For today we finished up:• Goldbard, 9 & 10
9: Planning for Community Cultural Development
pp. 224-6: IMAGINE THIS
"What would life be like if cultural considerations, broadly defined, were as much a part of local and regional planning as are economic concerns?...
"If culture were given due consideration, the libraries would be open long hours every day, of course, with plenty of readings and storytelling hours and book group.... The computer room would be full of people who'd taken one of the city's frequent digital storytelling workshops, adding their own tales to the every-growning archive of ...stories. Our community centers would be thriving, with classes, workshops and exhibits for all ages, inviting everyone to appreciate...rich cultural diversity....
"When people gathered for holidays and specail events or at ongoing programs like the farmer's market, they would also have the chance to hear music, to learn about community events that might interest them and to sign up for classes...."...town artists would have public service jobs helping people with whatever their communities need: designing a community garden, creating a mural or monument, turning public housing into someplace attractive, safe and distinct, creating a neighborhood newsletter or a holiday pageant.
"Our public high schools would have good working relationships with some of the cultural industries based in this region, so that local young people could get a head start on careers as
engineers, sound recordists, animators and the like.... And if the state education department were to back funds for art and music classes, the entire community would mobilize, collecting signatures for an initiative campaign..."Creative shame would prove so effective (and so conducive to TV and newspaper coverage) the the ...Cultural Coalition would start a trend. Then, when anti-immigrant forces tried to promote a ballot proposition to eliminate multilingual information at state offices...folks would spearhead statewide opposition...."
pp. 233-4: "a few examples of planning elements I might include:
• Offering people temporary use of digital or disposable still cameras or digital video to collect images of their own community...the resulting images to be edited into media that can be shared as part of the planning process.
• Using Forum Theater to enact situations brought forward from the community...and devise possible responses.
• Convening story circles to share thematic tales relevant to planning needs....
• Sending a video team to a local shopping street to interview people about community cultural life; transcribing and editing what's learned into an oral-history-based skit about what works and what needs work."
,FREEWRITE: p. 226: "Every community is different. What is your vision of the transformation of your own community?"
10: Conclusion, Time to Rise and Shine
p. 239: "The effort to counter the effects of globalization is not an equal fight. The forces of globalization have virtually unlimited capital and influence on their side. Yet on the other side we have the relentless resilience of spirit that characterizes human cultures...."
p. 240: "How we live depends to an astounding degree on the narratives we create to contextualize and interpret raw experience. People make art even under the most extreme conditions of deprivation and oppression: in refugee camps, prison wards, homeless shelters. Even without material resources, with only their bodies as tools, humans demonstrate wonder, agency, strength and creative power, giving meaning to the past and present, reimagining the future."
Arlene Goldbard's Blog
Community Arts Network
Community, Culture and Globalization
Cultural Development Corporation, Washington, D.C.
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Sitar Arts Center is an innovative community arts education and performance center founded on the belief that arts education coupled with high expectations can positively change the direction of young people's lives, particularly those from inner-city communities.
Serving over 500 inner-city Washington, DC residents a year, the Center offers affordable after-school, weekend and summer classes in visual art, music, drama, dance, creative writing, and digital arts to young people primarily from the Adams Morgan, Mt. Pleasant and Columbia Heights neighborhoods. Partnerships with leading arts organizations along with a network of more than 100 local artists and community volunteers provide first-rate teachers and programs.
The Center makes arts education accessible and affordable by subsidizing the tuition of its students, with most paying $15 per semester for unlimited classes. Named after beloved community activist Patricia M. Sitar and founded in 1998 by Rhonda Buckley, Sitar Arts Center serves as a successful model for like-minded organizations.
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How do strangers become neighbours? by G. Attili and L. Sandercock
for more information see: www.mongrel-stories.com
What you see here is a 3 minutes trailer from a 50 minutes documentary which received an Honorable Mention at the Berkeley Video and Film Festival (Oct 2006) and a Special Mention at the International Federation of Housing and Planning film competition (Geneva Sept 2006)
SYNOPSIS: Collingwood, a Vancouver neighborhood that, just 20 years ago was living important inter-ethnic conflicts, is now a welcoming place for everyone. How did this happen? How do strangers become neighbours?
Migration has always been an important feature of human history, but never more so than the past two decades. But what happens when increasing numbers of strangers move into a neighbourhood, bringing with them different histories and cultures, religions and social practices, and often, urgent needs for housing, language training, schools and jobs? How do newcomers, as well as members of the 'host' society, develop an everyday capacity to live alongside those perceived as different, strange?
Our story explores this contemporary global social issue by looking at one neighbourhood -- Collingwood -- in the City of Vancouver. 38% of metropolitan Vancouver, and 51% of the City's residents are foreign born. Collingwood, a predominantly Anglo-European community until the 1980s, has been transformed since then by the arrival of large numbers of East, South, and South East Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans. A neighborhood that, just 20 years ago was locking its doors, afraid of change, and telling immigrants to go back where they came from, is now a welcoming place for everyone.
How did this happen? How do strangers become neighbours?
This is the story of the transformation of one neighbourhood, over a twenty year period, from fear and hostility towards immigrants to a remarkably integrated and welcoming community. It is the story of how an integrated community was created, through the work of the Collingwood Neighbourhood House (CNH). The story is told primarily through the voices, and lives, of immigrant women (from Nigeria, Chile, Colombia, Taiwan, and India), who describe their feelings of isolation and invisibility on arriving in Canada and not being able to speak the language. 'You feel invisible. You are nobody.' These women first came to the CNH to use its language or childcare programs, and then became involved as volunteers, received training, and went on to find jobs in the city. Now their teenage children, who were once in the childcare programs, are volunteers at CNH in the Youth Buddy Program, for example, or youth counseling other youth about drugs, bullying, and so on.
The film begins with a portrait of this low income neighbourhood twenty years ago, a neighbourhood fearful of and antagonistic towards the newcomers. We then tell the story of the birth of the CNH in 1985, with its mission of diversity, of creating a place for everyone, and we follow the development of the CNH and of the community through a series of innovative social and community development programs such as the Arts Pow WoW (a community cultural development program in which thousands of local residents participated), MultiWeek, and the Community Leadership Institute.
This is now a very respectful community, but it wasn't always like that. A longtime Collingwood resident tells the story of the effort to build a Native housing coop in the neighbourhood, and the initial resistance to that, the stereotypes about 'Indians' and reservations, that had to be dispelled before the community could see that the Native population brought real assets to this neighbourhood, as well as needs. Various residents, newcomers as well as oldtimers, discuss the various forms of racism that have existed, and how the CNH works to combat this.
One of the most remarkable stories involves the reclamation of a local park that had been taken over by gang members and drug dealers. Through the local leadership of an environmental artist and a native elder, thousands of residents worked together to come up with a plan for making the park more attractive and hospitable to people from all cultures. Chinese seniors from a tai chi group worked side by side with African drummers and Native carvers to create, with their own sweat and artistic abilities, a place that everyone is proud of. During this lengthy participatory process, people worked together, had fun together, celebrated together, and got to know each other. Strangers became neighbours.
Our immigrant women interviewees describe the CNH as a 'blessed place' a place where everyone feels 'at home' and learns about other cultures. We explore what is so special about this place, how 'the Collingwood spirit' emerged, and what struggles it still faces.
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