BRINGING (ARTS AND) REGENERATION HOME

by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director

 

Where was I? Ah yes, contemplating the relevance of the 'regeneration' word - as in 'Arts and Regeneration' - for a new company which is seeking to build on many years' past experience of using creative processes to help people play a meaningful part in effecting local change, whilst also wanting to seem forward-looking, switched on and in step with the times.

As I said, the conclusion I've come to after considerable pondering is a decisive 'Yes'. And the credit goes to... New Start (a magazine which, since working in the regen sector, I've always read avidly and valued greatly) and especially to its former editor, Julian Dobson, nowadays consulting, speaking and writing as Urban Pollinators. Searching for inspiration during my musings about language a while back I returned to New Start's excellent 12-part Real Regeneration series from 2010, available here and definitely worth a full read. Julian offered some perspectives on and a redefinition of regeneration for 2010 and beyond which I find compelling and - in terms of confidently positioning Loca Creatives' work in a regeneration context - reassuringly affirming.

At the heart of Julian's thinking is the notion of 'home' - the place where people want to live, where they feel connected to meaning and identity and to other people through everyday social exchanges. He proposes the idea of recreating 'home' as the basis for a new working definition of regeneration: 'Regeneration is the action of citizens and those who work with them to recreate home for new times, especially where there is poverty or disadvantage.' Thus 'regeneration' becomes not about 'the delivery of projects or the development of buildings' but about 'homecoming', 'home-making' and 'the creation of meaning'; and investment in homes and localities must be about an 'investment of cultural capital and creativity', not just an investment of cash. Julian talks about regeneration being a continuous process of survival and strengthening and about the need for constant action to reinvigorate neighbourhoods and towns that are distressed. He talks about regeneration - or reinvention - being required most in places that struggle to cope with time and change but also in places that, while not struggling as such, need to 'repurpose'; about the necessity of rethinking place and community for each new generation; and about regeneration having to 'start with the people who live in and use a place' and 'create a sense of meaning, purpose, rootedness and engagement with what’s around.'

And there we have it. The idea of people-centred regeneration is hardly new - indeed it underpinned my professional practice and Loca's entire existence as a council-based team for 14 years.. But when it's recast as being about creating home, regeneration takes on a new resonance which for me aligns very comfortably with Arts and Regen practice in general and Loca Creatives' work in particular. Our work is fundamentally about utilising the specialist skills of artists - often in places that are struggling to cope with time and change and where people struggle to feel attached, engaged and connected - to help reveal meaning, strengthen identity, unearth the 'soul' of a place, forge connections, facilitate social exchanges and enable people to be active players in an ongoing process of strengthening and renewal. Ergo if regeneration = home-making and these are some of the essential ingredients, our work is about regeneration. Looked at another way, if regeneration is about connecting people to each other and people to place and home, in neighbourhoods that need to achieve confidence, resilience and wellbeing so that they are 'better equipped for the future', then using creative tools and approaches to support regeneration is indeed what we do.

By way of example take a look at how some of the artists involved in our Core Team and Creative Associates talk about their work and what motivates them as socially engaged creative practitioners. Whether they're working in public realm, community health, consultation, natural environment or community celebration settings, or with children and families around social and emotional health and wellbeing, there are some recurring themes . It's precisely those that will give Loca Creatives' work its drive, spirit and sense of purpose for the foreseeable.

As if to put the cap on it, New Start's series ends with a proposal for a 7-step manifesto to be 'at the heart of a human approach to regeneration'. The steps include listening intently, getting the words right, sharing inspiration and learning, devolving decision-making and creating a bias towards trust. All good and important, of course, and entirely relevant in our own work. But it's Step Three that gives me particular cause for cheer: 'Instil creativity in everything - this is not to presume in favour of culture-led regeneration but to recognise that creativity can create engagement among a huge range of people who don't get too excited about numbers of jobs created or statistics about economic growth...People wake up to what's fun and engaging. This is especially important in hard times - we need to celebrate more when money is tight, not less.'

That does it for me. Many thanks indeed Julian.

STRONG ROOTS, NEW SHOOTS

by Tracy Shaw, Loca Creatives Director

 

So here goes... A very warm welcome to our blog, our new website and - especially if you've not met us before - to Loca Creatives, a full eight months old this week.  Goodness knows where the time's gone - disappeared in a flurry of mundane but necessary start-up tasks, getting feet adjusted to unfamiliar ground, putting systems in place, making connections, seeding new projects, cracking on with current ones (about which more later, in posts not just by me but by some of the brilliantly talented artist-practitioners who I'm proud and delighted to have on board as colleagues and close collaborators).

Inevitably it's been a time for a great deal of thinking too, not least about the nature and focus of the new company's work and about how to re-frame things for changed circumstances whilst staying true to old roots that still feel perfectly relevant and valid.  (The roots - as you'll know if you're aware of our background or have already browsed the website - are in a body of work that grew up over fourteen years within a local authority environment that was for the most part very conducive and enabling, allowing a small, 'semi-detached' team of five to sustain itself way beyond its original three-year funding term and to punch well above its weight in 'putting art at the heart of local regeneration'.)  The process of developing the website especially has entailed a good deal of grappling with concepts, language and ways of articulating what Loca Creatives is about to a whole range of new and further-flung audiences.

In my wrestlings with language, marketing blurbs and key messages over the past months, a quandary about continuing to use the word 'regeneration' has surfaced time and again, and with it the difficulty of coming up with a new  vocabulary to describe the work Loca Creatives does, the values and purposes behind the work, and the contexts in which we aim to do it.  I'm starting up a shiny, fresh-faced, independent company that aspires to be innovative and forward-looking, in times when many folk would argue that local regeneration - which was fully the context for the genesis of Loca and the growth of our work in Kirklees - has had its day, become an unaffordable and untenable field of practice, lost its currency as a political and social concept.  Many people and organisations whose work was entirely dedicated to the regeneration of towns, cities, neighbourhoods and/or communities have disappeared from the field, or at best have had to re-align and redefine themselves.  So does continuing to use the 'R' word to talk about the company's work risk signalling that we're out of step, stuck nostalgically in some long-gone neighbourhood renewal/local regeneration hey-day having failed to feel the seismic shifts and tune in to what's been going on in the world around us?

As a flit around our other web pages will tell you, I think I've found my answers - certainly enough to keep me and Loca Creatives happily reconciled with the 'R' word for a while yet (at least until the next bout of healthy navel-gazing comes around).  So - unapologetically, self-consciously, loudly, proudly - Using Creativity As A Tool Within Regeneration is what we do.  It may not be all of what we do or the only way of talking about what we do but it's definitely a big part, a strong root that still holds good and is putting out new shoots, just in time for spring.  I can't claim any original thinking here and I certainly need to pay credit to the inspirational thinking and writing from which my own flash of clarity came - but you'll have to read the next post to find out whodunnit.