case study 2_creative gathering version for web final

7/31/2019 Case Study 2_Creative Gathering Version for Web FINAL

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Case study 2Arts and Social Change

Creative Gathering 2: Place making

Creative Gathering 1: Creative Enquiry

CREATIVE

GATHERING:MORE PURPOSEFUL

TOGETHER


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THE AUTHOR: RICHARD INGS

As an independent writer, researcher and arts consultant overthe last twenty-ve years, Richard Ings has worked with numerouscultural organisations, rom Arts Council England and the CalousteGulbenkian Foundation to the National Youth Theatre andGlyndebourne Productions. A selection o his publications maybe read and downloaded at www.richardings.posterous.com

This case study is the second in a series ove which will explore key strands o the Artsand Social Change programme within CitizenPower Peterborough. This set o case studies

will explore how these projects have contributedto the aims o Citizen Power and uncover someo the inherent challenges we encountered, inthe hope that these may prove useul orsimilar initiatives.

PEOPLE.

CREATE.

CHANGE.

CITIZEN POWER PETERBOROUGH

Citizen Power Peterborough is a two-year programme o actionsupported by Peterborough City Council, the Royal Society o Artsand Arts Council England. The aim is to build connections betweenpeople and communities, get people more involved in public lieand encourage active citizenship. Citizen Power Peterboroughre-examines many aspects o lie in the city through a number orelated projects ocused on new ways o supporting local peopleand their communities to make a positive dierence. There aresix projects in Citizen Power; Recovery Capital, PeterboroughCurriculum, Civic Commons, ChangeMakers, Sustainable Citizenshipand Arts and Social Change.

ARTS AND SOCIAL CHANGE

Arts and Social Change looks at the role o arts and imagination increating new connections between people and where they live inorder to strengthen participation in community lie in Peterborough.This programme involves a wide range o projects that place artistsat the centre o re-imagining the possibilities o what a place couldbe and how to create this together with a ocus upon:

The commissioning of high quality, innovative artsinterventions

The building and strengthening of a locally basedarts ecology

The exploration of the role artists can play and contributewithin social change contexts

The integration of arts and creativity within the citysaspirations and initiatives


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Case study 2 | Creative Gatherings: more purposeul together | 54 | Case study 2 | Creative Gatherings: more purposeul together

The gathering has emerged from a broader trend in community

activism that Peter Block, in a paper entitled Civic Engagementand the Restoration of Community, denes thus:

We use the term gathering, because the wordhas more signicance than what we think o asjust a meeting. A gathering is hosted; it is theproduct o an act o hospitality. Meetings are calledor scheduled. They are intended or productionrather than hospitality They either review the pastor embody the belie that better planning, bettermanaging or more measurement and prediction cancreate an alternative uture. In this way they becomejust talk, not powerul conversation.

The Creative Gathering, then, is not just talk but a trying outo ideas, a chance or people to share practice, to develop worktogether and ultimately to reach out to more people. In termsof citizen power, it offers people an opportunity to begin asparticipants and end as acilitators and co-leaders, becomingactive artist-citizens in the process.

People are more purposeul together.Artist refecting on a Creative Gathering

INTRODUCING THE CREATIVE GATHERING

The Creative Gathering can be seen to be, in many ways, thelynchpin o the entire Arts and Social Change programme. Ithas served the local arts community in Peterborough as both ananchor and a spur or creative activity and personal development.Beginning in mid-2010, the Creative Gatherings have beenheld every ew months, providing what is eectively an ongoingcollaborative space, in which new connections are establishedamongst a range o people with a stake in the arts in the region.

It is also where the idea of the artists network has begun toevolve beyond the standard, talking-shop model.

The creative gathering has, in fact, been around in the artssector or a decade or so and it reers to a broad grouping oartists who meet to share and support arts practice in non-arts

settings like schools. Examples extend rom this approach byCreative Partnerships in Kent in 2004 to the current rise in localand regional artists networks such as Creative Gloucester andCreative Wiltshire in the last couple o years. Regionally, thereare now all kinds o networks i n specic areas o arts practice,such as Connected Culture in London with its ocus onparticipatory arts.

It has served the local arts community

in Peterborough as both an anchor and

a spur or creative activity and personal

development.

A chance or people to share practice, to

develop work together and ultimately to

reach out to more people.

CASE STUDY 2

CREATIVE GATHERINGS:MORE PURPOSEFUL TOGETHER


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Case study 2 | Creative Gatherings: more purposeul together | 7

CREATING THE GATHERING

We already have the conditions or change. What weneed are motivated people who want that changeand have some o the skills to make it happen.We are getting there.

Sophie Antonelli, co-ounder o The Green Backyard

By the end o 2011, there had been seven Creative Gatherings,each held in a dierent venue around the city and all curated ina dierent way. All have been open to anyone working in the artsin Peterborough, whether on a proessional or a voluntary basis.The short-term aim linking the series is simply to provide a spacewhere people can meet, debate, share knowledge and expert ise,learn and practise. The long-term agenda is to shape and supporta more connected and cohesive arts community, strong enoughto sustain itsel beyond the lie o Citizen Power and which cancontribute to a stronger arts oer or the city.

This larger purpose is spelled out in Bigger Thinking or SmallerCities, a report rom Regional Cities East that highlights the needor local arts leaders to act also as civic leaders, collaborating withlocal authorities to shape local priorities, advocating or the value andcontribution o arts and culture to uture well-being and prosperityand driving increased philanthropy locally. This benets local artists,who can lever in urther unding on the basis o their contribution to

social outcomes, local residents, who can eel pride in a place thatdoes things dierently and creatively, and the local authority itsel,which can point to being a city o innovation.

To encourage the necessary autonomy and initiative amongstthe local arts community and, coincidentally, to spread theorganisational burden more airly each Creative Gathering hasbeen co-acilitated by dierent artists and companies under theoverall guidance o the MAP Consortium, led by Chris Higginsand Fiona Lesley. This co-acilitation, typically between artists

Creative Gathering 2: Place Making

Creative Gathering 6: Sharing Work Picnic


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GATHERING THE CREATIVES

I encountered a great, warm, abulous and creativegroup o people on Monday evening. For weeks I hadsat at the cathedral, scratching my head, wonderingwhere all the culture was and whom we couldapproach to work together on events and exhibitions and then Monday came.

Sarah McGhie, Development Manager,Peterborough Cathedral

There has been a deliberate attempt over the last two years towiden partic ipation in the gatherings, targeting individuals andgroups who have not engaged previously and trying to ensure itis not always the usual suspects that turn up and contribute.When people arrive, they have ound a welcoming environment,with good ood laid on, where they a re encouraged to take partand say what they really think. Again, this is deliberate policy, partof the hospitality of the gathering as opposed to the meeting.

Within the rst three Creative Gatherings, an average o 50people were attending; even more came to the sixth, a picnic

held with community activists, artists, business people andparticipants rom the other Citizen Power programmes. On eachoccasion, new people have appeared. Despite the advent osocial media, it is still dicult or many to nd out what is goingon elsewhere in Peterborough. It seems that many coming tothe gathering eel that there is a wealth o art happening in thecity but that it tends to go on underground, invisibly. One artistcommented: Whenever I come to one o these gatherings, Ialways nd something or someone I didnt know existed.

rom dierent disciplines who might not have met beore but whohave been brought together to work together on a given theme,models the particularly open kind o relati onship and networkingthat the Arts and Social Change programme is keen to promote.

The other important stimulus has been the enorced changeo venue each time, on the rolling-stone-and-moss principle.Networks can all too easily become cliques, rooted in habitand expectation, dominated by the same aces. The nomadicapproach taken by the Creative Gathering deers such ownership,ensuring that the endeavour is not attached to one particularplace but brings its collective experience into new contexts.It also has the eminently practical and useul outcome o

establishing a wider diversity o venues in the city that may nowbe more interested in supporting the arts community and that, inseveral cases, have beneted rom the exposure.

Above: Creative Gathering 5: Open Space Technology

Whenever I come to one o these

gatherings, I always fnd something or

someone I didnt know existed.


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one making contemporary dance moves, the other vogueing butboth participating in the same creative moment.

No hard and ast conclusions are drawn at the end o thisevening. What has happened is that everyone is now thinkingperhaps more than they had beore about the peculiar dynamico local artists working with local residents and where creativitysits in that relationship. It is a topic that has emerged, like thosein earlier gatherings, rom people in Peterborough, expressing

their needs and concerns, rather than having been predeterminedelsewhere.

FOR US AND BY US

There have been tangible outcomes rom the CreativeGatherings. They have acted as a guide and sharing mechanismor projects such as Experiments in Place Making and Dialoguein Action. Some o the organisations that have provided thestrategically selected venues or each gathering have opened upurther opportunities or engagement. For example, City Collegeoered a ree monthly classroom-cum-studio space or localartists ater the Creative Gathering was held there in February2011. Local artists have received proessional developmentsupport in one case, the two artists who led the th CreativeGathering had been unded to attend a three-day event inLondon on Open Space techniques, which they then used toacilitate the session.

The less tangible benets are no less signicant. An inclusiveand interactive local arts community is undamental to a thrivingarts ecology but there is more to the Creative Gathering than an

artists network. Apart from the boost these sessions have givenartists in terms o condence, knowledge and ellowship, a moreadventurous and creative attitude seems to have emerged aboutcollaboration.

The artists have responded enthusiastically. For one, theCreative Gathering is for us, by us, quite unlike a conferencesituation, where the only contribution is to ask questions aterthe speeches. As another artist puts it, We now understandthe power o coming together we can become more o a

An inclusive and interactive local arts

community is undamental to a thriving arts

ecology but there is more to the Creative

Gathering than an artists network.

Creative Gathering 7: Artists in Residence


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collective force. Yet another artist claims that it has energisedus it has put us on the map: something is actually happeninghere! It seems to have given artists a new voice and perhapsa stronger sense o identication with Peterborough. Alongsidethese Gatherings, a new and inclusive network called CreativePeterborough has emerged and is growing rom strength to

strength.This belie and condence and growing pride in Peterboroughare now to be put to the test. Since drating this case study, theeighth Creative Gathering has taken place under the leadershipo local artist-activist Tom Fox. These nal three Gatheringswill shape and del iver the Emissary Projec t, which is all aboutexchanging practice and representing others in the creativecommunity o Peterborough. This more outward initiative, whichis hoped will lead to new creative relationships with artists andorganisations beyond the city, is the subject o another study. Itsoutcomes will help us to see just how powerful Peterboroughsconversations have been.

Creative Gathering 4: Designing Applied Practice

Creative Gathering 7: Artists in Residence


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With special thanks to Chris Higgins o The Map Consortiumor guiding the programme and co-acilitators Ivan Cutting, Blok

Collective, Keely Mills, Kate Hall, Sophie Antonelli, Rene Viner,Lee Ashton, Diane Goldsmith and Tom Fox.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:

Citizen Power: www.citizenpower.co.ukCreative Peterborough: www.creativepeterborough.comVivacity: www.vivacity-peterborough.comThe Map: www.mapconsortium.comThe RSA: www.thersa.org

Map showing where the Creative

Gatherings took place in Peterborough

case study 2_creative gathering version for web final

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