Consultation need not be a pedestrian process. Richard Jones explains how we could all benefit from ditching the clipboards and the questionnaires.
The arts have the potential to play a crucial role in helping to build sustainable communities. A noble mantra, but what exactly are sustainable communities? They are defined on the website at www.communities.gov.uk as, places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. They are safe and inclusive, well planned, built and run, and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all.
With arts funding under increasing threat from the impending Olympics and Spending Review, the sustainable communities agenda offers real opportunities for artists and arts organisations. This view is backed by Arts Council England, which believes that the arts are essential to the success of the governments new sustainable communities plan and want to build on our considerable experience in community regeneration to ensure that arts and culture are at the core of strategic planning on a local, regional and national level.
One practical way of becoming involved is through creative consultation. Rather than using the boring old technique of undertaking community consultation through clipboards and questionnaires Groundwork in the East Midlands has been working closely with artists to develop consultation methods designed to involve people in the development of their local area. Artists are creative problem-solvers and are invaluable to the consultation process, producing imaginative solutions, inciting debate, generating ideas, and challenging convention. The benefits are clear: using a creative approach from the outset enables people to directly contribute and have ownership of the place where they live. The results are varied and often unique, opening up possibilities and developing confidence in community and individuals around their opinions.
Consultation promotes interest in local developments and plans, creating a talking point and a catalyst for shared experience. Creative consultation should be fun and provocative. By gathering ideas and allowing space for experimentation, it uses artistic and alternative techniques to encourage people to actively express an opinion. It opens up new possibilities for the development of projects and inspires confidence within a community facing change, leading to greater ownership of project outputs. It can lead to greater social and physical understanding of a site. And it can provide feedback on developing ideas.
The ground rules for creative consultation involve starting at an early stage, before any plans for a site are drawn up, and engaging people with ideas rather than finished designs. A variety of methods may be used the most successful are direct, imaginative and participative, generating input rather than reaction. For example, a public event could be structured to provide an opportunity for people to visualise what a new park or building might look like and what it might offer; performances to animate redundant spaces can demonstrate what could be achieved; blogs and time-specific news bulletins on the internet generate immediate interest and temporary commissions by artists can facilitate the process.
Furthermore, a named person should lead on the creative consultation, and this could be an artist or a staff member. Clarify who else is on the consultation team, what you expect of them and outline the project parameters. Its also vital to draw up a project checklist, and our experience has shown that the following items prove useful:
" Has the site for the project been decided?
" Is this the best location for the consultation to take place, or is somewhere else more appropriate?
" What are the needs and issues to be addressed through the creative consultation?
" What are the specific outputs and timescales for the consultation to meet?
" Who is your audience for the consultation, what specific sectors need to be involved?
" How will you promote the creative consultation event, and what are you asking people to do, how and by when?
" Do you need a pre-consultation community introduction event, maybe two or three weeks beforehand?
" What techniques are appropriate for delivering the results you need?
" How will the findings be presented?
" How will the findings be used to inform future work?
" How will trust be established between confirmed and potential partners?
" How will the initial trust between the various parties, once established, be maintained?
" How will the consultation be opened-up to engage with those not normally involved in decision making?
With all this in place, it is also prudent to decide how you will deal with post-consultation communications, what techniques are appropriate and what information will be required?
Richard Jones is Strategic Arts Co-ordinator for Groundwork East Midlands.
t: 0115 942 0448;
e: richard.jones@groundwork.org.uk
w: http://www.creativeregeneration.co.uk