EMPTY GALLERY CAFE
Arts and Community
September 9th 2020
The Questions
How Does Art Help A Community?
Should we encourage people to engage in the arts and if so how do we do it?
ROOM 1
First Group ; Question; How Does Art Help A Community?
What is art? It’s stuff that people do/make to express themselves, creativity. If you pick up a piece of flotsam on a beach and put it on your mantlepiece it becomes art.
What is community? It’s a co-dependence of a minimum of 2 to 3 people, and it’s positive.
Art brings people together to create. However you need leisure time in order to be creative. Maslow’s hierarchy of need states that there are certain basic requirements to human life before you can enjoy a quality of life i.e food , shelter, health, positive human relationships. Art brings people closer together with a common purpose, something to achieve together “look what we did”. The reverberations of community plays live on in communities. In Minneapolis there were racist views amongst the cast and during the process of creating the play the interaction between people resulted in close friendships between individuals who previously had racist views and people of colour. So art can bring about positive social change. Are community plays just for comfortable white middle class communities? Not always examples are Minneapolis and Aylesham ex mining community in Kent. There was resistance to the play in Aylesham , it was hard convincing people to get involved as the production team were seen as outsiders who had no understanding of their community. The result however was that a community with a very traumatic history were able to tell their story to the outside world and celebrated their achievement in fulfilling that aim.
Second Group. Question; Should we encourage people to engage in the arts and if so how do we do it?
Many communities are diverse and maybe segregated from each other. We might be forcing something on people from different cultures. Sometimes we should let go of the original idea such as in the City of London where plans to create a community play transformed into the exhibition in a suitcase project. There was a large immigrant community in the area and individuals told their stories by putting objects/pictures etc in the suitcases. It’s about listening, adapting, accepting. There are also lasting legacies such as an annual lantern parade in the city as well as in Camden Road Tunbridge Wells following the community play there. Although the pandemic has restricted people from meeting up in person, meeting on zoom has meant that we can meet up with people from all over the country and the world ,which creates other opportunities including more diverse views and skills.
First Group ; Question; How Does Art Help A Community?
What is art? It’s stuff that people do/make to express themselves, creativity. If you pick up a piece of flotsam on a beach and put it on your mantlepiece it becomes art.
What is community? It’s a co-dependence of a minimum of 2 to 3 people, and it’s positive.
Art brings people together to create. However you need leisure time in order to be creative. Maslow’s hierarchy of need states that there are certain basic requirements to human life before you can enjoy a quality of life i.e food , shelter, health, positive human relationships. Art brings people closer together with a common purpose, something to achieve together “look what we did”. The reverberations of community plays live on in communities. In Minneapolis there were racist views amongst the cast and during the process of creating the play the interaction between people resulted in close friendships between individuals who previously had racist views and people of colour. So art can bring about positive social change. Are community plays just for comfortable white middle class communities? Not always examples are Minneapolis and Aylesham ex mining community in Kent. There was resistance to the play in Aylesham , it was hard convincing people to get involved as the production team were seen as outsiders who had no understanding of their community. The result however was that a community with a very traumatic history were able to tell their story to the outside world and celebrated their achievement in fulfilling that aim.
Second Group. Question; Should we encourage people to engage in the arts and if so how do we do it?
Many communities are diverse and maybe segregated from each other. We might be forcing something on people from different cultures. Sometimes we should let go of the original idea such as in the City of London where plans to create a community play transformed into the exhibition in a suitcase project. There was a large immigrant community in the area and individuals told their stories by putting objects/pictures etc in the suitcases. It’s about listening, adapting, accepting. There are also lasting legacies such as an annual lantern parade in the city as well as in Camden Road Tunbridge Wells following the community play there. Although the pandemic has restricted people from meeting up in person, meeting on zoom has meant that we can meet up with people from all over the country and the world ,which creates other opportunities including more diverse views and skills.
ROOM 2
We talked a lot about both the Rusthall and the City experience. There was a general feeling that people’s interest was sparked by the prospect of both plays, but they were frightened of not being in control. In Rustall, being a smaller community, apparently there are still divisions, but people see each other all the time, so they make more effort to overcome differences. Not so much in the City, where the enmity between different cultures is very marked.
On the second question, i made fewer notes, but felt strongly that people experience art all the time, without seeing it as such, and we need to recognise that. There are too many value judgements made (by us oldies) about what constitutes the arts to young people, and we need to accept that screens are part of their lives and cultures, and that games, Tiktok, Instagram and whatever other forums they use that I have no idea about, do have value and do create art. If those forms could be incorporated to some degree in a community arts experience, that may bridge the age divides and get more young people involved.
That’s about it, hope it’s helpful. I enjoyed it very much and am looking forward to telling my Humanist group all about it.
We talked a lot about both the Rusthall and the City experience. There was a general feeling that people’s interest was sparked by the prospect of both plays, but they were frightened of not being in control. In Rustall, being a smaller community, apparently there are still divisions, but people see each other all the time, so they make more effort to overcome differences. Not so much in the City, where the enmity between different cultures is very marked.
On the second question, i made fewer notes, but felt strongly that people experience art all the time, without seeing it as such, and we need to recognise that. There are too many value judgements made (by us oldies) about what constitutes the arts to young people, and we need to accept that screens are part of their lives and cultures, and that games, Tiktok, Instagram and whatever other forums they use that I have no idea about, do have value and do create art. If those forms could be incorporated to some degree in a community arts experience, that may bridge the age divides and get more young people involved.
That’s about it, hope it’s helpful. I enjoyed it very much and am looking forward to telling my Humanist group all about it.
ROOM 3
How does art help community?
It was generally agreed that it can help, but this was qualified by a broad discussion of what 'art' is and how it is perceived.
Reference was made to the original 2016 Rusthall Arts Festival where the Open House requested input from the community and a hundred people came forward in a large variety of 'disciplines'.
From this has sprung the Book Binding and Pottery workshops, the Djembe drumming, the Rusties, the Community Cinema, etc.
Are street art, contemporary music, or skateboarding helped or hindered by being included/excluded in the term 'Art'. Particular reference was made to a 15-year-old rapper (Will) from the 2016 festival.
It was thought that various activities appeal to different 'pockets' in the community and that some (e.g. primary-aged children) were better served than others: early teens, single people, grandparents and grandchildren.
Communication was seen as key – providing more avenues, and building more bridges.
The questions of how to communicate, and how to draw people in, were inevitably raised and discussed.
The 'Arts' was also discussed as being such a wide range of pursuits, but there was some feeling for it being two broad (often, but not necessarily, overlapping) activities:
– the actual creating/making in company with other people (e.g. Rusthall Artists)
– the need to find an audience to perform to.
Notes from Second Session Group:
Should we, and if so how do we, encourage people to be interested in the Arts?
Some of this question was discussed in the first session and it was reiterated that interest in the arts should be encouraged not forced.
And again "what constitutes art" was discussed.
Again the importance of communications was emphasised and that 'alienated' groups were not being reached.
Keywords stressed were: opportunities, welcoming, inclusive, invitations.
The relatively low take-up of the 2016 workshops (which basically only charged for materials) was discussed. The feeling of a lot of people that "I'm not good enough" was possibly a factor.
The Casting for the Legends was cited as a good example of inclusivity and a non-competitive environment – which led people to 'volunteer' both themselves and their families, knowing there would be no rejection.
[An interesting observation was made about how community-driven arts projects can be constructed in very different ways: the CREATE groups in Camden Road developed out of the Elephant Vanishes play, whereas the Legends of the Rocks play was a focus of various local initiatives.]
It was generally felt that a major way to encourage interest is through developing inquisitiveness.
By 'being sneaky' and encouraging interest, people can see and understand the benefits to them, without any preconceived notion of 'culture'.
The suggestion was made to use future fetes, for example, to include activities which 'lead on' to further creative appreciation. An example being the (third-party) pebble painting activity which then went into the 'Shipping Areas' largest artwork project in Margate.
How does art help community?
It was generally agreed that it can help, but this was qualified by a broad discussion of what 'art' is and how it is perceived.
Reference was made to the original 2016 Rusthall Arts Festival where the Open House requested input from the community and a hundred people came forward in a large variety of 'disciplines'.
From this has sprung the Book Binding and Pottery workshops, the Djembe drumming, the Rusties, the Community Cinema, etc.
Are street art, contemporary music, or skateboarding helped or hindered by being included/excluded in the term 'Art'. Particular reference was made to a 15-year-old rapper (Will) from the 2016 festival.
It was thought that various activities appeal to different 'pockets' in the community and that some (e.g. primary-aged children) were better served than others: early teens, single people, grandparents and grandchildren.
Communication was seen as key – providing more avenues, and building more bridges.
The questions of how to communicate, and how to draw people in, were inevitably raised and discussed.
The 'Arts' was also discussed as being such a wide range of pursuits, but there was some feeling for it being two broad (often, but not necessarily, overlapping) activities:
– the actual creating/making in company with other people (e.g. Rusthall Artists)
– the need to find an audience to perform to.
Notes from Second Session Group:
Should we, and if so how do we, encourage people to be interested in the Arts?
Some of this question was discussed in the first session and it was reiterated that interest in the arts should be encouraged not forced.
And again "what constitutes art" was discussed.
Again the importance of communications was emphasised and that 'alienated' groups were not being reached.
Keywords stressed were: opportunities, welcoming, inclusive, invitations.
The relatively low take-up of the 2016 workshops (which basically only charged for materials) was discussed. The feeling of a lot of people that "I'm not good enough" was possibly a factor.
The Casting for the Legends was cited as a good example of inclusivity and a non-competitive environment – which led people to 'volunteer' both themselves and their families, knowing there would be no rejection.
[An interesting observation was made about how community-driven arts projects can be constructed in very different ways: the CREATE groups in Camden Road developed out of the Elephant Vanishes play, whereas the Legends of the Rocks play was a focus of various local initiatives.]
It was generally felt that a major way to encourage interest is through developing inquisitiveness.
By 'being sneaky' and encouraging interest, people can see and understand the benefits to them, without any preconceived notion of 'culture'.
The suggestion was made to use future fetes, for example, to include activities which 'lead on' to further creative appreciation. An example being the (third-party) pebble painting activity which then went into the 'Shipping Areas' largest artwork project in Margate.
ROOM 4
We talked about 'How does art help community?' and we mainly considered whether art could bring people together.
We mainly thought about this from a local perspective. Viv thought she had got to know some of her neighbours a lot better from being involved in the community play. Jill reflected about lasting legacy and mentioned how the lantern parade had come out of the Vanishing Elephant (I hadn't known this before)..
We talked about how the big event in Rusthall is probably the bonfire night, and whether this could be considered to be art..eg the drummers, the spectacle, the creative co-ordination of the fireworks with music..brings a diverse range of the people together, and is an accessible shared experience.
We thought that art can be seen as middle class and whether this can be challenged..the photographic competition was mentioned as another example of art that is pretty accessible, and also some of the workshops in the run up to the Legend of the Rocks.
In the second group we discussed the question 'Should we, and if so how do we, encourage people to engage with the arts?'
I suggested that the word 'encourage' could be changed to 'invite' to make the sentence easier to agree with - and the others agreed with this. I feel like encourage suggests 'even if they don't want to' ... some people just genuinely aren't interested and that should be respected, but equally there are lots of benefits to many from the arts and often the barriers are socio-economic, lack of opportunity, circumstancial reasons and these should be possible to overcome. So the arts shouldn't be forced on people whether they like it or not, but equally they should be open, inclusive, accessible..
Someone (sorry, I seem to have forgotten everyone's name now!) thought that all the different possible roles offered in your plays made it much more accessible because you could generally see one thing that you could have a go at without feeling too daunted, and once you were engaged everyone was so encouraging that you might try something else as well/next time.
Jane said how much she had enjoyed being an usher, and it made her feel involved and included.
We talked a bit about the boys on the rocks who were disruptive to Legend...I suggested going into the school in Rusthall to talk to kids about the play might be one way to make them feel invested in it...although Covid may make this impossible...getting their input and ideas in the devising stage would be good..many children have been on a daily walk during lockdown, Happy Valley will have been one of their routes perhaps so they may have ideas about the different features of the landscape there. We spoke about the way the rocks will have drawn people to meet/play there for thousands of years and we are still doing so.
In the end between us we came up with a list of rules for engaging people with the arts!
1. Listening
2.No imposing
3.Playing to people's strengths
4.Diverse roles
5 No judgement/pressure
6.No patronising
I also mentioned the owls which an unknown artist has been putting in trees around Rusthall - I don't think anyone knows who is doing it but we thought they brought joy and pleasure to people who spot them.
We talked about 'How does art help community?' and we mainly considered whether art could bring people together.
We mainly thought about this from a local perspective. Viv thought she had got to know some of her neighbours a lot better from being involved in the community play. Jill reflected about lasting legacy and mentioned how the lantern parade had come out of the Vanishing Elephant (I hadn't known this before)..
We talked about how the big event in Rusthall is probably the bonfire night, and whether this could be considered to be art..eg the drummers, the spectacle, the creative co-ordination of the fireworks with music..brings a diverse range of the people together, and is an accessible shared experience.
We thought that art can be seen as middle class and whether this can be challenged..the photographic competition was mentioned as another example of art that is pretty accessible, and also some of the workshops in the run up to the Legend of the Rocks.
In the second group we discussed the question 'Should we, and if so how do we, encourage people to engage with the arts?'
I suggested that the word 'encourage' could be changed to 'invite' to make the sentence easier to agree with - and the others agreed with this. I feel like encourage suggests 'even if they don't want to' ... some people just genuinely aren't interested and that should be respected, but equally there are lots of benefits to many from the arts and often the barriers are socio-economic, lack of opportunity, circumstancial reasons and these should be possible to overcome. So the arts shouldn't be forced on people whether they like it or not, but equally they should be open, inclusive, accessible..
Someone (sorry, I seem to have forgotten everyone's name now!) thought that all the different possible roles offered in your plays made it much more accessible because you could generally see one thing that you could have a go at without feeling too daunted, and once you were engaged everyone was so encouraging that you might try something else as well/next time.
Jane said how much she had enjoyed being an usher, and it made her feel involved and included.
We talked a bit about the boys on the rocks who were disruptive to Legend...I suggested going into the school in Rusthall to talk to kids about the play might be one way to make them feel invested in it...although Covid may make this impossible...getting their input and ideas in the devising stage would be good..many children have been on a daily walk during lockdown, Happy Valley will have been one of their routes perhaps so they may have ideas about the different features of the landscape there. We spoke about the way the rocks will have drawn people to meet/play there for thousands of years and we are still doing so.
In the end between us we came up with a list of rules for engaging people with the arts!
1. Listening
2.No imposing
3.Playing to people's strengths
4.Diverse roles
5 No judgement/pressure
6.No patronising
I also mentioned the owls which an unknown artist has been putting in trees around Rusthall - I don't think anyone knows who is doing it but we thought they brought joy and pleasure to people who spot them.
ROOM 5
Great evening and conversations!
Exploring the first question we had a diagram with Art in the centre and Community around with a space between. So looking at that space we put in the following:
Expands horizons
Connection
Inclusivity
Joy (makes war impossible)
Involvement
Empathy
Transformative
Educational
Growth
With the second question we debated the word ‘should’ as it had the flavour of possible imposition, “We know what is good for you!” We went on to look at the value of listening, especially to young people, in schools and valuing the way in which you run community plays so that there is such a wide range of ways in which anyone can make a contribution. So playing to the strengths and interests of each individual with no judgement or patronising. To engage the young in schools we thought some of the playful exercises you bring to the Improvisation group could engage their interest and maybe provide a route to engaging them in becoming involved. Rather than sitting up on the rocks and being a nuisance!
Great evening and conversations!
Exploring the first question we had a diagram with Art in the centre and Community around with a space between. So looking at that space we put in the following:
Expands horizons
Connection
Inclusivity
Joy (makes war impossible)
Involvement
Empathy
Transformative
Educational
Growth
With the second question we debated the word ‘should’ as it had the flavour of possible imposition, “We know what is good for you!” We went on to look at the value of listening, especially to young people, in schools and valuing the way in which you run community plays so that there is such a wide range of ways in which anyone can make a contribution. So playing to the strengths and interests of each individual with no judgement or patronising. To engage the young in schools we thought some of the playful exercises you bring to the Improvisation group could engage their interest and maybe provide a route to engaging them in becoming involved. Rather than sitting up on the rocks and being a nuisance!
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