Big art small viewer : a collaborative community project

Campus Kindergarten is a community-based centre for early childhood education and care located on campus at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, Australia. Being located within this diverse community has presented many opportunities for Campus Kindergarten. It is creating and embracing possibilities that has formed the basis for ongoing projects for children and teachers involving research and investigation. In 2002 Campus Kindergarten embarked on a collaborative project with the Art Museum bringing together these two departments within the university community.

Community-based protest against construction projects : a case study of movement continuity

Community-based activism against proposed construction projects is growing. Many protests are poorly managed and escalate into long-term and sometimes acrimonious disputes which damage communities, firms and the construction industry as a whole. Using a thematic storytelling approach which draws on ethnographic method, within a single case study framework, new insights into the social forces that shape and sustain community-based protest against construction projects are provided. A conceptual model of protest movement continuity is presented which highlights the factors that sustain protest continuity over time. The model illustrates how social contagion leads to common community perceptions of development risk and opportunity, to a positive internalization of collective values and identity, to a strategic utilization of social capital and an awareness of the need to manage the emotional dynamics of protest through mechanisms such as symbolic artefacts.

Creating successful cultural Brokers : the pros and cons of a community of practice approach in arts management education

Arts managers play a critical role in creating a strong, sustainable arts and cultural sector. They operate as brokers, creating programs, and, more critically, coordinating the relationships between artists, audiences, communities, governments and sponsors required to make these programs a success. Based on study of model developed for a subject in the Master of Creative Industries (Creative Production & Arts Management) at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), this paper examines the pros and cons of a “community of practice” approach in training arts management students to act as cultural brokers. It provides data on the effectiveness of a range of activities – including Position Papers, Case Studies, Masterclasses, and offline and online conversations – that can be used facilitate the peer-to-peer engagement by which students work together to build their cultural brokering skills in a community of practice. The data demonstrates that, whilst students appreciate this approach, educators must provide enough access to voices of authority – that is, to arts professionals – to establish a well-functioning community of practice, and ensure that more expert students do not become frustrated when they are unwittingly and unwillingly thrust into this role by less expert classmates. This is especially important in arts management, where classes are always diverse, due to the fact that most dedicated programs in Australia, as in the US, UK and Europe, are taught via small-scale programs at graduate level which accept applicants from a wide variety of arts and non-arts backgrounds.

Reconciling community and commerce? Collaboration between produsage communities and commercial operators

Collaborative user-led content creation by online communities, or produsage (Bruns 2008), has generated a variety of useful and important resources and other valuable outcomes, from open source software through the Wikipedia to a variety of smaller-scale, specialist projects. These are often seen as standing in an inherent opposition to commercial interests, and attempts to develop collaborations between community content creators and commercial partners have had mixed success rates to date. However, such tension between community and commerce is not inevitable, and there is substantial potential for more fruitful exchanges and collaboration. This article contributes to the development of this understanding by outlining the key underlying principles of such participatory community processes and exploring the potential tensions which could arise between these communities and their potential external partners. It also sketches out potential approaches to resolving them.

Narratives of the 'everyday' in Rio de Janeiro's favelas : community photographers' attempts at generating alternative news values [Narrativas do cotidiano nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro: tentativas de construção de valores-notícia alternativos pelos fotógrafos populares]

Abstract This paper presents the partial results of an ongoing research project which investigates ethnographically community (photo)journalism media initiatives, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Viva Rio and Observatorio de Favelas (NGOs) run projects that provide favela residents with skills to take, edit and print their own (photo) journalism contents that enables community-based framing and documentation of favela live, personalities and issues. Three months of fieldwork related to these projects in Rio's favelas generated remarkable theoretical issues that represent the community photographers' attempt to establish counter news values by shifting the focus from poverty, shortages, violence and criminality to images of the ordinary life which included the myriad events that occurs in the day of the favelas. Resumo Este artigo apresenta os resultados parciais de uma pesquisa em andamento que, a partir do método etnográfico, investiga os projetos de comunicação comunitária, jornalismo e fotojornalismo, no Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. As organizações não-governamentais (ONGs) Viva Rio e Observatório de Favela apoiam projetos que objetivam tornar moradores de favelas capazes de produzir, editar e publicar as suas próprias narrativas sobre personagens e questões do cotidiano de suas comunidades. O trabalho de campo sobre estes projetos, realizado durante três meses nas favelas do Rio de Janeiro, forneceu questões teóricas relevantes que representam o esforço dos fotógrafos populares para estabelecer contra valores-notícia transferindo o foco da pobreza, escassez, violência e criminalidade para imagens do cotidiano que inclui uma miríade de eventos que acontecem no dia-a-dia das favelas.

In the Wake of Cyclone Yasi : Facilitation and Evaluation in Community Narrative-Driven Projects

On 3 February 2011, Cyclone Yasi struck the coast of North Queensland, causing widespread damage. The cyclone destroyed the small coastal town of Cardwell, about 165 kilometres north of Townsville, Queensland. This chapter serves as a case study of a collaborative outreach project mobilised in response to this disaster in North Queensland. A public history research team, consisting of practitioners from the Queensland University of Technology’s Creative Industries Faculty, with the support of the Oral History Association of Australia, Queensland branch, partnered with the Cardwell and District Historical Society to support the society to collect community narratives in the wake of Cyclone Yasi.

Effective community engagement for project success : building professionals as active participants during the construction phase of projects

Growing community concerns about the ecological, social, cultural and economic impact of housing and urban projects poses new challenges for those who have to deliver them. It is important that these concerns are addressed as part of the community engagement processes on projects. Community engagement is traditionally perceived as the purview of planners and disconnected from the building construction process. This is despite most project approval processes mandating on-going community engagement over the project’s entire lifetime. There is evidence that point to a culture of ambiguity and ambivalence among building professionals about their roles, responsibilities and expectations of community engagement during the construction phase of projects. This has contributed to a culture of distrust between communities and the construction industry. There is a clear need to build capacity among building professionals to empower them as active participants in community engagement processes which can promote better project outcomes and minimise delays and conflicts. This paper describes a process that utilises the Theory of Planned Behaviour as a framework to equip building professionals with the skills they need to engage effectively with local communities during the construction phase of projects.

YAWL4Industry : reflections on using YAWL for industry projects

The Yet Another Workflow Language (YAWL) language and environment has been used to prototype, verify, execute and analyse business processes in a wide variety of industrial domains, such as telephony, construction, supply chain, insurance services, medical environments, personnel management and the creative arts. These engagements offer the YAWL researcher community a great opportunity to validate our research findings within an industry setting, as well as discovery of possible enhancements from the end user perspective. This paper describes three such industry projects, discusses why YAWL was chosen and how it was used in each, and reacts on the insights gained along the way.

Capturing the 'authentic voice' : challenges and opportunities for voice and self-representation in two ABC storytelling projects

In recent years there has been a noticeable move by various public institutions, such as public service broadcasters and community media organisations, to capture and disseminate the voices and viewpoints of ‘ordinary people’ through inviting them to share stories about their lives. One of the foremost objectives of many such projects is to provide under-represented individuals and groups with an opportunity to express and represent themselves; as such, the capture and broadcast of ‘authentic voices’ is a central value. This paper discusses the notion of ‘authentic voice’, and questions the framing role of public media organisations in storytelling projects that aim to provide individuals with space for self-expression and self-representation. It considers the ways in which tensions arise on multiple levels when individuals are asked to express and represent themselves within projects and spaces that are managed by institutions. This paper begins by discussing the challenges and opportunities that arise within storytelling projects that are facilitated by public institutions and community media arts organisations, and that aim to amplify the voices of “ordinary people” (Thumim, 2009). It examines ways in which ‘voice’ is facilitated, curated, broadcast and distributed within such projects, particularly questioning the ways in which project facilitation and the curation of stories for public broadcast can both help and hinder the amplification of ‘authentic voice’. Furthermore, we seek to discuss how ‘authentic voice’ is defined, and what is involved in the process of amplification. The paper moves on to discuss a case study in order to demonstrate some of the tensions that are evident within a storytelling project that is managed by a public institution – Australia’s national broadcaster – and the ways these tensions impact upon the capture and broadcast of an ‘authentic voice’ for project participants. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) ‘Heywire’ project is a storytelling competition and website that aims to ‘give voice’ to 16-22 year olds who live in rural, regional and remote parts of Australia. Looking at tensions that exist on organisational, political and philosophical levels within the Heywire project reveals a number of conflicts of interest and objectives between the institution and project participants. This leads us to question whether institutionally-managed storytelling projects can effectively support individuals to have an ‘authentic voice’, and whether struggles of aims and objectives diminish the personal benefits that people may derive from expressing and representing themselves within such projects.

Broadcasting digital stories on Australian community television : the Digistories Anthology

Community-based arts and media movements have been intsrumental in building population-wide creative capacity for cultural development, social participation and social transformation in many parts of the world. Digital storytelling is a form of media practice that was pioneered in the United States at the intersection of these movements. It is described here as a ‘co-creative’ media production method. This description aims to differentiate the approaches to collaborative content creation that are used in community cultural development (CCD) and community media movements from those valued in professional and consumer modes of media production. Yet, the products of co-creative practices, such as digital stories, do not circulate widely through existing media networks or through the newer social media networks that Australian CCD and community media movements anticipated by at least twenty years. The complex politics of story ownership are one of a number of factors that often render ‘publication’ a secondary consideration in the making of digital stories. The possibility of ‘downstream’ use and re-use of stories in other networks is not usually considered in initial planning and development processes. As landmark projects such as Capture Wales indicate, even where stories are made for broadcast outcomes, television can be a problematic window for exhibiting digital stories. Scepticism about the brave new world of reality television and user generated content also circulates in digital storytelling networks, especially when it comes to ethical concerns for managing the risks of harm associated with widespread distribution of digital stories to indiscriminate publics. This publication reports on a collaborative action research project that took a closer look at some of the constraints relating to the problems of re-purposing digital stories for television. It focussed on ‘best practice’ for managing the risks of harm to storytellers in the process of re-purposing digital stories for broadcast on community television.

Social and cultural borders in Rio de Janeiro : the everyday life of community and mainstream photojournalists

This paper takes a multimethod approach which combines ethnographic techniques and discourse studies to investigate two contrasting professional groups: community photographers, who are favela dwellers who have developed photographic projects in Brazil‘s favelas, and photojournalists of the mainstream media. Its purpose is to determine how a cultural and social divide in the city of Rio de Janeiro shapes both community photographers and mainstream photojournalists’ practices, discourses, and identities. While community photographers strive to establish a humane and positive view about favelas and their residents by shifting the focus from poverty, shortages, violence, and criminality to images of the ordinary life, mainstream photojournalists express the view that their role is of primary importance for the defence of human rights in the favelas by helping to prevent, for instance, police abuses and violations. As the data analysis indicated the existence of socio-spatial borders all over Rio de Janeiro, this study adopted the idea of a divided city without denying interconnections between favelas and the city’s political life. Through the analysis of categories which emerged from the data, the complex world of documenting favela life is explored. The major themes touched upon are: the breakdown between the mainstream media and the favela communities; the different kinds of relationships which arise in Rio’s low income suburbs; and the gradual return of mainstream news workers to favelas.

Arts practice and disconnected youth in Australia : impact and domains of change

Background: This paper describes research conducted with Big hART, Australia's most awarded participatory arts company. It considers three projects, LUCKY, GOLD and NGAPARTJI NGAPARTJI across separate sites in Tasmania, Western NSW and Northern Territory, respectively, in order to understand project impact from the perspective of project participants, Arts workers, community members and funders. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 29 respondents. The data were coded thematically and analysed using the constant comparative method of qualitative data analysis. Results: Seven broad domains of change were identified: psychosocial health; community; agency and behavioural change; the Art; economic effect; learning and identity. Conclusions: Experiences of participatory arts are interrelated in an ecology of practice that is iterative, relational, developmental, temporal and contextually bound. This means that questions of impact are contingent, and there is no one path that participants travel or single measure that can adequately capture the richness and diversity of experience. Consequently, it is the productive tensions between the domains of change that are important and the way they are animated through Arts practice that provides sign posts towards the impact of Big hART projects.

Will the new ABC Arts Council Win Back the Arts Community?

The ABC’s major arts announcement this month appears at first glance to be good news for one of its core constituencies. The national broadcaster will establish an Arts Council and will roll out several new arts programming initiatives. The Corporation’s relationship with the arts community has been strained in recent years, so the new programming initiatives should be greeted positively. But without significant new funding, coupled with the uncertainties of a looming federal budget, some commentators are seeing this as little more than a shuffling of the deckchairs.