You are here 
Events Events Details
Events
Plenary Session: 17th Feb 09 Influencing Change in the Public Realm through Arts and Culture @ the Island Arts Centre, Lisburn
20 May 2009 - 22 May 2010
Due to his very inspiring presentation at the 2008 conference, requests were made by members asking for a return visit from Tony Beckwith from Haring Woods Associates.
Tony has very kindly sent over the transcript he worked from for the presentation and it is below.
Haring Woods Associates is a London based creative and strategic consultancy with an international reach. HWA uses arts and culture to effect public, civic and corporate change and forge more democratic and productive communities, both public and private. We work with public / private sector partnerships to develop and deliver innovative, creative solutions to public realm problems and we have established a solid track record with communities by incorporating artists and art into civic life. In Northern Ireland, HWA demonstrated their practice to delegates through one of their successful schemes The Green Heart Partnership.
The Green Heart Partnership is part of the Arts Council England, East 'Arts Generate' regional partnership program. Green Heart Partnership is bringing together districts and counties, generating partnerships across the county of Hertfordshire achieving growth and capacity between the 'Arts' and the environment sectors of local government.
This cross county initiative puts arts at the centre of regeneration and growth. But what does that mean?
There are three key points of difference:
Firstly, its focus on the critical conduit for successful delivery: local government. Whether this is considered as local government at large, or internal departments, the emphasis is on individuals.
Local government represents a fantastically valuable resource of individuals. These individuals are all professionals, all experts in their chosen fields and the most valuable asset of all, a collective of local knowledge.
Through the Green Heart Partnership, HWA create a cross disciplinary team. Teams which may vary from one authority to the next but as an example would consist of individuals from planning, open space, housing, community development, arts development, highways and regeneration.
Secondly, a creative led team approach identifies the needs within the aims, objectives and aspirations of the local authority. The Green Heart Partnership recognises the individual and the team as all being creative. The artist doesn’t hold a monopoly on creativity. Everything we do as a team is creatively led. An important role for the Green Heart Partnership team is to manage and manage creatively the knowledge gaps within the overall teams.
Our projects and teams are informed through consultation, a key component within the Green Heart Partnership equation. HWA has developed Perception Area, a non-confrontational model of community consultation and engagement that uses artists and a series of creative triggers to capture the perceptions of chosen groups. Perception Area does not ask direct questions but explores the attitudes of individuals, capturing an insight of hopes and fears, peoples understanding of local situations.
Understanding the wider community’s perceptions allows officers, decision/policy makers and often funding partners to make better-informed decisions. Perception Area does not replace existing models of consultation but works along side them. We believe this more subtle method should lead any consultative program as it has the potential to inform and direct any site/issue specific consultation strategy.
The final point of difference is that our process moves away from the concept of the Artist as maker, rather identifying the artist as negotiator, collaborator and as a maker of change.
Local Government has a long and successful track record of using art, particularly when addressing issues relating to the social aspects of their business. We use art as a vehicle to engage with, to consult with, to interpret and to educate. When we start to look at the role of arts within the physical side of things; growth, regeneration, the business of capital development, the role of arts tends to be confined to those social aspects already mentioned and the commissioning of 'public art'.
We all know the scenario some where on the section 106 wish list: after affordable housing, near the bottom wrestling for survival with open space and play provision, comes a piece of art, a gate way feature perhaps. Sometimes a very sound piece of community involvement is built into the process of commissioning and realizing that artwork, sometimes not. Generally though the reality often means competitive decisions being made on what limited funds go where - art work or playground.
Let’s take a step back, could the open space, the play ground, could that be the artwork? Could we design open space to be visually stunning? Could we incorporate play into that design? Could we do all this and still be led by a bio-diversity agenda? Could we do all this and stay within a realistic budget and time frame that wouldn't immediately alienate developers?
This approach forms part of the ethos behind the Green Heart Partnership. Moving away from the concept of the Artist as maker, our challenge is finding the right artists for this new role with the right skills: the skills of listening, negotiation and compromise. In doing so we create new opportunities for artists as collaborators, as makers of change, with fellow team members as co-makers.
HWA believes this way of working, recognising the asset we have in the professionalism of local government plus a collaborative and creatively led approach to Policy and Capital development, is the only true way we have of delivering a sustainable future. It’s not about asking for more money, it’s about utilising existing budgets differently, creatively. It’s about recognising that the critical conduit for delivery, local government, because of its nature must respond every day to the ‘urgent’ which is different to responding to the ‘important’ and in doing so it does not afford that afore mentioned asset - time to think, let alone to think creatively.
Society faces many problems some of global significance, Albert Einstein said:
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”.
The Green Heart Partnership believes that collectively and creatively we can improve on past levels of thinking.
Tony Beckwith
Senior Consultant
Haring Woods Associates
www.greenheartpartnership.org
