Cultural Participation: Significance, Forms, Effects

1. Cultural participation significance, forms, effectsDresden 8/2/2018Birgit ErikssonAssoc. prof., Aesthetics & Culture, Aarhus University &Dir. of TAKE PART research network on cultural participation y

2. What is participation?

3. Cultural participation as a right • Article 27 of UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948): “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts” • Article 5 of UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001): “(…) all persons have the right to participate in the cultural life of their choice and conduct their own cultural practices”

4. Participation vs. inequalitySherry Arnstein: “The ladder of citizen participation” (1969)

5. Participation as a contestedconcept Cultural attention/activities • Access • Belonging • Community • Shared identity -> Enjoyment, experience and ”Bildung” Shared decision-making • Power • Voice • Democracy • Transfer of agency -> Empowerment and change

6. Whyis participation importantnow (1)?Mediatizedparticipatoryculture Participatory culture as opposed to • Consumer culture • Passivity • Monopolized cultural production • Broadcasting • Traditional hierarchies/authorities Key figure: Henry Jenkins Linked to concepts of • Prod-users(Bruns) • Pro-sumers (Toffler) • Co-creation (Prahalad, Ramaswamy) • Collectiveintelligence(Lévy, Rheingold) • Networks (Benkler, Castells) • Sharing, interactivityand more….

7. Why is participation importantnow (2)? • Social fragmentation • Political disinterest • Radicalization • Populism • Exclusion/marginalisation of minorities • (Youth) unemployment • Loneliness • Distrust in social institutions ->(Cultural) participation as a solution?

8. Participation as an increaseddemand in (cultural) policy -> to engage in and solve social challenges through cultural participation. Strategies of: • Audience development • Outreach • Social inclusion & cohesion • Creativity & innovation Linked to: • Economic&social policy • Instrumentalization • Post-political society: “Harmonistan” “to be included (…) in society means to conform to full employment, have a disposable income, and be self-sufficient. (…) Participation in society is merely participation in the task of being individually responsible for what, in the past, was the collective concern of the state” (C. Bishop 2012, 13-14) engage

9. Participatory / dialogical / collaborative / art& relational/ social aesthetics • Oftencritical: art vs. alienation, isolation, neoliberalism, commodification, capitalism… • collective, collaborative approaches (vs. individual authority & control) • process-basedparticipation and experience(vs.text/image/object-basedworks) • aimof empowerment: strengthenreflection and agency • aim of interactionbetweenart and social life (Claire Bishop, Grant Kester, Shannon Jackson, Nicolas Bourriaud, Nina Möntmann, Nato Thomson…)

10. Critique of participatory art(Claire Bishop, Hal Foster, Jacques Rancière, Markus Miessen, Nora Sternfeld et al.) • Sociability Is gettingtogetherenough? • InclusionJust another party for the elites? • Form and process Is formlessnesscelebratedor contested? • Ethics and aesthetics Is aestheticsoverruled by other agendas? • Inequality Are hierarchieserased/ the participants empowered / spectatorsemancipated? • Contradiction and conflict Is participatory art part of a general ”post-critical ” / ”post-political” culture?

11. Impact?Open work -> inclusive society? RirkritTiravanija: Thai Pad as a model of ”living well” ”Sometimespoliticsareascribed to such art on the basis of a shakyanalogybetween an open work and an inclusive society, as if a desultory form mightevoke a democraticcommunity, and a non-hierarchical installation predict an egalitarianworld” (Hal Foster: ”Chat Rooms”, 2004)

12. Impactwhere/ how / what /on whom? • The participants? • The artwork/practice? • The art institution? • The audience? • The neighborhood?

13. Stagingwitnesses/experts of reality • B. Eriksson: “Are we really there, and in contact? Staging firsthand witnesses of contemporary Danish warfare”. Peripeti, 2017. • Lukas Matthaei und Konsorten: War (YouShould Have Been There), 2013 & Christian Lollike: In Contact, 2014. • staging ‘real people’: wounded/vulnerable witnesses of Afghanistan war -> truth claim, aesthetic form, and critical distance.

14. RECcORD: RethinkingCultural Centers in a European Dimension (2015-17):about & with participation in cultural centers Involving 38 cultural centers from 14 countries: Czech Republic, Belgium, Italy, UK, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Germany, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, Luxembourg and Denmark What is a Cultural center? A type of cultural institution often combining professional/amateur art/creative activitieswith a focus on diversity (in activities and users), civic engagement, involvement of volunteers and openness to bottom-up initiatives Research: Carsten Stage, Camilla Møhring Reestorff, Birgit Eriksson, Aarhus University

15. Key forms of participation in culturalcenters

17. Useof typology (forms/effects)? Mode/Phase Use specifywhat kinds and effects of participation toaim at (and not) describe relevance to funding institutions and others compare own practice with and maybe inspire other artists/institutions clarify and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of participatory practice discuss forms and effects of activity with participants develop new ideas and forms of participation • Designing • Applying • Comparing • Self-reflecting • Evaluating • Transforming

18. Forms toeffects:Facilitation, but nodirectcausality Attention Education Co-inhabition Co-creation Publics Co-decision Feeling of togetherness Social inclusion Wellbeing Learning Cultural/politicalreflection Empowerment Aestheticintensity Sustainability Local development

19. Why do peopleparticipate? “All participants want to do something that is worthwhile in their own terms, and every participatory act has, and is intended to have, consequences. At the very least, participation makes a difference to the individual participant; at most, it also helps change the world around them; and sometimes it does both”. “Participation needs to fulfil the meaning an individual ascribes to it; they want to see that it is having the impact they desire, for themselves, their networks and communities, or further afield”. (Brodie et al: Pathwaysthroughparticipation, 2011)

20. Whose participation is it? “Participation is not simply about joining the game, it is also about having the possibility to question the rules of the game” (Nora Sternfeld: “Playing by the rules of the game. Participation in the post-representative museum”, 2013) ”I really love whensomethingfails, becausethen the participation is fine” (interview w. Jesus de la Pena, director of Centro Puertas de Castilla, Murcia) Motivations are different Who • decideswhatchange to aim for and whom to empower? • is able to invite? • owns the project & room? • definesgoals & tasks? • definessuccesscriteria? • How participatory do institutionswant to be?

21. One form – and variousaims/effects for (maybe) alreadyempowered participants