1. What Type of Projects Are We talking About?

Community based public art is a collaborative art making process involving artists and communities. These projects are available to the public and are as much about the process and exploration of issues as the end art product. These art projects include significant community participation with community building as an important outcome. Building community for example, may be achieved by connecting with neighbours and developing the identity of a neighbourhood. Other projects use participatory art making to create a link between divergent or diverse self defined communities.

Projects should be innovative, have artistic merit, include significant collaboration and community participation, explore issues of relevance to the participating communities, and bring divergent communities together.

Community Cultural Development

Community cultural development can be an outcome of community based art projects. Community cultural development projects are often much larger in scope and explore broad social and cultural issues. These projects use large scale art projects, involving diverse communities, to impact social change.

Community

A community can be a place, such as a neighbourhood, or it can be a group of people who share similar ideas or interests. Community based art projects seek to strengthen or bring together diverse communities, through art and the art making process.

"Community doesn't mean understanding everything and everybody and resolving all the differences; it means knowing how to work within differences as they change and evolve." Lucy Lippard The Lure of the Local

2. What About the Art?

With community based art projects, the art component can be a tool to bring people together, can be the end focus of a project, can be part of a celebration, or can be the legacy of a project. As discussed in the community section, a strong community based art project has a hands on, grass roots participation component-focused on art making.

Some projects hire artists only to share technical expertise and/or to teach and lead participants in art making.

To find local artists involved in community based work, consider researching other projects, local art schools, local artist run centres, or speaking with funders of past projects for any suggestions. As well, the Creative Communities website has listed the artists who have worked on the projects profiled. In the long term the site will have an section in which artists can list their contact info and specialty on line.

Consider the artistic merit of the community art project. The following questions (developed by Skai Fowler) can guide you:

1. Form - whether your project is a painted mural, mosaic markers or a sculptural piece, form is very important. What are the materials you are able to use? Do you have to rely on seconds? How is that going to effect the aesthetic and longevity of the piece?
2. Function - Is the piece there to emphasize physical elements or social dynamics? Does the piece celebrate, commemorate, intervene, subvert or adorn? Is it all of the above and more? What function does it have in relationship to its self, to those who are creating it, and to the community? How?
3. Audience - who is the audience? Those who live across the street from it, the neighbourhood, a specific age group or interest group, a wider audience. What significance will it have to this audience? How was the site researched and chosen?
4. Site - In what ways is this piece significant in form and content to the site? Is it cultural, historical? Is it a contemporary comment, who is expressing what to whom?

3. Themes and Possibilities

"The first thing you must do is to discover and collect possibilities, to come together to share ideas and intuitions which will enable you to decide what to attempt. It is crucial, in stage one, to be non-judgmental. Judging too early inhibits the discovery of a wide range of possibilities and techniques. The time for judgment comes later.

This is the time to explore and gather and give examples of what others have done. Use any and all ways you can think of to elicit possibilities from people. When you are deciding who to involve, be broad-based - the more kinds the merrier - and don't call it a committee!

You can begin by identifying possible project themes or concepts which will "glue" the project together. A theme unifies a project, but more than that, a theme chosen early helps you think about what activities you might include. Themes might center on a particular art form or suggest several forms. Themes can be rooted in local history, local landscape, community issues, or broad social issues with a local interest." from "Developing a Project" provided by The Arts Resource Network of the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, formerly the Seattle Arts Commission

Brainstorming Project Ideas

www.artsresourcenetwork.org is one of these guides and we found it quite useful. Many of the guides focus on school based projects and arts education. We encourage school based projects to go 'beyond' the school by partnering with community groups not usually associated with schools. To promote projects in which schools become part of a larger community.

4. Sharing the Vision

Once the possibilities have been explored and a theme or idea established, it is time to consider a vision, share it, refine it, change it and let it grow. It can also be a good time to consider goals and outcomes of a project. Given that community based art projects are collaborative, it is important at this point to continue to connect with groups that may be interested in being involved and any local resource people.

5. The Nitty Gritty

"This stage of the creative process goes past conceptualization, past networking. Now the focus becomes the dynamics of the collaboration. What needs to be done? How can the collaborators best complement each other? How are responsibilities to be divided? How are decisions to be made and management accomplished?

Perhaps most important of all, how can the collaborators continue to learn from each other and discover new functional connections among their special talents? A collaboration is a process in flux; things are planned, but if it's going well, things keep changing. Being alert to opportunities for improving the project is central to collaboration. There is no point at which the collaborators stop nourishing each other.

Like any other process, you must look to discover ways to harmonize the inevitable discords that occur. You also must find ways to review and check the plans to ensure that valuable concepts have not been lost along the way." from "Developing a Project" provided by The Arts Resource Network of the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, formerly the Seattle Arts Commission.

6. Resources & Fundraising

Community based art projects are VERY labour intensive and require significant participation. Consider what resources are required including: what may be available for free and what resources may require payment. Local businesses will often donate services and limited supplies. Volunteer hours are critical to the success of any community based project. Project facilitators and artists should be paid for their contributions.

7. Communicating

"Although the process is as important as the product, artistic collaborations end in some kind of sharing: publication, display, performanceŠ.getting the word out, with media coverage, mailings posters and other kinds of publicity is centralŠ" from "Developing a Project" provided by The Arts Resource Network of the Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, formerly the Seattle Arts Commission. The need for excellent communication is twofold with community based art projects. In a collaborative process- keeping everyone informed is required. This includes everyone from the core working group to participating organizations to funders to potential participants in scheduled events.

8. Evaluation

It is important throughout the project to evaluate how it is going. One of the methods for evaluation is using a logic model process. There are a lot of different versions of this model and many examples can be found on the internet (for example http://www.epamap.org/logic.html). Logic models can be overwhelming and complex- remember however, that you can modify the model to fit your situation. The purpose of a logic model is to be able to:

• summarize the key elements of your program (hopefully on a single piece of paper)
• explain the rationale behind program activities
• clarify the difference between the activities and the intended outcomes of the program
• show the cause-and-effect relationships between the activities and the outcomes - that is, which activities are expected to lead to which outcomes
• help you identify the critical questions for your evaluation
• provide the opportunity for people involved to discuss the program and agree upon its description.

Logic models done for local community projects have included the headings of Project Activities and Outputs, Outcomes, Output and Outcome Indicators and then Indicator or Evaluation Methods. In Vancouver, the Parks Board has developed detailed logic models for several community based projects with Strathcona Research Group.

Activities (what)	Output (how)	Output Indicators	Outcomes (why)	Outcome Indicators	Example Evaluation Methods
Community Organizing: - Bring, local organizations, businesses, residents and artists together to develop project - Hold outreach workshops - Build partnerships with other community groups	Community is aware of and supportive of project. A core working group has been established Local residents have been given information on the project and support the idea	Do project participants reflect diversity of community? How do key participants view the working relationships? What partnerships have happened since the beginning of the project? How do local residents feel the project has contributed to the neighbourhood?	New and positive relationships are developed in the community	What new relationships have occurred? Have perceptions changed?	Interviews, observation, surveys and document reviews

Ultimately, community based public art projects should be:

• Innovative- projects must move ideas forward and exploring new issues and ways of doing
• Promote Diversity- projects should reach or connect communities together
• Artistic- projects must support the role of the artist in building community. This includes projects that support established artists and emerging artists.

Have Fun! Good luck!