The Creative Community

Today I will be providing a summary of this week’s reading, The Role of Culture in Community Building by Tom Borrup, and how Borrup discusses the idea of ‘community’ in a creative environment. His book “tracks communities that have transformed their economic, social, and physical infrastructures through the arts, and includes a step-by-step planning guide.” Borrup defines community for the purposes of his book: “the people and the natural and built environments within a geographically defined area.”

Throughout this reading, the role of art and culture is thoroughly discussed, indicating that creative community building relies especially on the impact that the arts and culture have on specific communities. Culture can be defined as having a shared set of values, attitudes and beliefs that persuade you to live your life in a certain way. Culture also involves the underlying assumptions and orientations that exist within a certain environment, although a lot of people unfortunately consider culture as a sense of refinement, something special and no longer a normality in our everyday lifestyles. We need the obvious water, electricity, housing etc, along with employment, healthcare, and education to “sustain livelihood”, however, it is culture that makes a community “work”. Art, “the work of highly skilled artists and the institutions that promote it as a commodity”, is often associated with the term, culture. Borrup explains that there are various tools, strategies and ways of thinking that help assist the process of creative community building, where, in result, individuality is highly respected and we celebrate what makes every community and individual different yet “special” in their own way.

There are so many creative communities that exist in every city you go that are brought and formed together by culture and art, and I believe blogging sites are good examples of this, creating a united community consisting of multiple creative communities all together at one site. My example, Tumblr, is a blogging website that has turned into a globally used social networking site, accessed by millions, currently challenging other blogging sites such as WordPress and Posterous. You follow blogs based on music, tv, fashion, design, photography, local news, which are all part of a particular creative community. Tumblr founder, David Karp mentions “You look in fashion, creative writing, photography, music, so many of these creative circles, and we have these really substantial communities that now live on Tumblr.” Will Tumblr’s strong focus on creative communities lead them to success??

Borrup identifies 10 economic and social development strategies for creative community building, they are:

Economic

1. Create Jobs: To create jobs, it is fundamental that we take care of the artists, arts organisations and small businesses within a specific community to allow room for potential and unique creations and products.
2. Stimulate Trade through cultural tourism: This step is making sure you create a friendly and pleasant environment for cultural tourism to engage new suppliers.
3. Attract Investment by Creativity Live/ Work Zones for Artists: Supporting the artists themselves, along with their working spaces, to use as anchors as you creatively attract local investments.
4. Diversify the Local Economy:To successfully attract and support other economies, it is important to congregate arts organisations as activity generators and retail anchors. When a particular place is recognised for artistic reasons, other artistic based cultures will recognise it. An example of this would be the legal graffiti wall on Hosier Lane in Melbourne, which has attracted many international artists such as Banksy.
   

   Hosier Lane Wall, Melbourne.

5. Improve Property and Enhance Value: Leverage the proximity of cultural amenities and the artists’ touch to improve the property and to increase its value.

Social

1. Promote Interaction in Public Space: Public art displayed and collective cultural experiences in public spaces are able to engage people and, therefore, promote interaction between an individual within a specific culture and the art itself, and in result, forming a community.
2. Increase Civic Participation through Cultural Celebrations: Strengthening the connections between neighbours through cultural celebrations and festivals. These celebrations and festivals to do with a certain community are able to unite a large group of individuals who share the same values, attitudes and beliefs, as they have the same interests. This may be a music festival, an art exhibition, fashion festival etc. where people associated with a specific community come and interact together. An example of this would be the Perth Fashion Festival that was held recently in Perth, which gave people the opportunity to meet people who share the same interests etc.
3. Engage Youth: I believe engaging people when they are younger is essential so they can experience and find potential for their future within a specific community.
4. Promote Stewardship of Place: Develop pride within the environment of the community and responsibility through good “place making” and design practices.
5. Broaden Participation in the Civic Agenda: Expand involvement in civic issues and governance through community- centred arts and cultural practices.

In conclusion, after reading this week’s reading by Tom Borrup, I believe that culture, art, the individual and place assist in the formation of effectively building creative communities.

 

Tom Borrup’s Creative Community Builders Website

 

References.

 

Borrup, T. (2006). The creative community builders handbook: How to transform communities using local assets, art, and culture (pp. 3-30). Minnesota: Fieldstone Alliance.

Namac (2009). “Tom Borrup” Retrieved from: http://www.namac.org/node/7715

O’Dell, J. (2011). Tumblr’s Roadmap Heads Straight for the Creative Community. Retrieved from: http://mashable.com/2011/01/15/tumblrs-roadmap-heads-straight-for-the-creative-community/

http://communityandculture.com/

Hosier Lane Image, Melbourne. Retrieved from: http://matadornetwork.com/trips/10-places-where-graffiti-is-legal/