Cultural Democracy and enchantment

I join an event ‘Cultural Democracy, Community Development and the Old/New Normal’, hosted by Dr Stephen Pritchard on Zoom – it’s part of the Belfast Imagine Festival.  Imagine is a festival of Politics and Ideas and I drop into a few events that afternoon. On financial systems and climate breakdown and an analysis of the storming of the US Capitol. We’re still in lockdown and like lots of people my life is now much more online. The rules change, from tomorrow we will be able to meet in groups of six outdoors, how will that feel?

I’ve been following Stephen on Twitter (@etiennelefleur) for a couple of years, I like the way he writes about culture and community. He’s challenging and kind. From his writing, his work centres ethics and people care in his creative practice.

The advert for the event says that, in this talk Stephen will;

argue that our creativity is unlimited and liberating, and our cultures are what makes us human. Rather than being exclusive, they are ordinary and an essential part of our everyday lives. He will suggest that, by shifting towards cultural democracies and understanding how art can help support inclusive community development, we can begin to re-enchant our everyday lives.

I love this notion of re-enchanting the everyday. I’m embroidering a shrimp that will go on a cape worn by a dancer for a performance in Bawley Bay. Somewhere, some other people are probably also embroidering shrimps. This is a collective act of enchantment and creativity. 

Stephen talks really coherently and in a considered way about working as an artist in community. He talks about performing the role of the visitor. Which has certain specific steps. Which must begin by being invited in. Then he posits we must listen, really listen. Find out what the communities we are working with want to do and then amplify voices and ideas. That creative practice can be an investment in what people feel they need (and often once had).

He talks about how cultural democracy can build on past memories, not through nostalgia but through hope and shared visions. 

Re-kindling

Re-flection

There’s a call to make cultural and structural changes – to interrogate the role of professionalised arts practice in community arts practice. About what professionalisation has meant is lost. How this affects how we think about value. 

There are lots of voices speaking at this event, mainly from Northern Ireland, a very specific context that I worked in 20 years ago. I have some sense of the challenges but not currently, where tensions are mounting.

This has been a great provocation to start my final week in Gravesham. To think about my role, about what next for what I do.