Ben Jones

The second conference I am talking at about my Ph.D. research this summer is the 2012 Cultural Trends conference, Engagement in the Arts 2012, in association with Leeds Metropolitan University’s Knowledge Exchange Network on Participation and Engagement in the Arts on the 26th June at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield.

The conference concerns participation and engagement in the arts encompassing theory, policy and practice and aims to encourage networking between academics, policy makers and arts practitioners. It is the culmination of the work that the Knowledge Exchange Network has been undergoing (including the talk at Culture Lab in January) and will bring together international academics, policy makers and practitioners to share research and debate issues affecting the whole cultural sector. To book a place and for more information you can do so by going to the Leeds Metropolitan University website.

I will be talking at two conferences this summer in relation to my PhD work.

The first is the North East Photography Network and their annual symposium on Friday May 18th at the Mining Institute, Newcastle. NEPN aim to ‘create opportunities for the development of new photographic work and for discussion and debate around lens-based practice.’ The symposium will ‘explore questions such as, the possibilities for social engagement in shifting cultural contexts; the role of the photographer and the artwork in such processes;  new aesthetic strategies and the limits of documentary; the role of new media and changing relationships to audiences.’ Including talks by practitioners, curators and critics, speakers confirmed so far are Bas Vroege from Paradox NL,  Pauline Hadaway from Belfast Exposed and David Campbell (independent photography consultant).

This Wednesday I visited and interviewed Laura Maragoudaki, Julie Ballands and Taryn Edmonds, who together created the art project Archive for Change.

Archive for Change was developed roughly 2 years ago to look into the issues around urban change in the West End of Newcastle by collecting, archiving and exhibiting the many stories in one of the largest regeneration areas in the UK.

The West end of Newcastle, consisting of Scotswood, Benwell and Elswick has been a place of constant regeneration and urban planning, some of it successful but a lot of which has been a failure. This is a ongoing and continuous issue with an answer to the problems yet to be found. There has been constant building, knocking down and building of areas with regular mass clearances. The area has also been a place of research for universities around the subject of community, urban planning and regeneration.

Concentrating mainly with film, Archive for Change aims to compliment the many grass roots community led activities currently taking place in the area as well document past community and political activities that have come from local residents. The aim as Laura, Taryn and Julie said is to archive and reflect on past issues but to also create a place where people can think about the present as well as consider what the future could be.

On the 1st and 2nd of February I went to Liverpool to visit a project by artist Jeanne van Heeswijk called 2Up2Down as part of this year’s Liverpool Biennial. Based in the Anfield area of the city the project aims to work with local residents and young people to investigate the issues surrounding housing regeneration and development in the area. Anfield has a long history of housing regeneration initiatives and strategies, many of which have not come to fruition, resulting in large swathes of boarded up housing.

The project has taken over a former Mitchell’s Bakery and  the two house next door, on a corner opposite Anfield football ground The aim the project is to create a community run bakery and turn the upstairs flat and  next door houses into flats for members of the community. From talking to residents, it seemed that there was a feeling that they were always forgotten in terms of large investments, such as the City of Culture, 2008 with little support (‘fortress Anfield isn’t called a fortress for nothing’). In contrast, they are also bombarded with urban planning and regeneration plans which hardly ever come into fruition.

Whilst I was there, a public meeting took place in the bakery, for local residents to air their concerns, thoughts and support for the project. Jeanne, very eloquently, spoke about the project and the fact, after roughly 2 years, is at an important stage where residents have to come on board for the project to happen. The meeting was well attended, but as Jeanne and Laurie Peake, (Programme Director for Public Art at Liverpool Biennial), said to me this was after a long period of knocking on doors, leafleting, meeting with people and gaining trust and confidence in an area that has been let down on many occasions.

Jeanne visits the area once every three weeks and sees herself, as she does with all the projects she implements in communities, as a community member, not geographically, but with a common interest or goal. The project also does not make the community believe that it can make a difference or aim to solve all the problems and issues in the area (so whether the bakery and the refurnished flats actually come into existence is not set in stone). Potentially the bakery may not happen and the flats may not become homes to people but residents are told that for the project to work, a lot of it is down to them to make it happen

In September 2012, the Liverpool Biennial takes place where the bakery will hopefully be open to the public.

Gateshead Council is in the process of moving forward with the housing led regeneration in Gateshead. Here is a link to their plans, Live Gateshead, Love Gateshead.

The council do have a good track record of consulting local residents on the housing regeneration, with leaflets out through doors, consultations, street representatives and community involvement. There have been groups set up, such as the Urban Design Reference Group who are a team of residents who are trained in neighbourhood planning and design. It would be interesting to hear how these groups were set up and people invited to take part. How open was the selection process and who were the types of people who took part.

The role of Technology in Participation And Engagement In the Arts

I have been organising with Leeds Metropolitan University’s Leila Jancovich and Ioana Bolohan the fifth seminar in their Knowledge Exchange Network series. This will be taking place at Culture Lab, Newcastle University, on Wednesday 25th January 2012, 1-5pm.

Speakers include Sarah Cook, (CRUMB, Sunderland University), Rachel Clarke (artist and PhD researcher (Culture Lab, Newcastle University), Georgina Chatfield (Senior Developer, Arts & Society, RSA) and Roots & Wings (Newcastle based arts organisation).

To book a place contact Ioanna on i.bolohan@leedsmet.ac.uk

Earlier this year the SiDE Creative team were successful in a bid for the AHRC Connected Community research project. The SiDE project researched  digital technologies and how they have supported transnational forms of connectedness and how the efficiency of grassroot movements, communities are once again looked at as innovative fertile grounds for alternative social organisation. The Connected Communities symposium aimed to critically explore notions of community, as evolving with the creative uses and the effects of digital technologies. The scoping study called ‘Situating Community through Creative Technologies and Practice’ focused on – but not restricted to – the following topics:

- Effects of digital technologies on community formation, self-realisation, and development;

- How creative use of technology fosters micro-communities, empowers marginalised groups and enables new forms of cultural expression;

- Socio-political impact of community connectivity on society, in particular during this period of economic change.

The symposium took place over a period of three days, 12-14 September 2011, at Culture Lab, an interdisciplinary research laboratory and a venue for engagement and public events. It consisted of :

- A conference over 3 days, with talks selected from submitted expressions of interests under the topics of: Collective Action, Participative Platforms, Engagement, Economies, Transnational, (Hi)stories, Technology & Society, Community Art, and Co-Creation.

- An exhibition at Culture Lab OnSite, centred on the notions of community and digital media. This included blogs, documentation of community-based art workshops, art and ethnographic projects. The exhibition ran until the 18th of September.

- Two workshop sessions, The Paper Orchestra, by the art collective sampler-cultureclash, using the symposium as a temporary community of practice to explore deeper questions of community.

All information on the project can be found at SiDE Creative including video’s and documentation of the symposium presentations, exhibition and workshop.

Here are a couple of links to a website run by local residents of Saltwell and Bensham and the other is an article on the housing led regeneration.

The first is the Saltwell and Bensham Residents Association, and group of local residents who have and continue to protest against the demolition of housing in the area by the council. The other link is an article, A Job Half Done, in the magazine Inside Housing with regards to the current situation where the government had stopped Gateshead applying for funding to build the new housing meaning it is unclear when it will actually built.

At this moment in time there are about three large small football pitch sized areas of wasteland on Saltwell Road. What will actually happen to the areas is unclear and how long they will remain as they currently are.