Diversity in the city, University of Lisbon, Conference

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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…

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Cultural Work/Cultural Value Symposium, Open University, 21 February 2014.

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Artists, Cultural Intermediation, Cultural Value, Cultural Work, Labour, Open University

The eerily quiet campus of Open University was the locale for an invigorating symposium which set about teasing out the knotty tensions in how we understand value in cultural work. Mark Banks (Open) kicked off the day with an introductory paper on ‘What is Cultural Work Worth?’ Banks resisted the model of a totalising economy, instead pointing towards Justin O’Connor’s work to think of the two values of culture and economy as a genealogy entwined, though not collapsed, into one relation. Culture matters, Banks argued, because of the examination of life, the sharing of cultural and social needs, and the generating and distributing of resources (a doubling of value across the cultural and economic). Calvin Taylor (Leeds), who followed Banks, sought to develop these ideas through a tripartite, rather than ‘bipolar’ model, inserting the need for ethics into how we value the cultural. A tour de force of theory from eighteenth-century philosophy (Locke; Third Earl of Shaftesbury; Smith; Hume; Bentham) to contemporary feminist theory, Taylor questioned the foundations of creative value measured according to utility. In foregrounding social production, and not the marketplace, a space was offered for challenging the dominant paradigm that cultural labour is commodified labour, and that we live within a fundamentally economic set of relations.  Pointing towards the domestic as a scale of non-commodity or exchange forms for cultural work, the paper resonated with our recent research on localism in community-orientated activity. Alike the petty cultural producer, can non-commodity community cultural work be scaled up and spill over out of the localised context? If a new value regime could become the dominant one at a regional, national and global scale, then it remains to be elucidated how this would be worked through, and benefits distributed.

Excellent other papers included  David Hesmondhalgh (Leeds) on  ‘Cultural, Aesthetic and Economic Value: The Case of  Music’ (including a short Candi Staton interlude) and Kate Oakley (Leeds) on ‘Work, Justice and  Mobility: Policy for Cultural Labour’. In the latter Oakley pointed towards a lessening in mobility in recent years in the cultural creative sector (hardly surprising under the Con-Dem coalition) and a spatialised inequality to where cultural workers are clustered (London!). Still, while not exactly diverse, the average worker is 35, female, earns under £20,000, works two jobs and has a degree (and often postgraduate) qualification. Not exactly big returns in spite of – or perhaps because of – an affectual (cultural) economy of passion and sense of vocation.

Birmingham Surrealist Laboratory

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Balsall Heath, Birmingham, Community, Creativity, Cultural Intermediation, Culture, Surrealism

Good news. Just before Christmas, I found out we had successfully been awarded a bid, titled ‘The Birmingham Surrealist Laboratory’ (with Dr Stephen Forcer, Modern Languages, University of Birmingham). Funded by the Communities and Culture Network+, the project builds out of our ongoing Cultural Intermediation work. It represents the first stage of a feasibility study for a heritage space dedicated to the Birmingham Surrealist Movement (1930s-1950s). The seed-funded experimental project aims to investigate the ways in which new digital facilities can help unlock complex issues of cultural heritage and cultural sensitivity in a diverse city. It was inspired by a recent Surrealist House competition staged as part of an art programme for residents in the area of Balsall Heath, south Birmingham (Balsall Heath Biennale 2013; http://www.balsallheathbiennale.com/decorate-your-house-competition).Of particular interest to the project is that Balsall Heath was home to the Birmingham Surrealist Group (Levy 2003; Sidey 2000; Remy 2000), and, indeed, the locale for British Surrealism nationally over the 1940s and 1950s, given Conroy Maddox’s role as a champion of ‘orthodox’ Surrealism (Levy 2003). The Birmingham Group comprised Maddox, Desmond Morris, John Melville and Emmy Bridgwater, and was at the centre of a community of alternative cultural figures including jazz musician George Melly, writers Stuart Gilbert and Henry Green, and poet Henry Reed.

Today, Balsall Heath has been identified as falling within the lowest 5% of neighbourhoods – referred to nationally as ‘Super Output Areas’ – for multiple deprivations (Census 2011). A low take-up from the established, predominantly Pakistani Muslim population in the Surrealist House competition offers productive ground for working through how digital technologies can be used to investigate multiple barriers to mainstream, and more subversive, manifestations of culture and heritage in the city. The project comprises two digital workshops in the Digital Heritage Hub, University of Birmingham, and a roundtable with surrealist experts and community leaders. It also neatly dovetails with the Cultural Intermediation research which will be focusing on communities and the creative economy in Balsall Heath this calendar year.

Diary-keeping and communities workpackage

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cultural; creative economy; community; art; Birmingham; Manchester

We’re now coming towards the end of the Governance workpackage (led by Beth Perry, SURF, Salford Uni). One of the final research exercises the team is undertaking is an innovative diary-keeping exercise with 10 participants in each city (Birmingham and Manchester). These participants have been selected because they offer a unique perspective on working in the urban creative economy: whether as a consultant, artist or education programmer (and in some cases juggling two or more jobs at once).  The diary-keeping exercise is intended as a way in which we can better understand the day-to-day activities of creative workers, and give space for critical reflection on barriers – or support  – that impacts upon work with the most diverse communities. The exercise is now in its final week and we’re looking forward to starting on visual and textual analysis of the diaries.

The new year will see the project segue into the Communities workpackage, led by Paul Long (BCU). In each city we’ll be focusing on a particular area as a way of exploring in-depth the layering and dimensions of community engagement with cultural and creative activity.  One of our key methods for investigating manifestations of culture from a ‘grass-roots’ perspective will be 40 guided interviews with local residents in particular urban neighbourhoods. Balsall Heath is the area selected in Birmingham. It’s a compelling case study, lying 2.5 miles beyond the city centre with a population of around 15,000 recording themselves as 60% of Asian origin, 24% white and 10% black in the 2011 census. While Balsall Heath is well-known for once being the locale of a red-light district, in more recent years the neighbourhood has become a testing ground for national pilots and creative and cultural ‘interventions’, including the Balsall Heath Biennale. Also less well-known is the fact that Balsall Heath was the centre for the Birmingham Surrealist Movement in the 1930s-1950s. It’s therefore a fascinating place that brings to the fore complex issues of cultural value and transmission in a diverse city.

Reflections on the ECE 6th Conference, University of Toronto, and Artscapes, University of Kent

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Art, Birmingham, cities, communities, conference, connected, Creative economies, geography, Intermediation, Policy, Richard Florida, Toronto

At the end of summer term the academic calendar segues into conference season. First was the ECE 6^th Conference at the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI), University of Toronto from 18-21^st June. A highly stimulating yet exhausting programme ran from 8.30am till we had finished up to 7 courses of our dinners (around 9.30pm, depending on stamina). The conference was designed as a way to bring early career academics together from around the world in a process of field-rebuilding on the creative economy.  Generosity of funding by MPI enabled early career academics with limited or non-existent research budgets to attend – although Canadian immigration prevented two of the speakers joining us in person (Ammar Palik, Pakistan, and Andrés Goméz-Liévano, Colombia).

Richard Florida gave his time to meet one-on-one with each of the participants as part of a game in academic speed-dating. He also led a discussion on revisiting the creative class where he rightfully noted that 100s of trillions is invested in urban spending and urban practice therefore focus needs to be concentrated on how spending is translated into pragmatic strategy. Casinos, stadiums and bike lanes are not, of course, the simple solution. Issues of inequality and disadvantaged communities in urban space were discussed in the session and throughout the conference, with common agreement that the pay and conditions for the service sector were unacceptable. A set of fascinating papers ensued. In particular I was impressed by the potential of Dr Xingiian Liu’s data visualisations which showed how creative cities are networked in terms of level of workers and interdependence.

The next week it was onto a very different but interesting conference Artscapes: Urban Art and the Public at the University of Kent, 27-28th June. As an example of where site-specificity falls down, Dr Rob Knifton discussed David Mach’s Polaris (1983) which was set on fire by a protester on Southbank who suffered fatal burns. The paper recalled the type of intense public participation, and ‘radical decommissioning’, that artist Simon Pope articulates in the burning of Raymond Mason’s Forward in Birmingham City Centre in 2003 (see my artist talk with Simon here). Of particular note was an excellent keynote talk by Dr Jonathan Vickery which read Jochen Gerz’s 2-3 Strassen in relation to creative cities literature.  Vickery’s consideration of how culture in public space has to map itself onto broad objectives of governance and government usefully brought together the strands of thinking from both conferences which feed into our governance work. Exploring culture as a function of policy is one of our lines of thinking, and, taking a multi-level approach, in the next academic year we will be working with communities to learn more about how they connect into cultural and creative practice. More on this soon.

6th Annual Experience the Creative Economy Conference, University of Toronto

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Birmingham, cities, Creative economies, Culture, Intermediation, Richard Florida, Toronto

18-21st June 2013

I received some good news recently. I’ve been selected to take part in a highly selective forum for early career scholars who are engaged in research related to the creative economy. The conference hosted by the Martin Prosperity Institute, University of Toronto, brings together 25 individuals from around the world to share and discuss their research. During the four day programme we’ll be looking at opportunities to develop methods and collaborate, as well as exploring the creative scenes and neighbourhoods of Toronto.

For the conference I’ll be presenting a paper entitled:

Local governance, community commissioning and intermediation in the creative economy

Here is my abstract which provides some more detail on the topic:

“Birmingham is at cross-roads in its governance of the creative economy. The second largest city in the UK, Birmingham has high levels of unemployment and inequality, the youngest population in Europe and its ethnic profile is projected to be majority minority by 2020. Contradictions in its cultural policy strategy include ambitions to develop a global city for culture and creativity, with simultaneous cuts in investment from local government and regional arts bodies resulting in a downward trend of arts provision in educational and community spaces.

Tracing processes of cultural intermediation (Bourdieu 1979; Woo 2012), this paper investigates the methods of connecting communities in the creative economy through self-organizing neighborhood arts groups. Balsall Heath, one of Birmingham City Council’s Priority Neighborhoods with multiple social deprivations, is a testing ground for new community-led budgeting and community culture commissioning pilots. Emerging arts infrastructure include Ort, a commercially run café, music and arts space with an ethos of community engagement, and Balsall Heath Biennale, a local partnership, who investigate what the role of artists can be in the 21st century through neighborhood practice.

Policy associated with the ‘Big Society’ (Cameron 2010), with emphasis on localized and distributed forms of governance alongside reductions on public spending, is transforming the role of the state and cultural organizations. Using the case studies of Ort and Balsall Heath Biennale, this paper investigates the increased expectation placed on community-driven initiatives and a climate of major cuts to public services to conceptualize the future of intermediation in the creative economy.”

Once the programme is finalised by Dr Melanie Fasche of University of Toronto I’ll post it here to give further information on discussants et al.

The Big Tent Activate Summit, Delhi, India

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Art, cities, communities, Creative economies, Delhi, digital, google, guardian, India, Intermediation, internet

Organised by Google, The Guardian and MediaGuru. 21 March 2013.

In March 2013, I was invited by United Kingdom Trade & Investment to attend a summit on the future of digital and media in India as an expert on the creative economy. The Big Tent Activate Summit, held at the Taj Palace Hotel, Delhi, was financially underwritten by Google along with The Guardian and MediaGuru, an Indian media services company. A short statement from the organisers explained the agenda was to “discuss and debate the impact of the Internet on the Indian economy, politics, media and culture.” Marking the first Summit to be held in India, Eric Schimdt (CEO of Google) and Alan Rusbridger (Editor of The Guardian) talked alongside politicians, media specialists, economists, academics, digital entrepreneurs and, to a lesser extent, marginalised groups and individuals. Weaving a somewhat problematic path through commercial gains to be made by big business and digital as a force for challenging inequalities in India, the summit nevertheless raised some interesting issues.

There are 150 million internet users in India. However, despite appearing huge in comparison to UK metrics, this figure only represents 12% of the Indian population. Of this 12%, the majority are on narrowband with just 1% estimated to have broadband. By point of comparison, the US has 80% penetration and UK 73% penetration (in market-speak). The internet effects how we work, govern, bank, learn and entertain. Furthermore, it has the capabilities to transform how we communicate with each other. As Kapil Sibal, Minister for Communication and Information Technology, told delegates the internet ‘allows communities to talk to each other’. Yet Section 66 was widely discussed by panellists as a curtailment of the democratic freedom of expression with divergent opinions on whether this was justified to prevent violent protests and killings in the most extreme of cases. Despite low usage, Ministers Omar Abdullah and Shashi Tharoor did agree that social media, and Twitter especially, was increasingly taken seriously in politics due to their power to influence as well as amplify volatile subjects.

In regards to equality, Sibal and Schimdt urged the Indian state to ensure wireless networks and fibre optics were installed so that everyday people can reach information. Further, devices must also be affordable, in particular smart mobile phones. Interestingly, 3/4^th of the growth in internet usage has been through mobile and tablet therefore web publishers targeting Indian markets need to consider small screen experience with low text, in contrast to the big screen computer experience we were first introduced to in the UK.

Innovative battery-operated education labs used in rural villages were showcased, which took ZAYA, a mobile and digital learning experience, to areas that lack text books and sometimes electricity. A breakout session at lunch by Radar also showed how technology could support marginalised groups through the usage of simple text messaging as a means of citizen reporting in politically, socially and geographically isolated areas. Dalat women were amongst those who shared their stories with Rusbridger, eventually getting past hotel security only with help from the organisers, demonstrating the caste system still shapes everyday experiences in India.

During my 5 day visit I also had the chance to pay a visit to Sarai which is part of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies located in north Delhi. Sarai in an interdisciplinary research centre which runs the Media City Research project and Cybermoholla. These are digital labs located in neighbourhoods in Delhi aimed at connecting with diverse socio-economic groups and young people; echoing some of our community engagement priorities in Birmingham and Manchester on the Cultural Intermediation project. Also Sarai’s environment is itself a case study of a cultural intermediary, connecting creative practice, theory and political action from its position within a megacity in the global south. I was very impressed by my brief visit to Sarai and hope to start a conversation with the academics and practitioners based there on our shared interests going forward…

Big Story Interviews

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Art, Birmingham, cities, communities, Creative economies, Culture, Engagement, Intermediation

One of the things I’ve been working on alongside Natasha are films of Big Story interviews with key ‘movers and shakers’ from Birmingham’s creative and cultural economy. The aim of the interviews has been to develop a common understanding of the site-specific and broader contextual stories around the development of the creative and cultural economy in each place. These narratives bridge the historical research by Ian and Natasha and governance research by Beth, Karen and I. Filming in Birmingham has already been done with: Roger Shannon, Film Producer; Derek Bishton, creator of photography magazine Ten.8; Anita Bhalla, Chair of Creative Cities Partnership and Head of Public Space Broadcasting, BBC; and Lara Ratnarajah, digital and business expert.  Overlapping with the Manchester work, Natasha and I also travelled down to London to interview Ben Kelly, the designer of The Hacienda nightclub. The rest of the Manchester Big Story interviews will be conducted by Natasha, Beth and Karen using walking techniques and photographs in an aural and visual mapping of the stories.  We’re hoping to facilitate focus groups in both Manchester and Birmingham at the end to share and refine the stories, building a picture of the distinctiveness of each place. Using the concept of ‘stories’, the Big Story methodology we’ve developed will develop urban narratives about change, transformation and the reconfiguration of places in dialogue with existing creative cities discourse.

 I’ve attached a short 6 minute clip of the first interview which features Roger Shannon, shot by film-makers Aman Alimshand and Karishma Popat from Birmingham City University. Enjoy!

Cultural Intermediation’s photostream

Cultural Intermediation’s photostream on Flickr.

Imagining Possibilities: group planning and key note speech

Imagining Possibilities Conference

Tags

Community, Creative, Participatory, Policy, Remaking, Society, Well-being

Creative Futures Institute, University of West Scotland, Paisley, 1 March 2013

I haven’t checked in for a while however the project has continued to move at a pace. On Friday I attended a conference exploring the findings of Remaking Society, an AHRC Connected Communities ‘Pilot Demonstrator’ project. Both inspirational and instructive by turns, through a series of presentations and workshops involving health policy makers, cultural programmers, artists and academics the day explored the connection between participation in cultural production, well-being and community-making. Taking the argument that community has been ‘demolished’ as a concept in part due to how it is mobilised to designate the insider/outside, Kerrie Schaefer, co-investigator of Remaking Society, instead considered community-in-flux, as dynamic and shifting, or being with others. Ethics in participatory practice were a key point of debate with the ever pertinent issue of power-relations between researcher/practitioner and participant communities. Here, the claims of participatory practice came under the critical lens: Are participants given real power? Or is the power illusory and fleeting? How can excellent quality work and participatory politics work together? Can product and process play an equal role? Above all, why do we expect certain communities to undergo a transformative process in their lives, yet our lives don’t need changing?

François Matarasso, in his key note speech, gave six best practice points which will inform our work going ahead:

1. The importance of stating clear aims and objectives between researcher and participants.

2. Must obtain consent from participants that their lives will be transformed.

3. Needs of communities are best identified by communities themselves.

4. In partnerships must share common goals (but not necessarily all goals).

5. Communities have to decide themselves if these common goals are met.

6. Art may not be the best way of reaching common goals.

In particular, exemplary work was shown by the Educational Shakespeare Company (ESC), Belfast, on healing trauma through film. Their current landmark project is called Second Chance for Change: Including the Excluded which works with a group of Community and Forensic Mental Health (CFMH) service users at Holywell Hospital in Northern Ireland. Theatre Modo working in Fraserburgh, Odd Numbers project in Milton, North Glasgow, and Swingbridge Media, North Tyneside, were also highly impressive, deserving greater recognition and continued funding.