Gaynor Cuthbert, Research, Creative Arts, University of Melbourne

Prioritising Process over Product

The utilization of arts based community programs within a social inclusion agenda is increasingly regarded as being complicit in bringing about social support in the process of substantial personal change for people at risk. But does it? As a single intervention proposition will a short-term infusion of creative forms such as visual media, substantially alter emotional damage or bring about vocational change. Or does a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ project, become just another way for participants to feel let down or abandoned. Most of the literature and rhetoric concerned with Community Art Projects for people at risk focus on the benefits and make claims for long term positive outcomes. This paper challenges these assertions.  

This paper draws on recent observation and research associated with the Plan B Theatre Project, 2006. I will introduce the project, discuss its main aims and outcomes and will argue that the process of sustained participation in an arts project such as Plan B may, in the long term, have the capacity for social inclusion and personal change. But short-term projects initiated as an outcome based play, exhibition, mural etc with an emphasis on the final product gives little or no long term benefit to people who have been exposed to multiple risk factors of jail, homelessness or substance abuse. Also important in this context is the way in which funding bodies favour a short-term, professionally produced outcome based project, rather than a longitudinal process with smaller multiple outcomes. This has a significant impact on project planning and funding strategies.


Gaynor Cuthbert is currently engaged in the first year of a PhD at Melbourne University with a focus on Arts Projects designed to facilitate social inclusion for people at risk. She tutors in Surrealism at the University of Melbourne and works in a voluntary capacity at Heide The Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen where she has been developing and delivering talks on contemporary art to Community Groups over the past 5 years. Qualifications include a Batchelor of Arts (Hons) majoring in Anthropology and Art History at La Trobe University, Graduate Diploma in Arts Management at the University of Melbourne and a Master of Art History at Melbourne University. 

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