Jeni has been commissioned by Longhouse to provide a case study for the Longhouse website around her Developing Public Art investigation

Developing Public Art [?] is more a question than a statement that emerged from my work in architecture and community development projects.

Before I start this case study conversation, I would like you to know that I’m not going to talk about artists or architects or any other specific vocation or profession. Instead I’d like to talk about a group of uniquely talented, trained professionals who are interested in applying their skills to improving places and, in turn, the lives of people who live there. For this conversation I would like to call this group of people ‘development practitioners’.

As development practitioners, we are aware that there are a diverse range of tools and techniques that we can use when working creatively with communities of people. We may also be aware that there is much debate about the role of public art within this community development and ‘regeneration’ process.

It has been written that ‘transforming unloved and worn out spaces into places with identity has become one of the core functions of public art’.* It was this idea amongst many that lead me to question exactly what is the role of public art in community development? Is art a process of engaging with people in order to uncover their aspirations about their area? Or is it a creative product based on a person’s individual interpretation and intervention in space? Both are very powerful techniques for inspiring people and motivating change, but is there a way in which the process of making public art can be harnessed further and  ‘scaled up’ in order to influence future urban development practice and policy?

Throughout my work with the UK charity Architecture Sans Frontières, I have employed a wide range of techniques to engage with people in order to make my professional practice and subsequent interventions more relevant to people’s needs and aspirations. Many of these techniques come from the Participatory Learning Appraisal (PLA) toolkit. Used widely in the international development sector, PLA ‘describes a growing family of approaches and methods to enable local people to share, enhance and analyse their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and to act.’  (Robert Chambers, 1992)

Read the Robert Chambers article pdf

For this Longhouse case study, I would like to share with you my recent involvement in the ‘Sense of Place’ (SoP)** programme in Birmingham. Commissioned by Urban Living***, SoP employed PLA techniques to engaged local people from the Soho and Dudley Road areas in a variety of creative art based activities in order to uncover their ambitions and aspirations for their neighbourhood. By working within existing neighbourhood networks and with Urban Living, this information was developed into a significant body of work which informed the ongoing regeneration for the Western Growth Corridor.

SoP was established on the principles of a ‘bottom-up’ approach to regeneration. It is my hope that by sharing the SoP experience with you, we can start to unravel our professional role, as development practitioners, in a community regeneration process. For my part, I see a roles being one of facilitator, that is to listen, encourage, probe, verify, expect the unexpected and not dominate the process so that the voices of community people can inform my creative work and the future practice and policies which affect their lives.

You can now download the Art and Community Engagement: Understanding Sense of Place booklet.  I invite you to take a look and join me in a conversation about this dynamic process of creating place and space – be it physical, social or political – for people.  For successful community development and relevant regeneration to occur, development practitioners need to start talking more with people in communities and with each other so that a new way of thinking and working is created – one that encourages debate, embraces difference and accepts collaboration as standard working practice – in order to bring about lasting and appropriate change.

Notes: * Quotation taken from: Douglas Public Works: if you can’t find it, give us a ring (Article Press, in association with ixia PA Ltd, 2006), ** The Sense of Place consortium includes community arts organisation Multistory, Architecture Sans Frontières-UK, Nabeel Hamdi, 00: Architecture and Digital Native Academy (DNA), *** Birmingham and Sandwell Housing Renewal Pathfinder