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HOT LINKS

Forthcoming events:
Homelessness & Cultural Democracy
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Making the Case for Culture: Creative City Network of Canada
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Poems about Community Spaces
& other papers from Connecting Schools & Communities conferences, June 2008
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Meet, Meld, Merge Art Bringing a Community Together:
the Toil Art Project, in Yea, N.E. Victoria
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Home Lands: Internet TV program which connects young refugees to their home lands
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The Agenda 21 for Culture is the first document with worldwide mission that advocates establishing the groundwork of an undertaking by cities and local governments for cultural development.
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Model Projects

Current Projects | Past Projects

Generations

Building civic engagement through the arts in five communities across Australia

The Generations project has been developed to explore the links between engagement in community based arts activities and active civic engagement. There is a growing literature around the correlation between involvement in creative or ‘artistic’ activity and improved health and well-being, but the links between creative communities and civic engagement are less well documented. The Generations project will contribute to research data on this topic through a significant research component. Demonstration of this link could have significant effects on the development of public policy and the targeting of resources to community-based arts projects. The research project is being led by Dr Martin Mulligan from RMIT's Globalism Institute, with researcher Pia Smith engaged in data collection with communities and artists. The first stages of this research began at the end of 2006.

In preparation for the project, each of the five participating councils worked with the Cultural Development Network to identify issues of serious concern for their municipalities. Five community projects addressing these local issues got underway in 2006 in councils across Australia; Dalrymple Shire (Queensland); City of Liverpool (New South Wales); Rural City of Wangaratta (Victoria); City of Greater Geelong (Victoria); and Latrobe City (Victoria). The projects will run for three years between September 2006 and December 2009.

Generations is a test of the belief that truly sustainable communities need the addition of fourth dimension, or pillar, of cultural vitality to the accepted triple bottom line indicators of a viable economy, a healthy environment and good social policies. The Generations project will build on existing research data to explore the contribution of cultural vitality to the sustainability of local communities. Five councils are participating in the project.

Still Life
Rural City of Wangaratta, Victoria
Changing demographics of longer life, decreasing birth-rate and the ‘bubble’ of baby-boomers slowly reaching the older adult age bracket is predicted to put economic pressure on rural communities where education and employment are insufficient to keep or attract young families. This generational change is starting to impact negatively on the aging citizens and the youth of Wangaratta. Through development of a community performance over three years, the Wangaratta Council aims to build community confidence and change perceptions of the aging population, as well as building support for strategies to adapt the economy and services to an ‘older’ community.

Three generations in Wangaratta

ReFILL
City of Liverpool, NSW
Sydney's south western urban fringe has grown rapidly over the past ten years. A higher than average proportion of culturally diverse young people from this area, specifically those of Aboriginal and Arab backgrounds, experience challenges in engaging positively with schools. Liverpool Council will work with local communities and young people to develop alternative activities to address young people's disengagement with the school system. Access to Council facilities and resources will be used to build the confidence of otherwise neglected young people and support them to take on projects that engage and inspire them.

Green Expectations
City of Latrobe, Victoria
Latrobe City links key townships along the vast brown coal reserves of the Latrobe Valley. This council faces an internationally common problem of an increased political resistance to the burning of coal while it still has largely untapped coal reserves. The community is faced with the negative image of a polluting city while the Council has to plan long-term to respond to potential major changes.
Latrobe City will focus its Green Expectations project on the task of engaging local communities around issues of sustainability.

Geelong Trilogy
City of Greater Geelong
Geelong is the largest regional city in Victoria and one of the largest cities in Australia, yet is still viewed by many as a country town. Geelong is also a transit city with the fast train and freeway making it a commuter city linked to the state capital of Melbourne. Geelong is a large and diverse regional community that is coming to terms with a new urbanity and sophistication associated with larger cities. This expanding urbanization along with increasing percentage of sea-change residents, have created some interesting tensions, particularly in the smaller towns in outlying areas. The City of Greater Geelong is using the Generations project to strengthen the identities of these diverse communities as well as increase the links between them.

Waterhole at Dalrymple (left) City of Geelong (right)

Connecting Through Three Generations of Time
Dalrymple Shire, Queensland
Dalrymple Shire will work with three generations of pastoralists and Aboriginal families who have traditional association or ownership of the land. The first step is bringing the families together through informal gatherings on country. Over a series of social encounters and gradually more creative activities, the project aims to build the bonds of trust that could eventually lead to Aboriginal families building new businesses and new lives on land shared with the pastoralists

The Research
RMIT's Globalism Institute will monitor and measure the impact of these projects on the communities' civic engagement and well-being, especially changes in attitudes to the issues that each council is addressing. The Globalism Institute has been monitoring and developing data about changing communities over some time. The inclusion of the Generations projects into their research portfolio provides new possibilities for data collection about community projects aimed at active civic engagement.

Funding
The model of funding for the Generations project is unique, as it involves the three spheres of government, (local, state and national), and has a three year life, which includes a lengthy funded development period. This contrasts with models of funding more common in community arts, in which projects are funded for short periods, usually relying on unfunded development periods.
The Australia Council has played an exemplary role by taking the lead in funding Generations. In demonstrating its commitment to a partnership with local government, (with projects like Generations) it is opening up new opportunities for artists and their local communities.
Funding sources:

• Australia Council
• City of Greater Geelong
• City of Liverpool
• City of Melbourne (host of CDN)
• Dalrymple Shire
• Department of Premier and Cabinet (Arts Victoria)
• Department for Planning and Community Development (Community Support Fund)
• Latrobe City
• NSW Department for the Arts
• Regional Arts Fund
• Rural City of Wangaratta
• VicHealth

Generations has a component of Regional Arts Funding from the Department of Communications, Information, Technology and the Arts, which the Australia Council for the Arts manages on behalf of the Department.

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The Regional Arts Fund is an Australian Government initiative supporting the arts in regional and remote Australia.	The Generations project is supported by the Victorian Government through the provision of a Victorian Community Support Grant from the Community Support Fund.

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The ‘Generations’ approach
The goal of ‘Generations’ is to create widespread community discussion and action in response to entrenched or difficult local problems identified by Councils as priorities for civic engagement. Artists applying creative community development skills will be commissioned by Councils to develop and deliver community engagement programs over three years. The objective is to reach across all interest groups and to deepen community understanding of the complexities and opportunities inherent in the issue that is the focus of discussion and action.

Though not new, this ‘community cultural development’ approach is all too rarely applied in medium or long term contexts, or with sufficient senior leadership and support at Council level, nor with effective inter-government partnerships. The development and management of the program aims to avoid these common conceptual and project management traps, through engaging a wide range of government stakeholders at the outset.

It will integrate (not marginalise) participatory arts as part of Councils’ overall community development efforts and will involve programs across the full range of Council functions. it also seeks to include state and commonwealth departments and agencies. The project is already received financial and policy support from all levels of government in Australia.

Research and analysis are important if the effectiveness of participatory arts as a tool for civic engagement and democratic governance – both elements essential to community sustainability- are to be assessed. The research will build on previous work that has examined the contribution of community arts to community health and wellbeing. It will however, focus specifically on factors relevant to the local government sector’s current priorities of community strengthening, through innovations in community engagement and planning and revitalisation of local democracy. This will entail examination of projects seeking to work with ‘whole communities’ , not just marginalised sub groups, which are often the focus of community arts interventions. Nevertheless the principles of diversity and inclusiveness will be fundamental to both the projects and research into their community impact.

The Victorian based Cultural Development Network is the initiator, broker and administrator of the program. The project team includes senior consultant, Anne Dunn, who has held many senior roles in arts, local government and community management over many years, and Artistic Advisor, artist and writer Meme McDonald, who will provide project advice and mentoring to artists and Council officers in each city.