Arts and Deprivation - Beyond deprivation

By examining two successful festivals in deprived areas, Haidee Bell argues that community projects with clear goals really can improve peoples lives.
Local and national cultural policy increasingly frames festivals and community events in terms not only of their cultural or artistic content, but also as effective vehicles for addressing deprivation, especially in disadvantaged urban areas. The notion of deprivation in this context is problematic.

First, it is too imprecise: there is a tendency for the term to suggest all-round neediness rather than specific problems with specific sources. For example, an ethnic group might experience exclusion from stable employment as a result of poor language skills, while benefiting from close-knit family networks and strong cultural traditions. Second, it is too often used to signify exclusively economic problems, underplaying the importance of social, cultural and political factors.

By means of the Celebrating Enterprise project, we have been working closely with two annual festival events based within migrant populations of London. Through these we have been able to explore some of the relationships between community, cultural events and economic and social empowerment.

Layers before barriers

Celebrating Enterprise is a diverse, London-based, multi-agency partnership, led by City University London, which seeks to explore how community-based festivals and events can help individuals find employment and develop businesses. The two festival project partners, Carnaval del Pueblo (see p6) and Brick Lane Festival, are based in areas of London with significant Latin American and Bangladeshi populations. Initial research concluded that both communities face a range of barriers: language difficulties, lack of access to finance and business support, long-term unemployment, low levels of skills and qualifications, gender stereotyping, racism expressed around colour, culture and religion, low incomes, and perceived conflict of values leading to discrimination and exclusion. This language of barriers now trips off the tongues of cultural practitioners, and the risk is that we become used to referring to deprivation as something all-encompassing and quantitative, a position on a scale, when an understanding of the layers of life within neighbourhoods is much more helpful.

The Celebrating Enterprise project has enabled us to examine and understand the ecologies, positioning and impacts of Brick Lane Festival and Carnaval del Pueblo in depth. In particular, it has highlighted the difference between the ethnic and neighbourhood dimensions of deprivation.

A tale of two festivals

Brick Lane Festival is a neighbourhood-based event located in the borough of Tower Hamlets. A borough of extremes, this ranks as the second most deprived local authority in England, yet is constantly squeezed by local gentrification. Its population is also mixed, with over half from non-white British ethnic groups and a third of Bangladeshi origin. The festivals name reveals the importance of place to its existence: initially funded through the East London City Side Regeneration Programme, Brick Lane Festival was established in September 1996 with conscious neighbourhood regeneration objectives. The event was a key factor in driving the development of the area as a business district and its aim is to encourage people to visit all year round.

Despite Bengali dominance, the festival is determinedly multicultural and inclusive, drawing on the history of the area as a space for successive migrant populations. Brick Lane Festival has been a powerful economic force and has contributed to the creation of the largest cluster of Bangladeshi restaurants in the UK. However, economic impact is uneven: whilst some local businesses view the festival as key to securing year-round trade, for others having a stall at the event is more a question of presence, or of tradition, than earned income.

Carnaval del Pueblo takes place in Burgess Park, in the London borough of Southwark, in a built-up area of the city with high levels of unemployment, particularly among ethnic minority communities. Unlike Brick Lane Festival, the carnival directly targets ethnically specific deprivation: many London-based Latin Americans face issues of language barriers, low paid jobs, low status occupations and racism. The event sets out to provide an opportunity for Latin American individuals and groups to address social disadvantage in a public and upbeat way.

Carnaval del Pueblo was established primarily as a platform for celebration of Latin culture; initially it centred around the Colombian community but has grown to celebrate the cultural heritage of all nineteen Latin American countries through music, dance, food and crafts. The event also provides a key focus for informal artistic activity, as a showcase for various artistic traditions and innovations. The parade is largely composed of small float-making groups and dance troupes who spend considerable time in the weeks ahead of the event preparing their floats and costumes. The social benefits of the preparation and performance far outweigh the economic impact of this work and are evident in the number of people who get involved, as well as the friends and family who lend support on the day and the crowds who follow the parade.

Beyond economic impact

So, to some extent, both events are effective at addressing aspects of deprivation, but the picture extends much further than the exploration of economic impact. Both Brick Lane Festival and Carnaval del Pueblo are useful vehicles for encouraging all sorts of people to come together, celebrating tradition and heritage, showcasing achievement and gaining exposure to the culture on the stages and parades, but also to the culture in the festival food, the craft stalls and the fringe attractions. Celebrating Enterprise sought to influence the development of those involved in festivals through using the opportunity of the event as a low-risk route to test new business opportunities, or to develop or improve skills. A wide-ranging programme of innovative training courses, individual support and business advice has been offered through the project.

The impact has been significant and the focus on one aspect of inequality, an individuals access to work, has allowed us not just to capture results in terms of the 700+ people who have taken part but also to follow individuals through the programme. Some now have new thriving businesses, while others have gained valuable training or voluntary work experience; many more got involved for the social networking.

Conclusions

So where does that leave the question about addressing deprivation? What Celebrating Enterprise has shown is that community events can be a valuable catalyst for activity to improve peoples lives when steps are taken with clear objectives of addressing specific aspects of disadvantage. Artistic activity and other opportunities linked to festivals can provide a channel for this and, with appropriate intervention, festivals can help address more than simply economic needs. However, a starting point must be an informed understanding of how each individual festival relates to local communities and neighbourhoods and which aspects of peoples lives the event might influence.