages. We collected testimonies, listened
to fears and joys, filmed, photographed and wrote with
different groups. We learnt more and more about the
multiplicities of cultures and complexities of cross-cultural
lives in this one small area. Our (already extensive)
networks, and our commitment to the process, grew wider
and deeper. A series of workshops, 'What Brings Us Together
- What Keeps Us Apart' explored a multiplicity of issues.
Emotionally demanding, this brought together people
of different faiths and cultures for frank, open expression.
We challenged commonly-accepted ways of thinking about
race, historical issues, cultural diversity, prejudice
and discrimination - looking past 'naming and blaming'
to the dynamics of how aspects of our cultural lives
act as 'binders' or 'barriers' in social interaction.
Around this time the Cantle Report investigated the
nuts and bolts of the community tensions behind the
2001 disturbances. Poverty, poor press, lack of political
leadership and extremist political and racist-inspired
interventions were all significant. The key finding
was the notion of 'parallel lives' - significant exclusive
communities of ethnocentric/cultural cohesion had developed
in some areas, whose members had little to do with anyone
else in terms of language, attitudes or behaviours,
and little opportunity to understand and respect each
other. It particularly focused on the parallel lives
of the (ancestral South Asian) Muslim and Anglo-European
British communities in the north of England. However,
the concept of parallel lives applies to us all, wherever
we live, to a degree.
The startling conclusion that if people spend time together,
sharing and understanding each other's values (to some
degree), they are less likely to stereotype, and be
antagonistic towards each other - may come as a shock…
But the awful truth seems to be that the further we
drive in cultural differences, however positively, without
finding the bridges that connect people together again,
the more we build the potential for social disorder
which is less and less easy to bridge. The key is the
contact to enable us to see that we are more similar
than our differences appear to make us, and that, truly
to value our differences, we also need to honour those
things that we might hold in common. This must be a
continuing dynamic process, explicit, public and creative.
Amongst the irresponsible press decontextualisation,
this was partly what David Blunkett was trying to raise
as debate. I guess he got it.
We are now in Phase 2 of Connecting Communities. We
are developing new web-based channels under the banner
of 'CCTV', launched in May. Early days, but we have
around 100 short videos and hundreds of music tracks
under the Pineapster Channel. The emphasis is on widening
access to media and media skills. Look at work in progress
and Connecting Communities at
www.charnwood-arts.org.uk.
As in Phase 1, we are interested to find what works
well in bringing people together, as well as working
out where, how, what and why barriers to communication
and association arose. Not comfortable work - tensions
around inequalities or perceptions of inequality, continuing
castigation of one group by another, conflicting cultural
attitudes and practices, prising loose the hold on the
pains and iniquities of the past and determining positive
ways forward…..for the prize of….?
In November 2002 Loughborough witnessed a horrific murder,
a 14-year old boy dismembered and scattered around the
town, rumours abounding, tensions and fears amongst
young people and adults alike. Four young people were
arrested for the crime. Adam was a very lively, cheeky
lad known to young people across Loughborough. We had
worked with him in the summer, and shared the distress
of the moments when his identity was revealed. The town
changed overnight - November saw unprecedented levels
of fighting and general disorder at Loughborough's largest
secondary school. Tensions around Iraq were increasing,
a 'Muslim/Hindu' romance at the school became a focal
point, territorial issues bubbled up. Police presence,
suspensions, expulsions, the riot act at assemblies
all followed and eventually things quietened before
the Christmas holidays.
Over the holiday, we heard rumours, intentions expressed
- we collected the stories of young people and their
expressions of anger and sadness at what was happening.
2 weeks into the school term it kicked off again - with
fights in school, out into the streets and onto buses.
We became involved in the heart of measures to solve
the problems. Much of Phase 2 relates to this school
and its catchment communities. We have used drama, the
work of artists relating to Iraq, the Middle East and
former Yugoslavia, discussion groups, book-in-an-hour
projects and web building - contributing to calming
the situation and getting a wider range of voices heard.
To our surprise those at the centre of the aggression
see other young people involved as operating territorially
and in friendship groups, not from racist intent. They
reserved this terminology for some of the adult responses.
Some at the edge tended to see division along ethnic
lines and the troubles as racially motivated. When it
appears that older people out of school are cranking
up the gas, the issues change again - victims of racism
of ethnicity or age? Many of the young people we've
talked to, of all the groups, have their own views,
and some compassion for peer perpetrators. Where there
are good levels of cross- community cohesion and adaptation,
perhaps the fault lines are becoming more blurred.
Overall the project has had the flexibility to respond
to local need. Our reporting back to the Government
Office has focused on what we've learnt and we've been
allowed to develop our initial proposals to reflect
local issues - probably the most flexible form of funding
and reporting we've ever dealt with.
This phase, ending shortly, has been highly productive
- we have been developing the cross-cultural programming
and audience profile of two major local events, helping
to initiate a third and supporting a fourth. We've created
new cross-cultural activities in dance, and programmed
performance events to bring people of different communities
together. We have run a wide range of workshops in schools.
A 4-day programme addressed bullying and violence in
Leicestershire schools, involving over 200 young people
through drama, forum theatre, visual arts, song and
sculpture. This attracted thousands of responses from
young people, parents and teachers, and national and
international interest. We are working with parents
of vulnerable children to introduce creative play through
arts activities.
We have created the infrastructure and new material
for CCTV, worked with the Children's Fund, are busy
on a cross-cultural cookbook with local relevance, a
youth health web site, a video project around youth
crime in a local village. We are working with young
people on a visual arts project called 'First Floor
Faces', with older people on one called 'Drawing on
Age', and working on an exhibition related to the Runnymede
Trust's 'Where I Live' initiative . These activities
are the visible part of the iceberg. Below the surface
we are now working at many different levels within,
with and between many different communities and local
agencies.
Connecting Communities has had a significant impact
on Charnwood Arts. However, in common with many voluntary
sector organisations, especially those engaged in creative
community development, we don't see the community cohesion
agenda as anything new. UK governments have talked about
it for over 30 years and since the breakdown of Yugoslavia
the terminology has been alive and well in Europe. One
impact has been the interest from various levels of
governance in our work, and in all the projects nationally.
It is a major opportunity to feed back to local, regional
and central government. Connecting Communities has also
been a brilliant opportunity to re-think where we are
going and what we are doing, and to re-imagine our future
direction. The licence to experiment has significantly
deepened our relationships locally, and had many positive
consequences for us and other agencies.
One is that we are appointing a full-time sports worker
on a 5-year contract to develop cross-cultural, community
cohesion-focused projects through sport, dance and publications.
Another is a 3-year project to develop cross-cultural
after-school clubs, including the involvement of parents.
Increased core funding from ACE will also help sustain
and develop the expanded programme.
Other consequences are more complex. 'Mainstreaming'
community cohesion into local authority policy and practice
may be desirable, but is worrying if it further reduces
access to resources for the voluntary sector. For 'mainstreaming'
to be effective, local authorities must respect and
support their grass roots organisations as well as relate
better internally and with other agencies. Local authorities
are best placed to respond to developments and the provision
of services in many areas of life, but in others they
are less well suited. A balance between the two cultures,
of a creative, flexible, critical and publicly-supported
independent sector in the arts and other areas, and
of local authority services, schemes and venues, is
still very important. Fundamentally, the issue is one
of respect for other points of view, other forms of
experience and the ability of large organisations to
engage with smaller ones. Luckily, because local authorities
are in 'public ownership', if you have understand how
they work, you can call them to account for their actions.
'Mainstreaming' community cohesion is now being piloted
through 15 'Pathfinder' programmes across the UK. Our
work has been partly responsible for one of these being
in Charnwood, and we are actively involved in it. The
Pathfinder initiative will look to develop a 'baseline'
assessment of community cohesion in selected areas and
then to engage in a range of activities and programmes
to see what works best to meet social inclusion and
cohesion objectives. It's about developing best practice,
learning from both successful and unsuccessful projects,
the local authority working with the voluntary sector
and other agencies. A new structure linked to the Local
Strategic Partnership will bring together the projects
with future funding potential. (If you don't know about
your local LSP, and its role in strategic local planning
and assessing major funding proposals in line with the
Local Strategic Plan, you should.)
The third element of the programme is mainstreaming
itself. How can what has been learnt be put into local
authority and inter-agency working practice? This 18-month
long government initiative could have far-reaching implications
for the participatory arts sector, particularly for
organisations with long-term geographical commitments,
working cross-culturally or with young people. It is
no coincidence that almost all the examples of good
practice cited by the Minister responsible for the Pathfinder
programme at its recent Nottingham launch were arts-related
projects.
The Parekh Report, published as 'The Future of Multi-Ethnic
Britain' is an historically significant cultural document
for the UK. Arguing for a new pluralism and realism
around the difficulties and choices we face, it points
to community cohesion as far from a cosy and comfortable
concept; rather it is an agenda that will stretch the
capacity of all of us. It demands our willingness to
live together and to re-invent a country that respects
and celebrates our growing diversity, alongside agreeing
a range of common values that allow us to be 'good neighbours'
in a unifying nation. The past may inform, but does
not make, the future. If we don't accept the truth about
how things are, will we only ever inhabit a future of
tilting at past windmills and dreaming of unrealistic,
damaging futures based on our past hurts? Reconciliation
is a dynamic process. Conflict is inevitable, but how
we deal with it is subject to our continuing creativities
and goodwill.
Community cohesion is not a social policy for Christmas
but a long-term commitment, not the latest buzz word
to hit overstretched local authorities and their satellites,
but an essential facet of life which will continue to
be important, however it is legislated for. How our
experience and work, past, present and future, contributes
to and generates this debate, and how much we too have
to learn from it is a key challenge to this generation
of participatory arts workers and co-ordinators.
Contact: Charnwood Arts
Loughborough Library Annexe 31,
Granby Street
Loughborough
Leicestershire
LE11 3DU
