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Cultural intermediation & the creative economy

Cultural intermediation & the creative economy

Monthly Archives: July 2014

Diving into big data in Salford

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by Jessica Symons (Visioning Lab) in Uncategorized

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The hacker community came to MediaCity for the Greater Manchester Big Data Dive on Tues 22nd July 2014. Coders, data monkeys and other techie enthusiasts gathered to respond to social challenges set for them.

Our project asked a big data team to paint an alternative data portrait of Ordsall (the Salford district where we are researching cultural activities).  Policy direction and language about the area tend towards identifying problems and issues (see the Ordsall Ward Profile) rather than looking at the good and interesting activities going on. Our challenge at the event therefore asked participants to:

  • Present an ‘objective’ portrait of statistics
  • Characterise the area in a way that challenges stereotypes (about demography, built environment)
  • Frame ‘absences’ (certain types of provision against national averages etc)

Here was my presentation for this event: bigdata_surf

The results

Our team came second!  What a great result. We should have come first really 😉 The data helped us:

We challenged perceptions of crime in Ordsall by creating a map of hotspots across the city region (see below).

burglarieshotspots

Hotspots in Burglaries data for Manchester city region, 2000-2014. Note how parts of Manchester are white hot with crime while Ordsall is darker with only a few pale patches.

violentcrimehotspots

Hotspots in Violent Crime data for Manchester city region, 2000-2014. Again, note how parts of Manchester are white hot with crime while Ordsall is darker with only a few pale patches.

caraccidents

Car accidents near Ordsall Park area, 2000-2014. Note how residents within ‘the triangle’ are trapped on all sides by dangerous roads.

caraccidentschapelst02-13

Hotspots of car accidents in Ordsall area, 2002-2013. Note how Chapel St is red with accidents.

caraccidentschapelst11-13

Hotspots of car accidents in Ordsall area, 2011-2013 (after traffic calming measures). Note the difference between Chapel St before and after traffic calming.

tweets

Tracking positive and negative tweets about Ordsall in Twitter, 2014. Note that 60% of tweets are positive. The negative ones were complaining about litter and graffiti.

Thanks to the Team5 for making it happen. We met for the first time that day and yet worked together really well. 🙂 While we all walked away with Amazon vouchers for coming 2nd, the real prize was learning about what was possible to do with data.

If just one day with open data helped us learn a lot about the area, what would regular and unrestricted access to the data and a talented techie team help us do?

Connected Communities Festival, Cardiff 1-2 July 2014

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by Phil Jones in Uncategorized

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One of the nice things about working on this project is learning new skills and experimenting with new ideas.  At the start of July quite a lot of the academic team (including myself, Beth, Saskia, Jess, Dave, Antonia) went down to Cardiff to take part in the AHRC’s Connected Communities Festival.

Of course a sentence like that brushes over the large amount of prep that that goes into an event like this.  Indeed, this was one of the biggest events the AHRC have run, so there was a lot of stress on their side.  We were just one of forty teams who were exhibiting, across a large number of venues, running break out sessions and arts events/interventions as part of this two day Festival.  Indeed, with meetings either side, the whole thing took up much of a week, so respect to the AHRC team for putting on such a slick event and thanks for their support in putting on our part of it.  As videos from the event have just been released, this seemed like a good opportunity to make a note about Cultural Intermediation’s presence in Cardiff.

Our contribution was threefold, we had a stand in the main conference centre, a break out session on the limits to co-construction and made an experimental short film with poet Chris Jam.  We started work earlier this year although we only got confirmation of funding in early May so it was then a bit of a mad scramble to get everything together in time.  The idea of the breakout session on the Limits of Co-Construction was to draw on the expertise of a group of ‘cultural intermediaries’ – people who, among other things, are the ‘how’ of cultural engagement – to highlight the key issues they faced in co-constructing projects.  Beth took the lead on organising this along with Andy Miles from the Understanding Everyday Participation project and we had some excellent invited participants (Stella Duffy, Gaily Skelly, Sandra Hall, Kevin O’Neil, Matt Daniels, Alison Surtees).  I’m not going to say too much about this as Beth is compiling some reflections about the session which we’ll hopefully have online soon, but a big thanks to everyone who took part in a really interesting set of discussions.  If you’d like to watch the video of the whole session, it’s available here:

We also had an exhibition stand – from my point of view this was quite a steep learning curve.  At last year’s Edinburgh Showcase I was mightily intimidated by the quality of stands from other people’s projects and so I was determined to put something more impressive together for Cultural Intermediation this year.  This of course means learning about graphic design and display printing as well as organising to put some of our research findings into a more user-friendly format for public-facing brochures and leaflets – links to all of these (in English and Welsh) can be found on the Outputs page.  It’s fascinating seeing your words transferred into a properly laid out brochure and even more interesting to see them translated into Welsh.  We also had the prototype of our touchtable app on show, which caused some sleepless nights – more thanks go to our programmer Aba-Sah for pulling out all the stops to deliver a prototype for us to take to Cardiff.  The AHRC’s multimedia team were buzzing around the different venues and recorded a short interview with myself and Beth at our stand, which you can watch here:

Last but not least Chris Jam spent the first day of the Festival wandering the streets of Cardiff persuading people to give him snatches of poetry and stories to make an artistic transect of the city.  This was one of those ideas that you have when in a playful mood and it’s great that the AHRC give us licence to try out different things.  Can poetry help you see the city differently?  We made a short film, editing overnight to show on the second day of the Festival.  Chris is, even as we speak, working on a slightly longer version from the miles of footage that he recorded with the help of Colin Lorne and Arshad Isakjee.  We’ll probably post a more considered reflection on this material at a later date, but in the meantime, here’s the recording of the session in which we presented the freshly minted film:

(Note that the AHRC’s team have unexpectedly promoted me to Professor!)

Overall, the Festival was quite a fun event and gave some space to take a step back from some of the things we’ve been working on over the last couple of years and to think a little more broadly about what we’ve achieved and where some of these debates are going.  So a big thanks to the AHRC for giving us the opportunity to reflect, debate and play.

Culture, Sport and Protest

20 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by paullongmedia in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

attilio fiumarella, Balsall Heath, BBC, Cultural Intermediation, Leisure, Some Cities, Sport

_76399378_the100swimmerscreditattiliofiumarella

Right next door to the Balsall Heath Library is the Moseley Road Swimming Baths building.

This much-loved and well-used site has been in disrepair for a while with a group dedicated to its preservation.

The latest move in support has been an arts project described in this BBC report:

More than 100 swimmers have posed as a “terracotta army” for an arts project at a historic pool.

Moseley Road Baths in Birmingham is one of the oldest swimming baths in Britain, but is scheduled to close as part of council cuts.

A photographic project to commemorate the Grade II* listed building culminated with 110 swimmers standing in the now unused Gala pool.

Attilio Fiumarella said it had been easy to persuade people to pose-up.

The Birmingham-based photographer said: “It was the first thing I imagined when I first entered this wonderful building.”

He said it marked the end of a five-month project that had revealed some “amazing stories” and people’s “emotional connection with the building”.

Kate Wilcox was one of those to get involved on Sunday.

“It was fantastic. It took a long time to set up, but people were so patient and encouraging,” she said.

“People were so up for being involved in this because of their affection for this pool. It’s great to be part of it.

“I’ve been using the baths for 20 months now and when I discovered they were planning to close it I was appalled because it’s a heritage building.

“The new library and the symphony hall are wonderful, but we should treasure our heritage. Moseley Road Baths should be a national treasure.”

Birmingham City Council previously said the closure of nine leisure centres, including Moseley Road, would help to save £6.8m from its leisure budget.

The local authority said it was too expensive to refurbish old sites, but that they would be replaced by new facilities.

_72299657_friendsofmoseleyroadbaths

Images from the shoot will be exhibited by photographer Attilio Fiumarella whose work has been commissioned by Some Cities.

Here’s his description of the project’s motivation which brings together heritage, sport and a a creative intervention:

“The Swimmers” is an ongoing project commissioned by Some City through a bursary.

One of the first public facilities built in Balsall Heath was the Moseley Road Baths. Constructed in two stages, being the first the construction of the Free Library, the baths were designed by William Hale and Son, and opened their doors on October 30, 1907. There were restrictions to access, as it was common at the time, and three different entrances attest to that: one for first class men, another for second class men, and a third one for women. Its unique architecture and gathering purpose made it the icon of the neighbourhood.
After several years of decline, one of the two swimming pools has been refurbished, restoring its old lustre. Sadly, the Gala pool is still left to degradation. The Birmingham City Council intends to close the Baths permanently in 2015, following the opening of a new sports facility.
This body of work aims to outline the loss of this valuable heritage and also to strengthen the relationship between the pool and its people.
“The swimmers” were immortalized in an atmosphere inspired by the butterfly and its cocoon. This temporary skin provides the butterfly with enough energy for a new life. In the same way, in this imaginary world, the users are gripping the swimming pool’s essence, keeping the heritage alive.

Notes on Balsall Heath Carnival

20 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by paullongmedia in Methods, Uncategorized

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Tags

Balsall Heath, Cultural Intermediation, St Paul's Trust

Our research in the Balsall Heath area of Birmingham has enlisted local residents as participants in walking interviews. Geographical explorations prompt reflections on which places and spaces feature in the cultural lives of interviewees, unearthing layers of historical, contemporary, ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ activities.

Conducting this methodology over the course of a year, amongst other things, means paying attention to the rhythms of the day, of the working week, of the school calendar and of the seasons themselves – after all, few want to walk and talk when it is cold and wet. Then there are the fixtures of the yearly cycle such as religious festivals, holidays and the annual Balsall Heath Carnival, which took place on 5th July of this year.

Established in 1977, each carnival tracks a processional trail through the area before coming to rest in an extended event in Pickwick Park (see map). Thus, in this visit, it was possible to follow the crowd in order to observe and participate in an important cultural event in the community’s life.

Pickwick park Map

The carnival is organised by St Paul’s Community Trust and this year, thanks to a suggestion from pupils at the nearby Clifton Primary School, its theme was ‘Balsall Heath Under the Sea’ reflected in pictures, costumes and activities.

BH-Carnival_14_web

The day was marked by glorious sunshine and a lively crowd although as noted at the Trust’s site: ‘The event was slightly smaller than last year with fewer stalls and attendance slightly down, due to the fact that Ramadan started a week ago.’ Mention of the careful observance of Ramadan suggests how the rhythms of community sometimes don’t always neatly coincide and might temper traditional associations of the carnivalesque (although the local streets are lively once the fast is broken after dusk). Certainly, the aromatic food, tearoom and popcorn stalls were hardly doing a roaring trade as many attendees were in the midst of observing their fast, yet ‘Never the less, the Carnival had a great atmosphere and the thousands of people who turned out had a great day.’

Pickwick Park is deep in the heart of the community, surrounded by the residencies of Balsall Heath, many of them the organised around those older and narrow terraced streets alongside a range of new builds yet to feel fully acculturated. As this was Saturday, the appearance and ambiance of the area was markedly different to the weekday: many were at home, on the street, heading carnival way at their leisure rather than rushing to school of focussed on daily business of business, of work (although many in the area were clearly still at work).

I should add too, that from the researcher’s perspective, seeking to participate as much as observe such activities puts one in a different position from having an appointment with a particular person, changing the power dynamic that is at work in such situations. In and around the carnival, I found myself browsing, buying and interacting as any other participant, announcing myself as a researcher when something, or someone prompted a further interrogative interest.

Central to the park space is an enclosed multipurpose sports pitch and a game of football was in full flow in front of a carnival stage while a bouncy castle did a roaring trade with young children. On stage, singers performed a variety of pop tunes one woman singing to her ukulele, another in soul styles with backing tapes. In around this central focus were the aforementioned food stalls and those that invited attendees to get involved in something creative. Much of this was aimed at engaging children in designing materials around the carnival theme (see images). These activities were managed by local institutions such as Balsall Heath Library and artists associated with the Ort Gallery and Print Works.

2014-07-05 14.13.432014-07-05 14.19.302014-07-05 14.25.42

Arrayed along one slope of the park were a number of stalls selling clothing familiar from many of the Balsall Heath stores that import fashions from South Asia and indeed make their own styles. There was a stall for a councillor available for consultation on local issues that seemed pretty busy (I waited for a word but of course the needs of others queuing up were more pressing than my research). There was a stall for connecting together Algerians living in Birmingham, for charity’s collecting aid for refugees in Syria and other sites of conflict. Here was reflection of the plurality of the community and indeed the global connectedness of this resolutely local event.

The standard yellow high visibility jackets of the event stewards testify to the underlying organisation necessary and bely the essentially organic qualities of such occasions and the sheer good will required to make such things work on behalf of all involved. That this happens at all is a testimony to the enduring mission and commitment of those involved in the St Paul’s Community Trust: As related in its online history,

‘St. Paul’s Community Development Trust had its origins in the desire of people in Balsall Heath to make a better future for their children, getting together to start a nursery, adventure playground and small school. The three groups joined forces to establish the Trust in the late 1970s, and from these small beginnings in voluntary endeavour it has grown to be a thriving organisation.’

Particular ideas of culture and community are palpable in such instances, manifesting the banal and the profound, reminding one of Raymond Williams’ observation that ‘culture is ordinary’ and an everyday, quotidian thing. The qualities of community appear to be performed in such a moment of coming together. It is there in the woman singing to her backing tracks, the face painting, new conversations and general exchanges between those who realise they belong to this community of people who are rarely gathered together in its name on any one occasion.

I eventually moved on with much to ponder about the meaning of such occasions. One useful item that I came away with from one stall operated by members of a local charity was a free copy of the novel ‘I know what you did last Jum’ah: Confessions of an Englandee’ by Qaiser M. Talib (Emerald publishers). This fascinating fiction is set in ‘Balsall Spark’ (Sparkbrook is the neighbouring area to Balsall Heath) and is told from the perspective of the teenage

Suhaib Haider, conveying his life in the area and relationship with his Muslim identity as a native ‘Englandee’. As one write-up has it:

He has loving parents, attends a wonderful school and enjoys his life enormously. He has no complaints against his Lord…but one Jum’ah, he has a major complaint against himself. His usually cheery mood changes as he faces the greatest challenge of his young life so far. 

As he tries to establish prayer in his life, he becomes embroiled in a battle for the spiritual future of his school: a power struggle between a Muslim, a Christian and a staunch atheist. 

As Shaythaan continues his spiritual war against the people, will Suhaib manage to correct his own faults? 

Will he manage to come out on top in this power struggle? 

Will his uncle, Chacha Conspiracy – member of the notorious political group Al-Death to Al-Kafiroon – dissuade Suhaib from participating? And will the forces of godlessness bring Suhaib’s dreams crashing to the ground?

Talid

Fiction clearly, but such imaginative portraits are important artefacts – alongside photographs, poetry, online rap, physical space and so on- for understanding the variety of cultural activities in Balsall Heath. The book also offers an engaging portrait of its milieu – fictional yet clearly recognisable and dramatised around actual locations.

Heading home after the carnival visit (it looked as if it would last a while yet), I took a turn down the deserted Clifton Road. Just by the Clifton Mosque I came upon a signal sign of a different perspective on community.

A Police Notice (captured on my camera phone below) served to remind of the potentially troubling qualities of when people come together. On 2nd July a man was shot on a street in Sparkbrook, at the border with Balsall Heath with two others injured. Media reports suggested that this incident was the result of a clash between gangs who formed part of a 300 strong crowd that had gathered on the Stratford Road.

2014-07-05 14.42.07

The full details of the incident are yet to be established and I’ve yet to investigate the background to this order and what it has to say about Balsall Heath. However, its does pose questions about perspectives on the nature of crowds and public life in communities, anticipating that – unlike the Pickwick Park assembly – gatherings are likely to be negative phenomenon. As I suggested at the outset in paying attention to research and the rhythms of the seasons, the particular publicness of community life, of the possibility of such gatherings is at its height at this time of year.

Diversity in the city, University of Lisbon, Conference

07 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by saskiawarren in Conference, Exhibitions, Meetings

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Tags

arts, City, Creative economies, Creativity, diversity, Intermediation, Lisbon, migration, religion, segregation

Dr Jennifer McGarrigle organised an excellent conference in Lisbon on 26th and 27th June, which I was fortunate enough to be part of. The conference theme Diversity in the City: Shifting realities and ways forward brought together international researchers looking at issues of migration, integretation, segregation and spatial encounter in the context of plurality. I gave a paper in the session on Migrants and the Arts which came out of the current cultural intermediation workpackage underway in Balsall Heath, Birmingham. Taking a community-centred approach, the paper proposed that research needs to capture creativity in marginalised and peripheral spaces in the creative economy, including ESOL classes, places of workship and the domestic scene, to effectively insert diverse migrant experiences of culture and arts into funding and governance structures. Unexpectedly and fortuituously, one of the keynote speakers, Dr Richard Gale (University of Cardiff) delivered a fascinating paper using social-spatial network analysis in the very same area to investigate neighbourhood interaction and friendship. In the context of negative UK public discourse on segregation and conservative Islam, both papers and the wider conference attended to various sites where connectivity across ethic-religious groups takes place.

Lisbon isn’t a bad spot to spend a couple of days either…1977225_10152206244397747_1800544418922695315_n

Ordsall Update June

03 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by Jessica Symons (Visioning Lab) in Uncategorized

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Latest from Ordsall

June was a busy month in Ordsall with the On in Orsdall Community Researchers developing their approach to finding out more about cultural activities in the triangle and M3 magazine working out what to publish in a special on cultural activities around the Chapel Street area (which is in Ordsall).  Yours truly has been helping them and also trying to make sense of the bureaucratic structures that sit around the communities in Salford. This culminated with me making a short introduction to the project at the Ordsall and Longworthy Community Committee meeting on 1st July at the local neighbourhood centre.

I’ve also been volunteering at Ordsall Hall in the gardens there, learning lots about weeding (water the soil first if the plants are hard to pull up) and about tudor gardens (who knew that gem lettuce was around in medieval times – I thought it was a posh supermarket idea!). I’ve also started volunteering at Kids with Dreams at Salford Lads Club, where my favourite activities are colouring in with the kids and playing pool and only just about holding my own on the table.

I’ve spent time in Salford Quays (also part of Ordsall, dontcha know) and finding out about what goes on round there. I have a radar for free/cheap activities and so I am looking out for them.  I have hung out at Salford Uni MediaCity Campus and a community researcher and I went to the Lowry to find out from their learning and community engagement manager about what the Lowry do for their local community. Turns out, there’s loads going on – so much that it deserves a post of its own, so more later on that.

I’ve also been wandering around the Chapel Street area, taken on a guided tour of the other end of Ordsall all the way up to Greengate (the new development opposite Manchester Cathedral), along the pedestrial walkways next to the river Irwell, past the listed railway arches next to Salford Central station (where they used to keep horses back in the day), admiring Islington Park and the domes on buildings along the way.

Over the next 12 months, I will carry on helping with various cultural activities in the Ordsall area and developing links with other individuals, groups, organisations and events which give the area its heart and spirit. We are defining cultural activity very loosely here – any activity which gives life meaning – it’s that loose. I’m also trying to unpick the government structures that sit around the area as they are critical in understanding what helps people realise their ideas/ambitions.

I’m a fan of digital stuff so I’ve been looking out for apps and games ideas, none yet but it is early days.

Recent Posts

  • Ordsall creativity celebrated at University of Salford event
  • Place, people and plants………….
  • Summer’s over, but festival season is just starting!
  • Ideas4Ordsall
  • Creative Commissions in Balsall Heath

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Twitter Updates

  • RT @Jessicasymons: Headlining ontheplatform.org.uk on creative industries: 'creative’ is original output, ‘industries’ are mechanisms fo… 5 years ago
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