History

History

The Arts Office of Clare County Council has long recognized the need to address the issue of Visual Arts in rural contexts, given the largely rural nature of the population in Co. Clare. With the appointment of a regional arts coordinator specializing in the visual arts in 2003, the following questions were prioritized;

• How can contemporary art be brought to a rural audience, in a way that is accessible, but without compromising the art?
• How can visual and contemporary art be viewed by a rural community within their own setting?
• How can contemporary artists living in rural Clare overcome their professional isolation and address the need to acquire new skills in their own areas?

As a means of addressing these issues, the Ground Up project was initiated to foster a new type of engagement between Public Art and rural contexts.

Research carried out by the office and participating artists during the project brought to our attention the work of Littoral, a UK based non-profit arts trust who work with the aim of bringing ‘a wide range of creative and critical strategies to bear on the complexities of real life problems, and to combat the effects of social exclusion in urban and rural communities.’[Littoral website]. They are actively seeking to develop Arts and Agriculture as a new area of art practice, concentrating on collaborative working and employing a variety of curatorial strategies, including conferences, social research and arts programmes in support of this work. The Arts Office was interested in finding a way of working with Littoral to further develop the Ground Up project, perhaps in a mentoring capacity for participating artists, in order to benefit from their extensive experience in this area of practice.

The Arts Office has been aware that while the Ground Up project is generating some momentum in the field of Rural Arts practice, the question of sustainability is very important, and must involve other agencies. This has been discussed by artists participating in the second round of the project. In particular, one of the participants, Deirdre O’Mahony who is a lecturer in painting at G.M.I.T. and is also currently undertaking research into rural arts practice for her M.A., raised the question of a Rural Arts Module being developed by one of the Regional art colleges. Having previously drawn attention to the need for a closer relationship between G.M.I.T. as an institute and the Arts Office, she suggested that G.M.I.T. would be a particularly appropriate agency to develop such a module, given the fact that the college draws its students from such a large rural hinterland including Clare, and in view of the existing connections between some of its staff and the Ground Up process.

Around the same time, Littoral made available to the Arts Office a copy of their discussion paper “New Rural Arts Strategy; a proposed arts and cultural sector response to the Curry Report and the Government’s rural affairs agenda” commissioned by the Arts Council of England. Amongst their recommendations for interim development mechanisms were ‘Commissioning practical arts projects in collaboration with regional farmers, including project by invited leading international and regional artist to be based on local farms in the region’ which is quite close to the Ground Up strategy and ‘a major international exhibition, conference and biennale-style Arts and Agriculture exhibition project’.  Earlier in the report, the authors also referred to the need to work towards ‘the establishment of a national pedagogy and research programme for the new rural arts’.

These various strands of discussion came together and suggested the possibility of a partnership between all three agencies. Collectively we could bring together a range of areas of expertise including academic/educational, strategic/ developmental and practical/artist-focused. The proposed partnership project allows for the partners to both examine and adopt a partnership approach to arts development in this specific field. It includes a period of research divided into two phases; the first to explore the meaning, direction and outcome of the partnership, the second to work towards the development of a philosophy, pedagogy, strategy and model of Rural Arts Practice which will form the basis of a project outcome. Our current thinking is to aim towards a Forum/ Conference at the end of 2006 which would bring together practitioners, academics, strategists and others with a rural development mandate, to consider ways of ‘generating . . .new arts practices and cultural narratives for rural regeneration’ *.This would be a very appropriate outcome as it would engage other agencies in the development process which in turn could lead to greater sustainability of Rural Arts projects in future. It would also facilitate the creation of a wider European network, aimed at exploring and framing the parameters of the new (post-agricultural) rural art practice and pedagogy.

We believe that the outcome of this partnership, in the form of a forum/conference and likely subsequent developments could

1. create greater opportunities for artists to engage meaningfully with rural issues, leading to the creation and exhibition of work in rural contexts;
2. foster a process of engagement between artists and rural audiences;
3. persuade agencies with a rural mandate to include the arts as part of their strategy;
4. develop sustainable projects in the area of rural arts;
5. create links with other rural arts projects/agencies/ events in Europe.

The research aspect of the Partnership Funding opportunity would also facilitate;

1. the development of a pedagogical model to formalise training in rural arts and community development and promote integrated rural arts and design crossover projects;
2. the development of a model for rural arts practice with artists and students participating in the making of temporary artworks within the wider rural community;
3. address the philosophical and ethical implications of this new area of arts practice.

 

This kind of philosophical and pedagogical framework is very important if the area of Rural Arts practice is to be developed as a sustainable one, and to carry weight with arts and funding bodies.

Another idea put forward in the Littoral discussion document is the development of ‘European Region of Rural Arts and Culture’ as both counter and complement to the exclusively urban ‘European City of Culture’ initiatives. For Arts bodies operating in the regions, this would be a hugely significant development, one that could transform culture in the regions through a process of regeneration, much as the City of Culture initiatives have done. This proposed partnership project offers us an opportunity to encourage government to seriously consider this suggestion through the creation of a body of research and the publication of conference findings.

Fiona Woods
Regional Arts Coordinator with Clare County Arts Office

 

* “New Rural Arts Strategy; a proposed arts and cultural sector response to the Curry Report and the Government’s rural affairs agenda” Littoral Arts Trust and the Arts Council of England, 2003.