Here is a selection from the ArtsAccess Project’s “Community Arts & the Museum: A Handbook for Institutions Interested in Community Arts” (download in PDF (7.45MB)
What Are the Challenges of the Work?
“In undertaking projects that draw together diverse groups of people with diverse needs, ArtsAccess administrators, artists, partners and participants inevitably met with challenges. These challenges emerged out of situating community arts, a very fluid process, within an institutional setting. Negotiating these challenges is core to the transformative power of community arts. A responsive, self-reflective process and an awareness of these potential roadblocks can assist with encountering them productively:
Uncharted Territory
Practicing community arts in an institutional setting is an experiment. It involves risk-taking, power-sharing and a willingness to live with uncertain outcomes.
Mismatched Expectations
Ideally, expectations will be clear and shared across partners, participants and artists. In reality, however, different notions of community arts practice, the meaning of collaboration or the role of the institution may emerge.
Lack of Communication
With so many collaborators and contributors, it is possible that not everyone will be informed or aware of the most current situation.
Beginnings and Endings
It is sometimes difficult to establish a clear time frame and to know when and how to end partnerships and projects.
Documentation
Integrating documentation and evaluation into the project is often overlooked because of time constraints, but it is crucial to describing impact, measuring success, securing funding and preserving the project’s memory.
Boundaries and Barriers
In all encounters between individuals or groups of people, boundaries and barriers exist. Whether these are institutional hierarchies, language or cultural barriers, failed collaborations from the past, or fears around facilitating or creating deeply personal and transformational work, the boundaries and barriers must be recognized and negotiated.”
-The handbook was compiled and edited by Tara Turner and Judith Koke. This selection is posted with permission from Judith Koke; Deputy Director, Education and Public Programming at Art Gallery of Ontario
“This handbook is the legacy of the ArtsAccess project, a four year partnership between the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, and the Woodland Cultural Center…This handbook is for anyone, artist, museum or community organization – interested in creating a community art project.” (from the AGO’s Art Matters Blog)
