Art is a powerful medium when amalgamated with service and industry. Yet the public are often skeptical of artists and their usefulness. Few know this better than one of Britain’s most famous artists.
Upon returning to New York earlier this month following the Turner Prize Award Ceremony, Damien Hirst told airport security he was an artist. They then asked, “What kind of paint do you use?” When Damien replied, “House paint”, they strip-searched him.
But despite popular misconceptions, the creative process has become more and more a vital element of both industry (to produce economical goods and services) and society.
Creative Clusters, an independent policy conference examining the growth of the creative economy, believe that “creativity is the key factor driving development”. As they write: “Across the world, enterprises based on individual creativity are booming. Furthermore, knowledge and culture-based activities now play a central role in the activities of all businesses. This is the era of the creative economy.”
It is arguable that the arts industry plays a large part in sustaining society’s cultural space, particularly through the generation of creative economy. But how exactly do we argue this?
Ireland’s national development agency for collaborative arts, Create, makes for a very convincing case. For twenty-four years Create has been at the forefront of pioneering initiatives bringing artists and arts organisations into real working collaborations within the greater community – communities of place and/or interest. There are four pathways of activities: Professional Development, Learning Development, Project Management & Consultancy and Projects & Initiatives that support and develop collaborative arts.
Arts Hub spoke to Director Sarah Tuck and asked how Create supports artists and communities to work in collaboration. “Everything we do ourselves is in partnership and consultation, through the instruments of interculturalism, internationalism and interdisciplinarity”, says Sarah.
Since 2003 as part of the Learning Development programme, Create has worked in partnership with the NUI Certificate in Youth Arts offered by the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) to manage a student placement programme. The aim of the placement programme is to provide students with experience of a youth arts project by working alongside artists on a project with a host organisation/youth group. The outcome is two-way. The placements inform both youth workers’ understanding of arts practice and artists’ understanding of youth work.
Sarah explains, “Artists and arts organisations working collaboratively with communities of place and /or interest is widely seen as one of the most vibrant and challenging areas of arts practice, requiring skills of negotiation and project management. The exploratory processes and practices of collaborative arts demand different approaches to traditional definitions of art, artists and arts development.”
CAFE (Creative Activity for Everyone), as Create was initially known, published national funding directories for voluntary community-based work. The Funding Handbook became renowned as a valuable resource. As the organisation grew, they realised a real need for specialised bespoke services for artists working in different social contexts. This became an organisational priority. Project support advice, research, information provision and membership constituted the core services, signposting the key directions of Create’s work, and the name change.
Create now offer tenders-based Project Management and Consultation to new or growing local and national organisations. This includes housing organisations within the Create offices in Dublin, as Arts Disability Ireland are at the moment. Sarah Tuck explains, “The Arts Incubation Programme is a cornerstone of the ethos of Create’s working. It assists building the infrastructure for arts provision within the greater community. Once the organisation achieves a sustainable infrastructure, they leave the programme.”
Based in Dublin but servicing the Republic of Ireland, the organisation has grown out of a sense of commitment to the empowering potential of the arts and cultural democracy. In the beginning the organisation was fuelled by a desire to be instrumental in social change. Given the volatility of the arts sector in Ireland, and the tenuous support for community arts in general, it is a testimony to the tenacity and vision of a whole group of people that CAFE grew, prevailed and survived.
Sarah Tuck says, “Underlying these programmes we embody a larger vision for the arts sector as a whole, based around critical thinking. Dialogue and debate are a huge part of that. Ireland has a fairly recent experience of immigration, and the island has been in a constant state of change for a long time. The arts need to be examined through this lens to accommodate these local changes.” Sarah cites Create’s Suburbs and Cities 2 panel discussion, in partnership with Civic Theatre and South Dublin County Arts Office, asking Irish artists to critically engage with the issue of suburban development in relation to the rapidly changing environment of contemporary Ireland. The participating artists were Jesse Jones, Mary Ruth Walsh, Michael Fortune and writer Dermot Bolger.
This April event continued the debate initiated in partnership with the Arts Council Ireland’s Critical Voices 3 programme in September 2006, when international artists and writers discussed how their work is informed by the changing urban landscapes of Europe and the US.
“Such events enable an international seepage at the local level and point to areas of commonality in our increasingly globalised world”, says Sarah Tuck.
It is more than arguable that by maintaining a commitment to social and cultural equality, as the agency builds creative economy, Create has become an agency for inclusive cultural space. In fact the September publication of Create News tackles interculturalism head-on, where Maurna Crozier interviews Dragan Klaic on, ‘How to Build an Inclusive Cultural Space’.
Last week Create in association with the Leitrim County Council Arts Office hosted a 2-day Public Art Symposium. “Grasping the possibilities of art conceived as a social process and freed from the traditional and ‘monumental’, the new public art can question assumptions behind notions of ‘public’ and investigate the diverse forms of communication and interaction by which artists can reach and engage different audiences.”
In addition, a series of Create Think Tank seminars are being held throughout the year.
The most recent seminar last month in association with OUT OF SITE presented RISK: A public seminar on the role of risk in a live art practice. RISK questioned the relationship of audience and artist and the management of uncertainty in live art. Participating artists included LIGNA (Germany), Carole Lung (USA), Fergus Byrne (Ireland), Aileen Lambert (Ireland), Sandra Johnston (Northern Ireland).
Create partners an exciting Training Initiative in Arts in Health. Arts Council Ireland have commissioned Create, Adelaide & Meath Hospital incorporating the National Children’s Hospital, and the Institute of Art design & Technology Dun Laoghaire to research and develop a course providing training for artists wishing to work in the healthcare sector.
The proposed outcome is to devise and implement a post-graduate certificate that is mutually beneficial for both artists and healthcare organisations. An extensive consultation with stakeholders from the Arts Sector, Health Service, Third Level Institutions and Voluntary Sector, as well as experienced artists in the field will take place as part of the research phase of the initiative.
Create still publish the indispensable funding handbook for Irish artists (6th edition just released). They also offer an open access reading room at their offices in Dublin, which they are keen to expand, and are inviting reading materials to be added to the growing collection.
And we haven’t even started talking about the Artist in the Community Scheme Create manage on behalf of Arts Council Ireland!
Create (then CAFE) came into existence following a series of seminars on community arts. I can’t help but think how the UK could benefit in following the lead of such a forward thinking organisation as Create. For instance, in helping to clarify outdated definitions of community arts / arts in the community as a surrogacy for social work, and the false separation of artists and civil society. Thus in effect hindering creative action moving into a more central, accessible and desirable role, within business and industry, as well as within the arts industry itself.
The Create News publication is posted free to members. Create also published a quarterly arts journal CONTEXTS, designed as a vehicle for debate, discussion, in-depth review and critical analysis of the collaborative arts sector in Ireland. Please check out the Create website for details on back issues
