Nothing About Us Without Us
“Nothing about us without us” is a slogan communicating the idea that “no policy should be decided by any representative without the full and direct participation of members of the group(s) affected by that policy” (Wikipedia). This concept applies to every aspect of policymaking, yet is especially key in the arts. How do Community Arts and Cultural Development and Engagement directly involve citizens, helping to make them feel heard, understood and visible in local arts and culture contexts?
In 2005, in the very small town of Kelwood, Manitoba (population 40), a group of individuals decided to create the Harvest Sun Festival, a two-day outdoor event featuring music, crafts and food. One of those individuals was already experiencing an exciting music performance career and had good contacts in the industry. Her sister was a great organiser. They, with the cooperation of their small community, helped to create an event that highlights local and regional musical talent along with the fruits of the prairie harvest. The organisers knew that they had to engage their community in order to celebrate their culture to attract existing residents as well as bring people to the community. The festival now brings in hundreds of attendees every year:
The Harvest Sun Music Festival is a grass roots prairie music festival dedicated to showcasing Manitoban Musicians, growers & makers and to supporting the agricultural community it calls home… We have a strong commitment to providing a great festival experience for everyone in attendance… & [to] promoting sustainability in everything that we do. (Manitoba Music).
At its core, Community Arts and Cultural Engagement and Development include activities where artists, artisans, interpreters and the community organically come together to create an experience that enriches, possibly defines, and certainly enlivens the community. Not all arts and culture activities do this (or are even expected to do this) but engagement and development in the culture sector is all about community.
There is a large volume of qualitative and quantitative literature pointing to the economic, social and intrinsic value of arts and culture. For example, gross domestic product (GDP) from culture in Canada is in the range of 2.5-4% across the country, higher than many other sectors: Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting combined made up a smaller share of GDP in 2017 (Statistics Canada, 2019). The essays in this textbook help to clarify the values that drive the processes of community engagement and development in the culture sector, particularly as it relates to government planning and policy development.
Many governments have come to adopt a “pillars of sustainability” model of development. In November 2010, the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) Executive Bureau approved culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development (UCLG, n.d.). Since then, the agency has continued to support culture as essential with things like their International Awards Program, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their following statement puts it succinctly: “Culture is a pillar of people’s lives, and it is central in the recovery of this and other crises, and beyond” (UCLG, 2022).
As a pillar of sustainability, the UCLG addresses culture in two ways in their 2010 policy paper. It considers first “the development of the cultural sector itself (i.e. heritage, creativity, cultural industries, crafts, cultural tourism),” and second that public policy must regard culture as central and pivotal, particularly in terms of “education, the economy, science, communication, environment, social cohesion and international cooperation.” In addition, they contend that culture should be treated “as a vital part of development and as an unavoidable prerequisite for a diverse and peaceful society” (UCLG, 2010).
To further examine the value of arts and culture, we can look to the concepts of intrinsic, social and commercial value, well-defined by Bastoni in “Value in Art – What Makes Art Valuable?”:
The intrinsic value of a piece of art consists of what can’t be determined by numbers. The most difficult one to pin down, the intrinsic (or inherent) is a highly subjective emotional value, connected to how a specific work of art makes the viewer feel, what sensations it provokes, and, of course, this can’t be held or shown. Furthermore, all these variables depend upon cultural background, education, and personal life experience and are rather independent of materials employed. For example, leaving the investment aspect of an art purchase aside, if an artwork made of gold leaves you cold, its low intrinsic value to you won’t justify its price. Debates around the overall meaning of art are countless and the definition of intrinsic value is something that pertains to the individual. After all, it has something to do with the uniqueness, irreplaceability, and sacred aura that surrounds art.
Another relevant element of art value is societal meaning. Art indeed is a means of communication, as it passes ideas, values, feelings, concepts, which might be received differently by each observer but still vehiculate ideas concerning society and human condition. When producing art, an artist shares a story, a sentiment, cultural elements and the moment people perceive it, they also understand it and project their own stories, sentiments and cultures. Moreover, the social value of art comes from the capacity of gathering individuals for the purpose of a communal experience.
The third main element of art value is market value, in simpler terms, its price. Given what was mentioned about the social and intrinsic value of art, it should be clear now that an artwork’s price is not determined the same way as utilitarian goods. The commercial value of an art piece, in fact, is determined according to some collective consensuses, exactly like currency: It is a human stipulation to define it. (Bastoni, n.d.).
In the context of these definitions of the value of art and the importance of culture as a pillar of sustainability, we can find reasons why Community Arts and Cultural Engagement and Development is key to the development of civil societies. The social and intrinsic value is that of vibrancy, meaning, diversity and placemaking and placekeeping, which creates goodwill within the community. It also secures the attractive financial (commercial) output of job creation and economic activity or gross domestic product (GDP). Combined, the societal and commercial values bring us closer to the lofty goal of leading us to a diverse and peaceful society.
However, although these concepts of value may be useful, Badham cautions against standard valuation methods for arts and culture in Chapter 7:
Expecting predetermined outcomes, government granting agencies develop policy orientated measures of social inclusion, wellbeing outcomes, and even economic impact, which tend to underestimate the many sophisticated aesthetic forms now at play. ‘One size fits all’ toolkits overlook the cultural complexity inherent in community relations and are unable to observe the shifts in power that co-creative projects may bring about.
Badham notes that attempting to evaluate experiences of arts and culture is difficult, as participation may have “deep and unexpected” effects on those involved. As these effects can sometimes prove essentially immeasurable, she advocates that a “democratised and dialogic process of evaluation [should] then become integrated into practice as a form of critical reflection with the aim to empower those whose knowledge and experiences are ultimately at stake.”
If investing our time in Community Arts and Cultural Development and Engagement can have the significant benefits described above, then we must ask ourselves how Community Arts and Cultural Development and Engagement is undertaken. Who are the individuals and groups that are engaged, and where are the places in which they are engaging?
Community arts and culture happens in communities on a daily basis. From the painter who offers classes through the municipality’s Parks, Recreation and Culture department and sells their work online, to the musician who performs at the local coffee shop and teaches from their home, to the sculptor who creates public art and pieces that live in private collections. These all build upon heritage, festivals and events, food and traditions and many more tangible and intangible products that inform and create places where we live and gather.
Although artists, artisans and interpreters underpin this work, when we look at Community Arts and Cultural Development and Engagement, we are not really discussing what artists, artisans and interpreters do daily. We are considering how we can work together to develop and create engagement in their artistic activities within our communities. Arts and culture are inherent to the human species. Policy around arts development and engagement ensures that arts and culture activities exists, is bolstered, and reflects our identities.
Why would we, collectively, want to develop and engage in arts and culture? What about arts and culture makes a community a better place to be? We are surrounded by culture: If it were removed, we would be bereft. Enhancing and celebrating culture, whether Indigenous, newcomer or otherwise, is of critical importance to society as it empowers identity. There is a lot of power in culture because power comes, in part, from a sense of being, of belonging, of place and of purpose.
In Chapter 2, Tammy Hulbert talks about arts participation and working directly with communities to offer reflections on the variety of lost, new and “far flung” communities in Melbourne, Australia through art. This project was the direct delivery of an art program that helped people from diverse backgrounds feel a greater sense of belonging. The value of this program was intrinsic and social leading to inclusivity, vibrance and meaning. One could argue that this project contributes to the goals of a more diverse and peaceful community and is therefore contributing to culture as a pillar of society.
Cultural exchange through projects like Hulbert’s can help us find common ground—or at least a deeper understanding of each other and our place in society. In Chapter 3, Cultural Value and Soft Power, Kelly Jerrott and Katie MacKinnon state that “soft power includes utilising aspects of a culture that are appealing to others, ultimately leading to a willingness of others to sympathise with or adopt one’s views.” They also mention that culture is, for the first time, “being referred to in UNESCO’s goals and targets for development as an essential and indispensable leader for achieving sustainability.” Sustainability and resilience are becoming central goals for the arts and culture sector and society as a whole. The ability of arts and culture to be a platform for sustainability and the creativity needed for resilience can be developed through shared arts and cultural experiences at a community level.
Further to the original concept of “nothing about us without us,” Frost and Ormsby illustrate in Chapter 6 the process for identifying and engaging stakeholders—those who have a stake in the outcome of the community arts and cultural development and engagement process. From the definitions of value above, it would be reasonable to suggest that each and every community member would be a stakeholder, along with any other agency or group that supports or benefits from arts and culture activity. Although it may be difficult to attract and engage an entire community in a development process, it is critical that the process is open and inviting to all who wish to participate, in particular to individuals from marginalised communities.
At the government level, there are a number of different ways that Community Arts and Cultural Development and Engagement is considered and how policies are created around it. One example, at the international level, is UNESCO’s Creative City Network. “The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) was created in 2004 to promote cooperation with and among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. The 246 cities which currently make up this network work together toward a common objective: Placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their local development plans and actively cooperating internationally” (Creative Cities, n.d.). In Canada, at the federal level, there is the Canada Council for the Arts and the Department of Canadian Heritage. The CCA generally supports Canadian artists and the Department of Canadian Heritage mainly ensures that Canadians have access to arts and culture. Both of these organisations contribute to Community Arts and Culture Engagement and Development. At the provincial and territorial levels there are often government ministries of culture and arms-length arts councils. Provincial arts councils may have similar or different aims to their federal counterpart, yet they are always tied to community development and engagement. At the local level, arts and culture often reside in municipal departments of Parks and Recreation, although some more progressive centres, both large and small, have specific Cultural Planning and Programming departments.
Cultural mapping exercises are essential first steps to developing cultural plans. In such an exercise, both stakeholders as well as tangible and intangible arts and cultural assets are identified. Nancy Duxbury and William Garrett-Petts discuss cultural mapping in Chapter 4 as being more than a geographic exercise. It must also include the associations, individual artists, artisans, interpreters, ancillary services and supports that exist in the cultural context of the community being mapped. For example, if your community has strength in writing and publishing, does it also have the ancillary services of design and printing? All of these elements become part of the cultural map of the community. Duxbury and Garrett-Petts note: “Over the last 30 years, the phenomenon of cultural mapping has gained international currency as an instrument of collective knowledge building, communal expression, empowerment, and community identity formation.”
According to Duxbury and Garrett-Petts, after developing a cultural map and having engaged the community in its development, the culture planning process can begin to take shape. “Cultural mapping projects provide opportunities to critically examine the past, assess the present, examine representations, make connections, address absences, and envision continuities and change into the future—creating spaces and processes for participatory research, learning, and community action.”
Cultural planning is the foundation for policy and program development, but the enactment of those plans is entirely supported and largely provided by the individual arts and culture workers who are creating festivals, events, works of art, community arts and public art on a day-to-day basis. Arts and culture—in particular the process of intentionally ensuring its position in our daily lives—is often the work of municipalities, and indeed, has been taken up as a core foundation of wellbeing, sustainability and economic growth in many communities worldwide. Municipal governments want to attract people to their communities. As such, they work to create a platform for the development of vibrant, liveable cities in part through arts and culture development and engagement. Often these platforms become “cultural planning” documents that emerge from an official community planning (OCP) process. Most cultural plans at the municipal level are tertiary documents that are undertaken after the OCP is adopted, from which the secondary parks, recreation and culture plan is created and then, finally, the culture plan is developed. These culture plans are often most successful when they have a preliminary cultural mapping exercise.
Culture plans include many elements (Creative City Network of Canada, n.d.). Some of those elements might be infrastructure-related like the building of needed galleries or performance spaces and others might be through the support and development of events. In Chapter 9, Community Event Planning, Cotter notes that “municipal governments are also champions of placemaking, both as organisers of community events and as facilitators and funders of community-led initiatives that often take place on municipal property, and that further municipal mandates.” These events bring not only community cohesion and stakeholder engagement to the municipality, but also economic impact through tourism. As Cotter says, “community events demonstrate … value by directly and indirectly increasing patronage to local businesses, generating local employment opportunities, increasing awareness of local services and destinations, and creating collective experiences that become synonymous with a community’s identity.”
Arts and culture professionals will be involved with the creation and implementation of community arts and cultural development and engagement programs and policies at different times in their careers, and through various lenses as artists, community members, administrators or government employees. Best practices in Community Arts and Cultural Development and Engagement include an awareness of the vital importance of stakeholder involvement in the process, democratic evaluation mechanisms and a well-developed understanding of the value associated with arts and culture activity. Our sense of place is cultivated through arts and culture. Communities come together with an understanding that these activities are not just about the art form they represent but also about who we are as a community, underscoring the concept of “nothing about us without us”. Not only does arts and culture contribute to community vibrancy, culture sector jobs, tourism and other forms of economic development, it helps us process our understanding, question norms, be open to new ideas and experience wonder.
“I feel that what we should get from art is a sense of wonder, of something beyond ourselves, that celebrates our ‘being’ here.” – Trevor Bell