Arts advocates and funders have been avoiding the word ‘attendance’ for the past few years, and encouraging the word ‘participation’ as the better descriptor for the culturally engaged. Attendance is passive and unidirectional, the thinking goes. Participation describes a wider range of involvement with and in the arts.
But advocates for that particular word might want to explore the unease it has brought to those in global development circles, where ”participation” can describe a more subtle and sophisticated approach for the privileged and powerful to get their way.
Case in point: Participation: the New Tyranny?
There’s great opportunity and good intent in building engagement and two-way participation between artists and audiences. But no doubt there’s also a similar dark side in advancing participatory rhetoric when the intent is really just to sell more of the same.
Why bother writing an ostensible article of a few words mentioning an issue and then pitching two books on Amazon.
What we have is a simple inane commercial rather
than anything informative. Not up to Arts Journal’s standards by an measurement simply a lazy reference.
I’ll pass on this blog in the future. it has nothing to say.
What do we mean when we say people participate or engage in our work and is engagement what happens 10-30 minutes before or after the performance in the lobby or studio or whereever? Or can one be said to have engaged or participated fully in the experience in another way, if, after a day or two has passed, you find yourself in a long conversation about it with someone else who saw the performance? What experience is more valuable — telling the people responsible for making the work what you thought of it immediately (good or bad — knowing that someone is likely to become defensive if you don’t meet their work with blanket praise?), or letting your thoughts marinate for some period of time and then having a real discussion?
I believe 3 of the most influential visual Arts “Participants”
of the last 35-50 years have been Henry Geldzahler, Marsha Tucker and Alana Heiss.
We would be looking at a very different Art World without their “Active participation.”
JVK
I agree with the previous comment…What an empty post. Move it to the ad section!
Andrew, your observation reminds me of what’s going on now in Philadelphia, where I live.
With a city budget crisis and painful cutbacks looming, the administration is attempting to engage citizens in the process by holding workshops in which groups of people try to balance the city budget.
Sounds cutting edge, right?
But many participants came away believing that the purpose of the workshops was not to uncover creative, new ideas, but simply to give people a feeling of being heard, while the administration went ahead with its plans regardless.
Whether or not that is really the case, many people who attended the workshops certainly didn’t feel they “participated” in the budget process. Not good.
Come on folks. Not every post needs to be fully fleshed out. Nuggets are good sometime.
I appreciate the sentiment here. It’s important to follow the letter and spirit of participation if you want to build an active community. The post on the budget hearings is a great example.
You are not participating unless you are proactive!
The Urban Language Experience.
By Carol Caputo
The urban landscape is a jumble of social history filled with a unique kind of unrelated magic that connects people and their environment. This often-strained relationship between people and place is part of the drama of city life. Yet somewhere in this ciaos communities strive to connect in ways only they can understand. This delicious cultural glue defines us as individuals and unites us
as a community.
As an artists, born and raised in New York City I have always had a personal dialog with my surroundings. For over twenty years, I have been making impressions of the city— while the city has been making impressions on me.
As a result of this confluence, a creative, emotional bond, as strong as cement, has lodged itself in my consciousness. That insight is the inspiration and sauce of my work as well as my life.
The Urban Language Experience evolved from the IRUBNY, Community Arts Initiative that I began in May 2006. The project started as a simple creative exercise— one that I enjoyed and wanted to share with my community. Through a series of on-site events, I invited the public to explore the streets and buildings in their surroundings to find interesting textures and designs. I give them paper and crayons and a simple demonstrated on how-to rub a surface so that an image appeared. Since then we’ve collected over 2000 rubbings from neighborhoods, schools, businesses and museums all over New York City.
Unsure of what to do with these rubbings, I let them accumulated in my studio.
But, as I studied these images more closely, I saw a unique story unfolding. This seemingly simple community arts project had grown into something more meaningful for the urban community and me. Though not visible at first, a collective consciousness had emerged—an intrinsic discourse that transcends the meaning of language. This wordless dialogue made up of scratchy marks and rough lines created by thousands of individuals, defines the urban language experience. It is textural diary and creative adventure that connects us culturally, geographically and historically. A creative, new way to observed the beauty and grandeur of the streets and buildings that we walk by very day.
The urban landscape is unique in many ways—yet it is never appreciate like nature. Though crude and noisy, urban cities need to be validated so that people and neighborhoods, architects and builders, government and businesses understand the effects they have on each other. The act of touching engages us physical making us feels more responsible as a society. Just as farmers needs to be in touch with their land, we need to be aware of what’s going on around us. In fact, as the population grows and cultures merge, more and more people will be living in cities. This inevitability makes it vital for us to work together as a community.
The Urban Language Experience challenges us to give credence to the urban way of life. It is a way of recycling our thoughts to come up with new ideas. It is a way of adding our voices to the growing need for expression. The Urban Language Experience goes beyond the concept of art. It is a tactile way that establishes the relevance of place. It replenishes our belief in our creative ability to solve problem and work together. It serves as a model and inspiration future global communities.
Today, more and more emphasis is placed on the environment. The reason is that our resources are being abused and depleted and that affects all of us. Global awareness begins in communities where people live in close proximity to each other and living space is at a minimum. Creativity is all about awareness and solving problems in new and exciting ways. The Urban language Experience emerged from a community art initiative but it is much more that that. It promotes awareness. It inspires creativity. It encourages community involvement. It fosters a better relationship with our urban environment.
Finally, The Urban Language Experience connects us physically and emotional to our urban core.
I would say that the post did its magic in getting people to think and comment on it. 🙂
I’m always on the lookout for good reading. Keep ’em coming!
To begin with I would like to say that I see nothing low quality about this post. No, it isn’t the deepest and most introspective entry in the blog, but it raises a very good topic of conversation that is important in the arts world.
But now on to my actual comment!
I think that in using the term “participation” the key is to show how interactive that participation is. Every arts experience involves participation from the audience. But how deep and meaningful are these experiences? Do people’s minds stay engaged or do they fall asleep listening to the programs notes being discussed after the show?
With that said, participation needs to be defined more generally. If the arts world wants to get rid of the idea that the term “participation” is only a vehicle for the wealthy to get what they want then it needs to stress the idea that every artistic event involves participation. People participate merely by being active audience members. This is regardless of their income. Get rid of the idea that to “participate” you must donate money and attend fancy galas or similar charity events.
Focus on actively engaging your audience members no matter how big or small the event is. Even a simple show, with no discussions at the beginning or end, involves active participation from the audience as long as you keep people’s attention.
There are as many art genres and styles as there are groups and needs, from formal ballet to hip-hop. But even a more participatory art form like a folk concert or an Improv Group, has a recognizable shape, parameters beyond which it can’t go before it looses its own art.
The more private people do their own personal writing, dancing, reading, music making and thinking, the more they’re able to participate in the formal arts. When we as a culture or as individuals stop doing our own private art making, no amount of audience participation in a show of any kind at all, will make up for that loss of personal knowledge which, for me, is where all art originates. When we go occasionally to town to see what our amateur and professional artists are doing, we are adding another layer of accuracy to our own knowledge. Also, we make art and its meaning a collective experience, and we make a real Public Commons, we create a public space together. Talk about art and its benefits! But we can’t come empty-handed to the event or book and expect the pros or the work to do it for us. If people want more participation in the professional arts because they have so much to say-then go! Do! Create another amateur art group and do your own thing! But if people want more participation and ask that artists change the art forms because they themselves have nothing to say and want the pros to do it for them, that’s another story. This isn’t the purpose of the formal arts- to teach the public how to do art from scratch.
How does our culture find itself in this spot? Families have stopped involving kids in every form of artplay, just like we forget to take them to the park in the evening to play, or find a bit of wilderness in the summer to explore. Our public art education systems have totally failed us and our hunger for commercial entertainment fails us. And so finally we are asking the arts to do for our souls and minds what we have forgotten how to do for ourselves. We have forgotten how to participate, to sit in the scary silence of self and blank paper, self and beginning skills, or self with other beginners, and just explore where we are, personally, within the framework of an art medium. Not objectively, scientifically, with reason, but reasonably, with skills, and with our own selves.
Also, I don’t think that participation is something that’s necessarily visible once-off in an audience. Participation increases for each of us-if it does-over a life-time of involvement. Every artist in an event is also participating in their work to the highest degree possible -or they’d better be! It is the obligation of Art in the artist to do so!
Neither is there a particular action in a person or in an audience that indicates whether or not “participation is taking place”! Wiggles, leaps, shouts, sighs, tears, head-bobbing, snoozing, singing, reading the text, singing along -none of them definitively defines the presence of participation! Participation is personal, it depends on what you bring as much as what you take.
The word attendance does seem to sound quite elementary, so I understand the avoidance of the term. Using “participation” is more accurate, it encompasses the actual experience, while attendance just conveys the tangible turnout. But at the same time, why are we being so anal with such mundane terms? Does it really matter whether you use the term “attendance” or “participation”?