Context and Connections
University of San Jorge
Migrants and Art on Hold: Social Exclusion and Local Community Modification in Mexico City View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Carlos Parra
As expressed by media, the number of migrants under the status of refugees, mostly arriving from the Central American northern triangle to Mexico on their way to the U.S. is steady and staggeringly high. Recent U.S. foreign policies in reference to immigration defy already established ruling by the International Human Rights Commission about the protection of refugees. As exclusionary measures are enforced in the U.S. , and as its political pressure on the Mexican government intensifies, the number of Central American detainees also increases. At various centers of detention, conveniently named "albergues" in Spanish, some of these refugees have taken upon themselves the task of not only expressing their specific cultural heritage but to enhance and beautify the public and community physical space adjacent to the location where they are "on hold." In this paper, I first explore the participation the refugees have on the community as they interact in it/ with it, outside of the "albergue," and what it seems to be shared. Second, I will also contemplate the possible impact of such interaction on those in detention as national exclusionary rulings seem to be the one common denominator.
Community Artmaking: Creating a Sense of Belonging Among Older Supportive Housing Residents, University Students, and Community Members
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Christine Chateau, Mihaela Slabe, Christine A. Walsh, Alison Grittner
Drawing on qualitative arts-based methodologies within a community development framework, we explore community artmaking as an analytical approach towards understanding processes of belonging, inclusion, and community-making in the context of a homeless shelter with an embedded art hive. By providing free access to art, art hives act as a site for social change through access for all and community participation, fostering stronger and more inclusive communities through creativity. We conducted a series of arts-based elicitation interviews, co-facilitated by social worker students and professional artists, with shelter residents and social work students. Photovoice and art-based elicitation interviews were used to explore aging in place among older adults’ and their sense of identity, belongingness and social inclusion. Analysis of the interview and artmaking revealed pathways to community-building across class, gender, disability, and settler-colonialism. To mobilize the co-production of knowledge, as well as actualize social justice for those with lived experiences of homelessness, we shared photographs and art from the interviews across the community. Findings highlight community artmaking and art sharing as a methodological research tool to co-produce narratives of community belonging. This project embodies an innovative and participatory approach to understand connections and tensions across community differences.
Art for Policymakers, Policy for Artists: An Integrative University Course View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Michael O Hare, Jean Johnstone
Everything about the arts is profoundly affected by government policy. Copyright, tax law, real estate and land use regulations, welfare and income redistribution programs, public health and education are consequential for the art world. In turn, the arts are too important for policymakers to ignore (whether they know it or not). We offer a graduate/undergraduate public policy course in arts and cultural policy for art students, ‘generalists’ (public policy minors), and policy analysis masters students, that reviews the most important art-relevant public policies, with international examples, through the lenses of economics, politics, and engagement with art. We teach the course in an active classroom format, with minimal lecturing and open-ended student projects and discussion, where these groups engage with each other across disciplinary boundaries. The underlying criterion for policy that the class usually comes to adopt is Does this policy generate “more, better, engagement, by more people, with art”? How could it do that [even] better? We emphasize its differentiation from other implicit criteria like “higher incomes for artists” or “larger collections in museums”. Assigned readings are drawn from economics, sociology, psychology, and public deliberation, and also what a wide sample of artists have had to say through their work. Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, for example is a resource with which to explore leadership, art and community, the complementarity of innovation and tradition in both art and policy, and more. Students report that meeting new works, forms, and media is a valued element of the course.
Small Town Artillery Under Fire: The Bailey Theatre as a Contested Space View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Geraint Osborne
In March 2020, protestors made their anger known, when it was announced that ‘Small Town Artillery,’ an indie rock band who were opposed to pipelines and supported Indigenous Rights, would be performing at the Bailey Theatre in Camrose, Alberta. This paper examines the role of a community theatre, not only as an important community hub which contributes to the cultural vitality of the region, but also as a site for potential disunity. In an era of increasing political polarization, public spaces like community theatres, once considered essential to civil society and democracy, are often finding they have become contested spaces. The research findings demonstrate that the Bailey Theatre has become an important centre of activity that fosters community connection, celebrates shared values, debates differences, and explores what it means to be human. However, as this case study demonstrates, venues can also be sites for community disunity and the contestation of competing ideologies. Using qualitative methods and building on the art worlds (Becker, 1982), music scene (Straw, 1991), and musicking (Small, 1998) literature, this paper argues that in order to ensure their role in fostering a vibrant cultural scene, enhancing tourism and the experiential economy, and creating safe spaces for the celebration of diversity (Browne, et al, 2016; Cohen, 2017), community theatres must serve all their communities even if they run the risk of creating moments of community discord.
