I recently posted a tweet about community arts that seemed to resonate with a lot of people. I wrote…
Why is it that the panto in the church hall sells out overnight, the local skate park is rammed, the Guides are oversubscribed, the local drag show at the bingo hall is at capacity, but your "community arts" event is reaching a small huddle of people who also work in the arts?
With the caveat of…
(this isn't aimed at anyone in particular, I'm just thinking a lot about what we mean when we say community, and what is enveloped into "community arts" or "applied theatre", what is left out, why, and who it centres really)
I am absolutely not saying anything new here - communities do community, often creatively, always have, always will, whether arts organisations are involved or not. There are very well rehearsed critiques of community arts, or my own specialism of applied theatre, that draw attention to these contradictions in practice. I’m particularly fond of Jen Harvie’s phrase “plop art”, which she uses to describe the way art can be “parachuted in by an outside organization to a community with which neither the art nor the outside organization has much genuine interaction” (Page 111, link for this book is at the bottom). We are constantly asking questions about this, are we acting as though we know better than the communities we work with? Is this what people want? Could we be offering something people will love but wouldn’t think to ask for? Is it useful? Are we popping up or are we really plopping down? Should we pop or plop at all?
Something that’s been emerging in my writing, it was in my PhD and it’s a theme in a paper I’m giving later this summer, is the idea of attentiveness, as in, paying attention to, with an element of honesty. I know the mention of higher education and academia puts off a lot of people, who are happy to engage with the stereotype that doing a PhD or engaging in academic research means you’re not living in the real world, or “doing the real work” yourself. We are, where else would we be, and most of us do the “real work”. I think this idea of attentiveness is where the problem/solution arises for me. Good intentions, some funding, but no attentivity to community, and your project will be a square peg in a round hole. One of the reasons the examples I give in my tweet are successful is because they come from community, or have evolved over many, many years, so they just fit. To start something from scratch, and getting it to fit, requires that attentivity, loads of it.
A friend and colleague of mine, Emma Bramley (@emmabramley75), once recommended that I start project proposals with a paragraph about what a participant will actually experience. It sounds simple, but how often do we get forget to do that? Forget about strategies, numbers, outcomes, start by writing from the point of view of a participant and use it to shape the plan.
I live in Leeds, since lockdown I’ve felt down and only really see other people when I go to the supermarket. I see a poster for a drama workshop in a theatre, it’s a bus ride away but I think I’ll go join in.
Doesn’t sound right, try it again.
I live in Leeds, since lockdown I’ve felt down and only really see other people when I go to the supermarket. I see a Facebook post about a drama workshop in a theatre that’s a bus ride away, it says I can just watch if I want, I think I’ll go.
Still seems like a leap.
I live in Leeds, since lockdown I’ve felt down and only really see other people when I go to the supermarket. I’m having a drink in the supermarket café on my own and a friendly guy my age asks if he can give me a flier
No one wants a flier...
...coffee coaster?
Interesting.
he gives me a coffee coaster that has info printed on it about a drama workshop
Hmm.
an improv class!
God no!
a comedy club?
Nice...
he gives me a coffee coaster that has info printed on it about a comedy club happening in the room above the supermarket. It’s free and I can just sit and watch with my cuppa if I want, leave if it’s not for me. I ask if he’ll be there, and he says yes…
This one seems a bit more logical, now I know I’m not just going to do posters or Facebook posts, I’m going to do coffee coasters in the supermarket café. There will be other scenarios I imagine too. Now, it fits, or at least, fits better. It fits for this guy, and it didn't before.
It’s often argued/assumed that the best thing to do is ask the community what they want, what fits for them. Steering groups etc. are one brilliant way to inform the development of a project, but they’re just one. If you’re looking to offer something to people who aren’t usually engaged with this sort of thing, or who might be cut off/excluded from any sort of community to begin with (which is a huge problem after the various lockdowns) then you’re going to have to do some honest imagining. Continue to walk through the project through the eyes of a participant and ask if it really does what you’re saying or thinking it does. Physically walking it through is useful too. What’s the walk like from the bus stop, is the entrance welcoming, is there a ramp, is it clear where to go inside, when do I get a cuppa, who gives it to me, when I leave have I really “increased my ability to contribute to my local area” or am I just happier than when I arrived? Attentivity is hard, it takes time, and we don’t always have that, but literally imagining you are a participant works wonders, even if sometimes it makes you (me) face some hard truths about the quality of your work. Bingo, panto, Guides, these things are well oiled and cared for machines that fit for the people who are coming, and the people who are coming fit for them, so we have catching up to do if we’re starting a ‘new thing’.
Of course, longevity is not a word usually associated with community arts projects, we’re constantly starting ‘new things’. Projects tend to have a start date and an end date, attached to a limited period of funding, with agendas attached to that. Many organisations and theatres do have long standing connections with specific communities and groups that they continue to work with project to project, but of course this bring challenges of its own, repackaging ongoing work to make it look like a new project each time is a nightmare. The constant need for new things is, I think, where we often meet failure in making it fit. Where is the time for the attentivity needed to make that happen? How do we carve it out? I’d be interested to hear other strategies for attentivity, and how we can integrate it more carefully into our processes.
The final thing that requires attentivity, and this is the impossible task, is our own positionality. Who am I to do this work? What is my experience? What, or who, does my own trajectory allow me to see, recognise, value? Who don't I see? Why? The jury is out, and I imagine forever will be, on the question of speaking on behalf of others, making offers that are outside your own identity or experience, and where to draw the line. As a gay man, do I want straight people speaking about my experience? Not really. Am I glad loads of them did just that in parliament to fight for the recognition of my rights? Yep. Figuring out the ethics of that is an eternal blog post that would never end, but I reckon we can be sure that if you are making work in a community that isn’t your own, you need to pay attention, otherwise, you are most certainly plopping, and it just won’t fit.
A few things:
Harvies excellent book can be found here https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137027290
Of course, not all projects need a huge number of participants to be successful. I worked on some wonderful projects with the Leeds Playhouse for older people living with dementia, and these sessions were unhurried, calm, and didn’t need packing to the rafters like a panto. We took our time with a small group of people. Anything else could have been unethical. It’s also absolutely fine to put on events for artists. I’ve collaborated with my good friend Alice Duggan to stage scratch nights in Leeds and Bradford, and these have been busy affairs, with the local arts crowd coming to share and see each others work in progress. But, if you say it’s a project for a community, and it only reaches other arts folk, there’s still work to be done widening your scope, and recognising who you are really centring in the work. Who do you not see?
Clearly the examples I give are generalisations to make a point - running the Guides is not easy, nor is putting on a church panto, or drag at the bingo. These things take extraordinary effort, work, and care, and they don’t always win either.
Failing is not a bad thing. If you put on a show or a workshop and no one comes, it’s not the end of the world. It has happened to everyone who has tried, more than once. I point you toward https://failspaceproject.co.uk/ for some tools around failure, and how you might reframe it productively.
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