Community Arts Perspectives: An Editorial

Community Arts Perspectives: A Publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, comes from a long series of projects and activities. A primary project including communities, consortia, institutions and partnerships began in 1999 through the Community Arts Partnerships (CAPI). The CAPI group was formed from six institutions of higher education that were moving forward in community arts partnerships in their region and included California State University at Monterey Bay, Columbia College Chicago, Cooper Union for the Advancement for Science and Art, Institute for American Indian Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art and Xavier University of Louisiana. All these programs, through support from the Wallace Foundation, address issues of balancing community involvement, service to diverse community and socially engaged leadership with the arts curricula at their institutions. The participating schools had their own local partnerships, which varied across regions but focused on the visual and performing arts and the pedagogy and practices that arose from these efforts. A consortium of leadership from the participating schools sought to document these efforts as a first collective contribution to the burgeoning field of community arts in higher education through a publication, Art/Vision/Voice: Cultural Conversations in Community, published in 2005. The publication relied on a case-based model of stories about the efforts of the art schools and universities and reflected the tension between deep commitments to community partnerships and the institutional practices that often stood in conflict with community work for students and faculty.

Through this work, new art schools joined the consortium and began exploring larger movements in the field. Xavier University hosted a conference in 2006, Community Arts as a Crossroads: Where Do We Go From Here? bringing together representatives from universities with community arts programs to continue the work of building a national learning community. Convened in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the meeting addressed issue of sustainability for Xavier University’s community arts program as well as larger issues of pedagogy and practice. The gathering also established new members for the growing CAPI, including California College of Art (CCA) and New York University, and the group also provided a dialogue for the upcoming CCA conference. With the consortium, CCA’s Center for Art in Public Life organized the 2006 conference, Community Arts Symposium: Crafting a Vision for Art, Equity and Civic Engagement. CCA, together with the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD) and Massachusetts College of Art, brought together artists, students, scholars and community activists to experience and exchange best practices in the field of community arts. In an outgrowth of all of this work, the Maryland Institute College of Art determined to bring together and even larger participation of institutions of higher education in the arts, as well as community practitioners, through a national convening to advance the field of community arts in 2008. Funded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the National Community Arts Convening & Research Project provides a platform for college and university faculty and students and community-based practitioners to meet and share resources and models for best practices in the field; define and solve current challenges facing the field; identify and discuss new research and generate new ideas; develop strong leadership; and cultivate new partnerships.

For historical documentation, what follows is a detailed report about the 2007-8 Project’s its planning, the essays produced and the convening, drawn from notes taken during the process and from evaluations by the participants.

The premise of the convening was founded, in some respects, on much earlier decision in the original CAPI consortium and its casebook publication that there was value in sharing what we had learned and opening it to an inclusive process of writing, reflection and research.

Submissions were received and approved through an editorial review process, making a special effort to include a diverse group of community arts theorists and practitioners, with the goal of initiating publications of the best thinking from groups or individuals currently shaping this field. First proposals were vetted, then papers of two to five pages were coached and the final papers became a platform for organizing the actual convening. Based on text submissions, the editorial review board identified four key themes to be discussed at the Convening:

Theme #1: Critical Pedagogy in the Academy. Essays grouped under Critical Pedagogy in the Academy examined the ways teaching and learning are being redefined as the struggles between aesthetic canon and diverse community values take place within the academy. The history of higher education and the arts was the context of many of these reflections, which include concerns with a socially engaged curriculum, service learning and the mentoring of students in community settings.

Theme #2: Partnerships: Campus and Community. Essays grouped under Partnerships: Campus and Community examined issues of power, collaboration, equity and sustainability within institutional partnerships. The writings revealed new models of reciprocity and the importance of shared curriculum and community pedagogy. The consortium considers values of activism and community service are critical to the context of collaboration and partnership between community and university.

Theme #3: Community Practices: Values, Beliefs and Aesthetic Forms. Essays grouped under Community Practices: Values, Beliefs and Aesthetic Forms examined the building of community and the role of cultural knowledge and community voice. Community values and practices are considered the foundation for understanding the power of public memory and community history shaped by diverse artistic and aesthetic practices. Much of this work can be distilled into principles and guidelines.

Theme #4: Community Arts and Artist. Essays grouped under Community Arts and Artist examined the role and history of the artist in the community. The values of folk forms, community aesthetics and other expressive forms are an important context for the mentoring, training and preparation of artists. In these models of collaborative art, community programming development and policies are critical elements.

The entire process for the Convening was organized to try and provide a way of engaging the topics reflected in the writings through a collective experience that was not a typical conference format, with burdensome panels and little participation by the body of the audience. Instead, the advisory group designed a process begun from the writing themes, but open to other areas or concerns. In a decision to create greater levels of participation, writers were to be the main body of the attendees, with some other special participants including funders, municipal leaders and critical support groups in the field. The writings were seen as a topical send-off, with the direction of the group’s activities assisted by a facilitator and a documenter. The Convening, which was driven by the writing process, expanded to comprise over 150 participants including academic faculty, students, arts administrators, community artists, community arts practitioners, municipal leaders, funders and many others. The group represented a range of regions and a balance between universities and art schools. This rich and complex gathering was brought together for two days, with groupings based on the writings and themes as well as a performing-arts component that engaged the Liz Lerhman Dance Exchange. Several events were presented by local community arts performers, including Wombwork Productions, Kids with a Statement and “Belongings,” a performance by Highlandtown community residents.

The overall goal of each group was the production of material that would include principles, practices and actions steps related to its theme. Each group selected special beginning activities such as greetings, movement or storytelling circles that segued from and included quotes from the writings for each theme group. The Dance Exchange also provided dancers that could act as consultants should any group decide to use performative elements in their process and presentations.

In order to offer a deeper level of exchange, smaller breakout groups held discussions, with themes developed often using graphics or collective memory keeping. Groups were asked to summarize the process, and final materials for the small groups included any practices or principles created by the participants. Each group then worked to decide and prepare for a final presentation of its generated materials to the entire audience in a theater space.

The Convening was from the outset an attempt to bring forward a new forum that was more participatory and engaged in real theory and practice related to the growing field of community arts in higher education and its relationship to deeper community involvement. The degree to which each individual in the group experienced this goal varied, and often anchored around the writing process, the facilitator and group activity and the sense of connection to peers at the conference. The documentation reflected the tensions, successes and sense of future directions resulting from the Convening.

The following descriptions are snapshots of the group activities spanning the two days; they reflect both the successes and difficulties of moving from the essays to larger issues in a short period of time. The groups used a variety of formats to tackle the transition from the writings to the focus on principles, practices and action steps, largely guided by the facilitators. The documenter’s notes provided much insight to this often exciting and stressful process. The record of each group is quite different, depending on the style of work, final materials and group dynamic. The descriptions the groups are organized by the themes based on the writings. For theme group #3, Community Practices: Values, Beliefs and Aesthetic Forms, and theme group #4, Community Arts and Artist, groups were too large for good communication and had to be divided into Groups A and B.

The theme group was composed of students, academic faculty, community practitioners, thespians, visual artists, dancers and musicians. The group began by discussing two questions related to the definitions and guiding principles of community arts. After a brief moment of collective silence the group addressed the need for action steps to come out of their process. The facilitator led the group in the song “We Who Believe in Freedom” (by Bernice Johnson Reagon, a.k.a “Ella’s Song”).The participants had been asked to bring two objects to the first meeting to use to build community process areas. The objects were arranged in separate areas in the room to reflect what participants had to give and to receive. After the collective process of preparation the group began to address the papers and their themes. Each writer took three large sheets of papers with key ideas printed on the front of each sheet and tacked it up on a wall to help form a large collage filled with collective wisdom related to the topic of critical pedagogy and community arts. They examined these ideas as a group and then created a series of five themes.

These themes helped to determine the smaller groups and the content of their discussions for the rest of the Convening. Each group listed questions and themes that were brought to the surface through the written papers and group discussions. In the end, the group decided to combine themes 1 and 5. Before lunch on the first day, they discussed points related to the tensions between academics, aesthetic preference and community values. In the end the group collectively asked, “Can we change the way the canon has functioned to accommodate the history of art and also the dynamic values within communities?”

The discussion centered on how the academy can act as a context for guiding principles of service learning, socially engaged curriculum and the mentoring of students in community settings. The need to balance the values of the community and the preparation of the student within an academic setting was of concern. Participants found that good practice involves components such as evaluation, funding, shared aesthetic intention and value in rigor and mastery. One of the most important things about this kind of work is creating a meaningful and democratic dialog about work and the issues practitioners, communities and academics seek to address.

This group presented its findings and discussion as a moving theatrical performance filled with thought-provoking questions. Within this group there were a number of questions that became important to the content of the final product, a short performance using questions to make listeners think and reflect. The group considered the possibility of teaching art for social change and the issues that might arise: reflection and action, institutional challenges and personal needs, and the understanding of the community as a complex web of systems, values and cultural resources.

The discussion centered on the perceptions of community art as a vast field, the whole of which is hard to grasp from just one perspective. The group described it as Lilliputians looking at an elephant: Each viewer has a very small view of the whole. As practitioners, they determined that one of the most important guiding principles is transparency. When entering any community, participants must clearly put forth their intentions, work to establish an equitable partnership, take responsibility for the outcomes and insure that art plays a central role. Finally, transformation and sustainability are keys in the successful development of a program. The presentation by this group included a series of theatrical performances and a song related to the idea of intentions. They drew heavily on the metaphor of an elephant in the room, which represented the multiple definitions of community art.

This group chose to engage in a discussion and then use stories as a way to relate what it learned. One participant in particular had many stories that were used as stepping-off points to defining the difference between relationships and partnerships. In community arts work, it is important for stakeholders to understand that partnerships and relationships overlap at times, and yet they also have separate elements that define them, including a system of checks and balances. Partnerships must include the acknowledgement of risks, the examination of hierarchies, the creation of and agreement on modes of interaction, decisions on important mileposts, discussion of an emergency action plan and the development of an exit strategy and a contingency plan.

Each of the smaller groups presented its ideas to the larger (theme) group in a variety of ways; many of the discussions were interpreted through theatrical performance or storytelling. Although some participants were not as comfortable with the performance aspect of reporting, the climate of the room allowed for risk taking and also abstaining from these pressures without retribution or rejection. In the end the group composed a working list related to practices and action steps, including practices of trust, relationship building, accountability, listening, improvisation, rigorous artistic discipline and valuing. They also determined to take action to take risks, open the curriculum, set a historical context for community arts practice, assess social justice within their institutions and to try to collaborate outside their disciplines.

On the second day there was a sense of performance anxiety and urgency among the group as each of the six groups gathered to present its group proceedings in a collective performance on the theater stage for the entire conference. There was also some tension between hashing out important issues and making a piece of work that examined the issues that had already been discussed. Despite the quick rehearsal the group was largely positive and excited. The final performance consisted of three short theatrical performances and one story about a community partnership with problems.

Theme group 2, focusing on “Partnerships: Campus and Community,” started off the morning session with a direction from the facilitator to get into three groups, each made up solely of students, community practitioners or college faculty. An additional group formed from a mix of the three original constituent groups. From there, the four groups were each directed to consider a group of nine statements from the texts that were posted on the wall: the abstracts, key ideas and key questions from three different papers. Participants were asked to read, think about and discuss what was posted, and be ready to share with the larger group some of the ideas that resonated with the small group.

After briefly reconvening as a large group, members then moved back into the same small groups and were asked to draft the key concepts of community art that were informed by the ideas in our group of posted texts. Participants were also encouraged to use whatever creative medium they were interested in to convey those concepts. Each group kept notes and images that were created as part of this process to reflect back to the larger group. In reporting back that afternoon, several groups also reflected on their process and the difficulties and/or tensions that they had while attempting to reconcile their ideas, values and agendas.

The last block of time in the afternoon was spent in a large group, led by the facilitator and energized, engaged and very invested in the task of synthesizing the ideas of all four groups into key principles:

The principles were grouped, and detailed practices were assigned to them. Among the group members there was a sense of being rushed, and there seemed to be at least some discontent with the fact that the action plan did not necessarily correspond to the practices and principles that the group so carefully crafted throughout the previous day-and-a-half. Despite the fact that its emergence came from a very short brainstorming session, which was in real contrast to the pace of the rest of the groups process, the action plan was agreed on by the large group and a sense of relief that came from having produced a series of coherent statements together, which were:

Some of the ideas that were incorporated into the final performance did have to do with the group process, such as splitting into three distinct groups and then integrating into a larger “mixed” group. They also carried or wore several of the visual images that came out of the groups work together.

Theme #3: Community Practices: Values, Beliefs and Aesthetic Forms
Due to the size of this theme group it was divided into 3A and 3B.

Group 3A
The facilitator gave a brief introduction to begin work the first day, calling it “an experiment in form.” The group did very brief paired introductions (one-on-one) focusing on three questions:

After a brief paired introduction, the pairs introduced themselves in the larger group. The participants reviewed their notes and the themes from the papers that were posted on the wall in order to share important themes and ultimately choose five, from which five small groups would emerge. The group discussion generated themes that helped to define the tasks of the small groups. The process began to unfold organically with some participants expressing confusion about the ultimate purpose of these activities. There was a concern about having to work without having first built a sense of community amongst themselves. The flexibility of the facilitator allowed for the group to participate fully in assisting him to craft a process that would work for all.

Each of these five groups was asked to answer the following three questions that had emerged as part of this process, and to use them in discussing guiding principles, practices and action plans:

Group one small group used movement to explore issues of rage, personal and societal, underlying their work.

Group two was the result of the merging of two separate groups and focused on partnerships and relationships. They explored the issues underlying relationships and partnerships in the community arts as a series of questions that they wanted to reflect upon. As a final presentation, they chose to share these key questions through a process of walking a spiral labyrinth.

Group three coalesced around their interest in talking about the prison system, urban youth and issues of power. They decided to leave the building to work together, and, in their words: “We had an experience that bonded us as a community; we went for a walk and had a significant conversation with a community member.”

Group four focused on planning and strategies for evaluation. This group started building a chart related to thinking about these issues concretely and addressing strategies and techniques appropriate for specific scales of work — from the community artist level up to policy. The entire group presented creatively, using many forms, but there was an underlying frustration at not being able to use the papers more directly in the discussions.

Group 3B
The group members began by walking around the room and reading silently short quotes that had been taken from the white papers and posted on the walls, and then indicating with colored dots which quote resonated with their own interests. Participants then explained their interest in their selected quote in a rather long process. The quotes, however, were separated from their contexts and did not lead to much salient discussion. Following a break, there was an energetic discussion on the format and process of the group, as well as its particular charge, without resolution.

There was a lengthy verbal survey of what participants sought from the convening. The statements illustrated a very wide range of interests: From aesthetics in “community art” by which several participants seemed to imply “art practice that was not part of any conventional or mainstream canon,” to interest in examining the role that “community art” has had on specific areas of social service like aging or criminal justice. Some wanted to take stock of “what the national field of degree-granting departments was doing.” A theme began to emerge that pointed to perspectives that differed, not only in what the field of “community arts” meant to the group, but how degree-granting programs function and what purpose they should serve.

Without a clear agenda focus, those fundamental tensions shaped the conversation of the rest of Day One and into Day Two and subsequent “calls to action for the field.”
The groups discussed tensions between communities, individual artists and institutions of higher education, with an emphasis on the ethical role of the institutions in dialogue with communities. There was a call to know more about what “community members” thought about all of this. Also, there was a very interesting sense within the group that the actual “doing of community art” was something that arises mainly from an individual professional artist who has a “project” in a community. Community arts institutions were not really discussed and many felt this limited the depth of the knowledge exchanged.

There were also critiques of the purpose of the degree-granting programs, but not much agreement about the overall ecosystem of community arts. The dichotomies went in many directions: artist/community, community/institution, professional repertoire artist/conceptual community artist. In this particular group there was no framework established to work out a possible consensus.

A number of proposed action/remedy steps toward addressing these dichotomies were developed and by Day Two the group listed sample projects: peer-reviewed journals from the field, wiki sites, case studies, discipline-specific breakout sessions at a future convening and a mapping project for the field.

The Dance Exchange played something of a role but the group was given verbal concepts related to the discussions and asked to create ways of embodying them in movement and sound. On Day Two, considerable time was spent practicing as small groups, and then as one large group. The results were presented in the final plenary session. This particular group was marked by an inability to develop a clear model for the process and consensus on a whole group proceeding and chose to work in separate groups.

Theme #4: Community Arts and Artist
Due to the size of this theme group it was divided into 4A and 4B.

Group 4A
The group started with a “sociometric” exercise where people placed themselves around the room according to which geographical area we are located, and each group spent some time getting acquainted. The facilitator engaged the group in the goal of coming forward with a set of principles, best practices and an action plan. The first step for large group was to identify big ideas and important questions.

The big ideas dealt with a mix of core issues and questions about the role of the community artist, civic participation, art and community organizing, cultural workers, safe space, project cycles and systemic change, ethical and responsible behavior in a community and the difficult in changing inflexible institutions like universities and foundations.

Big ideas were brainstormed in the large group and then the group condensed the big ideas into four or five main themes. It was decided that people would move into thematic areas and do a story circle. Issues and themes were “documented” on large pads and placed around the room. The story circles focused on the principles of community practices and then the small groups presented issues and discussion to the larger group.
Story Circle 1:

Through a series of brainstorming and group processes the participants determined how they would visually and performatively present their material to the other Convening attendees. The group finally decided to use a spoken poetry model for one group and a dance-movement performance with the other, supported by the Liz Lerman dancer.

Group 4B
The session opened with introductions and the facilitator then introduced an icebreaker where everyone had to introduce himself or herself to everyone else with a handshake. The handshaking and introduction required not letting go as one met new people until introductions were completed in a hand-over-hand transition. The series of maneuvers was sustained until all had been introduced and it resulted in an overlapping tangled knot of hand shaking hellos that created a rather fast-paced physical intimacy.

The facilitator explained a little bit of the process and the “charge” to emerge with principles, practices and action plan around the themes the group would eventually choose to discuss. The plan was to form smaller groups around common interests. Those groups would meet and discuss, and later that afternoon present their findings to the overall group. The whole group would then spend time discussing the ideas and figure out how to bring them together to create a presentation to the larger group of the convening the following morning.

There was a decent amount of chaos and confusion. Questions ensued about the papers and what was being done with them and how was it all going to work. The pressure of time was hovering over all participants. The ultimate goals felt a little ambiguous to some and were generally perceived as a daunting task.

The three questions/statements from the papers of the sessions were posted on the wall and participants stood by the quotes they found most resonant thereby creating physical groupings of people around different ideas. A process of discussion resulted in the formation of smaller groups. To facilitate the group definitions each member was asked to start off with the statement “I want to talk about….” or “From this session I want to get ….”

Note: One group member, an author of one of our papers left the group half way through the first day because was intensely frustrated with the process and lack of attention to her paper/the papers. Her departure caused a brief concern but her group continued in their participation.

The challenging process, particularly with the time pressure was to reintegrate as group and determine a presentation model. Groups presented to each other and even while all speaking on different aspects or elements of community art; many of the same themes, thoughts and questions came out of each group. From this, emerged the Manifesto or “many-festo” written by the group.

During the small group presentations one of the participants took visual notes on one of the covered tabletops. Her notes/drawings/diagrams helped make the connections visually. With themes, and circles and lines going back and forth and colors creating a tangled web of interrelatedness that gave the appearance of chaos, but the act/process of presenting the images became the impetus for some of the visual elements of the final presentation on Tuesday in the theater.

The ManyFesto was integrated into a movement performance with accompanying visual material. Despite a short timeframe and some tension in the process the collaborative practices of community art production took over and participants demonstrated a willingness to trust the process and trust one another. The strong facilitator was able to move the group forward, but was also willing to stop and listen and change direction if needed

The Convening project goal was to bring together academics and community practitioners to share insights on the emerging field of artist preparation in higher education. The writing-and-research process and the larger gathering the Convening itself seems to have begun a new set of goals and a new community. However uneven the road, the Convening has initiated a deeper link between the academic community and those that work in some of the urban and rural communities serving cultural arts and social justice. Although the various participants in the first Convening represented only some of the potential community at work in these areas, it was an exciting start to future goals of exchange, insight and partnerships.

The Convening has been a work in progress guided by a relatively small group of leaders, managers and advisors. The excitement of the writing process, somewhat truncated by the funding cycle and the very short time frames of the actual vetting and coaching has had an impact on the Convening gathering in several ways. The writing process was structured with both aspects of vetting and coaching and produced an excitement especially for first-time writers. Although the writers came from a variety of perspectives, it was clear that certain themes emerged reflecting the relations between the academy, the community and the artist. The writers completed their papers and the planning weakness lay in the inability to structure an active connection between the writing process and its stages and the conference structure.

Time was a challenge, and the leadership group’s desire to move beyond the usual mundane, talking-heads panel format led to a smaller role for the writing, which the conference planners hoped would lead to a springboard for broader discussions of principles, practices and action for the field and to new ways of working between university and community. The most serious concern participants reflected was the gap — even an absence of a direct connectedness — between the writing process and the Convening activities. Nonetheless, many participants observed that the papers were resonant with the discussions and the eventual materials aimed at principles and practices.

In the large collaborative process of the writers, some students, some seasoned academic and some first-time practitioner-writers created a dynamism in the give-and-take of the proposals, abstracts and final papers, but because of the shortened time span even the final papers could not be vetted one last time. Consequently, participants entered the Convening much in need of a final feedback and, given the responsibility of reading the summaries of the other writers in their group cohort, they understandably expected to begin from a position of discourse on the papers. Also, many felt that the new structure was itself unwieldy at times. In particular, the inconsistency and unique role of the facilitator resulted in widely varying levels of satisfaction.

The structure challenged the participants with goals that were demanding and the need to demonstrate the achievements in a short two-day conference was in itself stressful for some, yet exhilarating for others. The task of developing principles and practices as well as action plans reflecting a large and emerging field of both academics and community practitioners was thought by some to be beyond the scope of the conference. Producing a performance of their results caused many individuals to feel that they sacrificed meaningful time better used for deepening the discussion. Despite these differing opinions and perspectives, the material produced shows a great depth of experience and professional perception and indicate the potential for the future of community arts education and the Convening itself. The Convening met its initial goal of furthering the knowledge base and building a community for this diverse field. The writing and research and community gathering reflects the enormous enthusiasm and desire to develop greater connections between the academic and community arts participants.

Many of the participants enjoyed the process of discussion and exchange with both older peers and new peers in the field — or what some described as an emerging field. Many participants felt that the contribution of writing for the field was an important goal and all surveyed insisted that the Convening was a worthwhile project and wished to continue and, in fact, widen the participation in its planning and in bringing in a wider variety of writers and community members. The role of the dance performers was for some an excellent contribution and for others a distraction from the time allotted for discussion and exchange. All agreed that the dynamism of bringing together participants from the academic and community arts community was an important first step in building alliances and facing questions of future shared goals.

In reflection it would seem that the participatory nature of the Convening would benefit from regional planning, solicitation of more and varied writers and a commitment to greater diversity from communities of color and artist activists of color. The potential for networking is great and the wider inclusion of existing organizations and communities related to the profession might also increase the richness of participation. In moving forward, the importance of bringing in facilitators early to help structure the gathering and the value of giving support and honor to the writing and papers is clear. There may also be value in developing writing clusters prior to the actual Convening to grow communities of insight. Developing a new model must take into account the hybrid needs of differing communities of academics, artists and activities. The advisory group hopes to increase participation from representative groups in the field to develop the model for future convenings. The publication on the Community Arts Network will also help to disperse the concept of the Convening and hopefully increase the participants in the next gathering. The writings served as the beginning so we come full circle in the Community Arts Perspectives: A Publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project.

Amalia Mesa-Bains, Ph.D., is director of the Department of Visual and Public Art at Califonria State University Monterey Bay. She is an independent artist and cultural critic. As an author of scholarly articles and a nationally known lecturer on Latino art, she has contributed to the understanding of multiculturalism and the major cultural and demographic shifts in the United States. In 1992, she was named a MacArthur Fellow. Mesa-Bains served as a member of the Editorial Review Board of the 2008 Community Convening and Research Project, and as editor of its publication, Community Arts Perspectives.

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Community Arts Perspectives: An Editorial

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