Thursday 17 January 2008

community cohesion - a fledgling artist ponders...

Yes I see myself as a fledgling artist, I'm still a student after all.

The being a resident, at the RAG meetings has fed into my research of community. Listening to conversations, reacting and talking has got me to a point of realising some fundamentals. The most fundamental is communication. Getting dialogue, conversations, discourse, whatever you would like to call it going.

Within the community development of Abbey(formerly Stockbrook) an art project was seen as a vehicle for promoting community cohesion. The challenging part is translating the 4 points into a cohesive plan for the community. As a fledgling artist, part of "my thing" is to make work that will promote reaction in viewers of the work. That seems to fit within something that is defined in my mind so putting all that on the web might take some time. So for now I'll keep it simple.

AND

a very important part(I think) is that community members are allowed to feel empowered and want to be involved because they feel they want to be involved. That implies time and in turn patience. I have seen for myself that building up confidence to do something new takes time. Be patient and supportive.

The notion of "ownership" is an important consideration.

No comments: