scholarly journals Western Sydney is hot! Community arts and changing perceptions of the West

Author(s):  
Christina Ho

Can the arts change how we view cities? How can we evaluate the broad social impacts of arts programs, particularly in elusive areas such as the local image of urban communities? This article examines the cultural renaissance of Western Sydney, long considered a crass, working-class cultural wasteland. In the last two decades, the region has experienced a proliferation of new artistic initiatives, and advocates now hail Sydney’s West as the true face of multicultural Australia’s cultural vitality. This article also documents how community arts and development programs have contributed to these shifting perceptions, analysing these contributions in terms of social impact evaluation. It argues that evaluating social impact expands the parameters of conventional evaluation techniques, which typically focus on program-level outputs and outcomes. It presents a case study of a Western Sydney community organisation, Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE), which, for 20 years, has delivered community cultural development and professional development programs for Western Sydney artists. Engaging with historically disadvantaged communities, the organisation has specialised in art forms that have resonated with the region, including hip hop, digital storytelling, and filmmaking, and in the process has played a key role in re-imagining Western Sydney as a cutting edge, multicultural hub of creative vibrancy. Keywords: Western Sydney, community arts, evaluation, social impact

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Adam Payne

This paper will examine the Arts@ Program, an arts and leadership program run by a director at a specialized institution of higher education in the northeastern United States. This paper offers the opportunity for readers to: 1.) Analyze a community arts program from a leadership perspective; 2.) Examine ways in which leadership, decision-making, and related factors can impact a community arts program; and 3.) Apply concepts of the Arts@ Program toward future virtual programmatic efforts. Key learnings from this paper include the following: 1.) Arts communities provide opportunities for all community members to engage in, build lasting memories from, and benefit from arts-related programmatic efforts, including arts instructors; 2.) Community arts programs have the potential to encourage aspects of self-leadership while also allowing participants to develop a deep, cogent appreciation for the arts; and 3.) Many of the design and delivery aspects of arts programs such as those discussed about the Arts@ Program can be applied toward future programmatic efforts, particularly in virtual formats. Reflections and recommendations for future research are presented.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-75
Author(s):  
Sarah Becker ◽  
Castel Sweet

Hip-hop has deep historical ties to disadvantaged communities. Resounding success in mainstream and global music markets potentially disrupts those connections. The authors use in-depth interviews with 25 self-defined rap/hip-hop artists to explore the significance of place in modern hip-hop. Bringing together historical studies of hip-hop and sociological neighborhood studies, the authors examine hip-hop artists’ community connections. Findings reveal that exposure to concentrated racial and economic disadvantage shapes how artists interpret community, artistic impact, and social responsibility. This supports the “black placemaking” framework, which highlights how black urban neighborhood residents creatively build community amid structural disadvantage. The analysis also elucidates the role specific types of physical places play in black placemaking processes.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1321103X2110325
Author(s):  
Katrina Skewes McFerran ◽  
Alexander HD Crooke ◽  
Megan Steele ◽  
John Hattie ◽  
Gary E McPherson

Arts programs are increasingly recognized for their role in promoting student development and cohesive school communities. Yet, most Australian schools are left to navigate a landscape characterized by shifting policy goals and external providers of diverse quality and intent. Drawing on interviews with 27 stakeholders from 19 Catholic primary schools in Melbourne, Australia, we explored key approaches to arts provision in this context, and conditions that hinder and support it. Approaches varied markedly, from school-wide programs embedded across the curriculum, to one-off incursions. Conditions consistently affecting provision ranged from leadership support to a community’s view of the arts. Programs regularly relied on individuals passionate about arts to go beyond their paid roles, yet this frequently jeopardized sustainability. Overall, the approaches identified, and conditions affecting their sustainability, reveal a lack of value for school arts at policy and administration levels. This lack of value is not demonstrated in the provision of other traditional school activities like math or literacy, which begs consideration by policymakers and school administrators.


Author(s):  
Shane Pike ◽  
Sasha Mackay ◽  
Michael Whelan ◽  
Bree Hadley ◽  
Kathryn Kelly

In Australia a vibrant tradition of participatory and often politically motivated performance work developed under the term ‘community arts and cultural development’ across the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. In this body of practice, considerations of ethics are articulated through process, practices and representation rather than content. Though effective, community arts as it developed in Australia is often time, resource and emotionally intensive for artists, community participants and audiences. In recent years, retraction of funding, as well as shifts in practice towards live art, performance art and relational aesthetics have reduced the resources available for these once prominent practices. Practitioners are confronting challenges and needing to develop new ways of working in an operating environment where long-term consultation is not necessarily possible or preferred by stakeholders. In this article, we reflect on the current state of play for practitioners seeking to develop ethical dramaturgy in performance works that collaborate with communities to tell life stories or represent participants’ lived experiences in Australia. Through examples from our own practice, as practice-led researchers, we consider how work in this sector is under strain and experiencing scarcity, precarity and an increasing lack of access to institutional resources that have historically enabled ethically rigorous dramaturgical practices. We aim, through this process, to rediscover and rearticulate an ethical dramaturgy for deployment in the Australian environment as it exists today.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 124
Author(s):  
Sofia Lindström Sol ◽  
Cia Gustrén ◽  
Gustaf Nelhans ◽  
Johan Eklund ◽  
Jenny Johannisson ◽  
...  

This article explores the broad and undefined research field of “the social impact of the arts”. The effects of art and culture are often used as justification for public funding, but the research on these interventions and their effects is unclear. Using a co-word analysis of over 10,000 articles published between 1990 and 2020, we examined the characteristics of the field as we have operationalised it through our searches. Since 2015, the research field of “the social impact of art” has expanded and consists of different epistemologies and methodologies, summarised in largely overlapping subfields belonging to the social sciences/humanities, arts education, and arts and health/therapy. In formal or informal learning settings, studies of theatre/drama as an intervention to enhance skills, well-being, or knowledge among children are most common. A study of the research front, operationalised as the bibliographic coupling of the most cited articles in the data set, confirmed the co-word analysis and revealed new themes that together form the ground for insight into research on the social impact of the arts. As such, this article can inform discussions on the social value of the arts and culture.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (164) ◽  
pp. 58-64
Author(s):  
Wu Changzhi

The article examines the synthesis of arts on the example of Chinese architecture. General historical questions of the development of Chinese culture and various arts during historical evolution are raising. Philosophical and religious positions of culture are distinguishing, which are identifying with the development of art. The question arises of the lack of a full analysis of ancient Chinese art for all types of artistic creativity that were developing during cultural development and formation: architecture, painting, calligraphy, music, sculpture, dance, and so on. A number of scholars who have developed methods of approaches to the systematization and study of the synthesis of the arts of ancient Chinese culture throughout its development are presenting. A number of techniques in painting and calligraphy that have a direct impact on the formation of the Chinese architectural environment are analyzing. These methodical conclusions can be useful in planning the activities of various organizational departments of architectural education and science. Problem statement: it became necessary to analyze and describe the methods and principles of organizing forms of art synthesis in Chinese architecture. Objective of the article: analyze the impact of forms of art synthesis in Chinese architecture. There is describing that the most important art form in China is painting. It is thanks to its compositional, color and harmonic laws that the general cultural world of ancient China is building. Color relationships, combinations with nature - all this through painting builds the canonical laws of architecture, music, dance, calligraphy, etc., taking into account national authenticity. It becomes the central core of the synthesis of Chinese art, generating its various forms for individual regions. In architecture, the action of forms of synthesis of Chinese arts is embodying through the organization of plasticity of the building, interior and exterior space, the ratio of small and large forms, and the location of accents. Experienced predecessors should be a role model for modern architects and artists. The combination of long-standing traditions of "synthesis of arts" with modern production technologies, as well as creative ideas of architects and artists of the XXI century can give new vectors of development of Chinese architecture and art science.


Author(s):  
Fajar Defitrika ◽  
Fitri Nur Mahmudah

The industrial era 4.0 requires that every individual must have superior competence and wise morals. Life skill education is an effective strategy to face the XXI century competition. However, there has been no development in line with the demands, resulting in much unemployment in Indonesia. Character education is encouraged to maintain and strengthen the culture and character of the nation. However, in reality, character education has not yet integrated into all school-based development programs. This research explores the development of character education based on life skill education at Pondok Pesantren Modern Muhammadiyah Boarding School (PPM MBS) Yogyakarta. This qualitative research uses an ethnographic approach.  Researchers' data is through the interview, observation, and documentation techniques—data analysis process with data reduction stages, data presentation, and conclusion. Triangulation sources and techniques used as a test of data validity. This study's findings show the strengthening of character education through life skills education orienting on self-development and boarding schools' cultural development. This study's findings recommend various life skill education programs that can develop and character education strategies in formal schools.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Luz Pinto ◽  

Álvaro Siza Vieira (1933) began his training at the Architecture Department of the School of Fine Arts in Porto (EBAP) in 1949, one year after the 1st Congress of Portuguese Architects (1948), which became known as the congress of modern architects. There were two fine arts schools at the time in Portugal, in Porto and Lisbon (EBAP and EBAL), both with an equivalent curriculum that was coordinated by the state. Siza attended the course based on the “beaux arts” programs of 1932, concluding the curricular part of his course in 1955 and presenting his final graduation design in 1965. But by this time, Portuguese education in the arts had already switched to “modern”curricula (1952-57 Reform). The following year, having already seen some of his important works built, Siza began his career as assistant professor at the school in Porto.


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore Stickley ◽  
Ada Hui ◽  
Gary Souter ◽  
Danielle Mills

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an evaluation of a community-based arts programme for older people in Nottinghamshire. Design/methodology/approach – The evaluation was conducted using a combination of pre- and post-initiative quantitative questionnaires and qualitative focus group interviews. This paper focuses upon the findings from the focus groups. Findings – Participants reported feeling more positively about ageing and being more motivated to pursue new opportunities at the end of the programme. Five themes emerged from the focus group interviews, namely age and ageing, the finished product, new opportunities, aspirations and the future and personal benefits. These related to increased confidence, having greater creative expression, meaningful occupation and opportunities for socialisation. Social implications – The programme was found to be successful in helping individuals feel more positive about their age, to feel more confident and motivated, to engage with others through mutual creativity, as well as to challenge negative social stereotypes of older people. Originality/value – The paper will be of relevance and value to those working with older people and those with an interest in the arts. This evaluation demonstrates the diversity of the older population with older citizen’s voices being at the heart of the programme.


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