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HOT LINKS

Introducing the new Fourth Pillar blog
by CDN's cultural analyst Jon Hawkes - discussing the ways cultural action can support communities.
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Australia Council's Arts Funding Guide 2010. Download a copy.
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2nd International ‘Art of Good Health and Wellbeing’ Arts and Health Conference, University of Melbourne, 16 – 19 November 2010
Call for papers
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LEAP (Localities Enhancing Arts Participation) Project
VicHealth, CDN and eight Victorian councils
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a network of Victorian arts organisations, artists and government agencies working with Arts Victoria to strengthen community-based arts practice
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ReGenerating Community: Arts, Community & Governance National Conference
Proceedings available
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Developing & Revitalizing Rural Communities
Through Arts & Creativity: International research report
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UNESCO e-journal:
Multi-Disciplinary Research in the Arts
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Agenda 21 for Culture is the first document with worldwide mission that advocates establishing the groundwork of an undertaking by cities and local governments for cultural development.
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Projects

Current Projects | Past Projects

Read more below about these current projects:
Arts Indicators for Local Govt.
LEAP
Home Lands
Generations
Arts & Disability Research

Arts Indicators for Local Government

This paper for measuring the contribution of the arts in the work of local government has been developed by CDN to stimulate thinking on the topic. It includes an international literature review and a framework of arts indicators for local government. Two roundtable discussions groups with local government cultural development managers and other interested parties were held in May and June 2010 to assist CDN is refining the ideas. The paper and framework will be further developed over the next few months in response to these discussions and comments from other readers. CDN welcomes your response and suggestions for improvement. Please send to kim.dunphy@culturaldevelopment.net.au

CDN's Program Manager Kim Dunphy will be making a presentation on this framework at the International Conference for Cultural Policy, in Jyvaskyla Finland in August 2010.

Response from discussions:

At the first roundtable discussion, the group confirmed that
- local government arts staff think that a framework of arts indicators would be useful
- there are a variety of uses that people might put such a framework to, including advocacy, measuring change over time, comparing between areas or contexts, planning and policy making
- that regulatory frameworks for local government (such as the Essential Services Commission framework being developed) should include arts indicators, along with all other aspects of local government's work.

The second discussion group in June considered what such a framework of indicators contain and what data could be used. Amendments as a result of these discussion will be included in next version of the paper.

Download discussion paper

LEAP

LEAP: (Localities Enhancing Arts Participation) Local government project

CDN is pleased to be working with VicHealth and the three councils selected for its LEAP project: Casey, Mildura and Ballarat.

The projects are:

• Six Shires/Three Goals/One United Team (6 x 3 x 1) (Ballarat City Council
  with Ararat Rural City Council, Golden Plains, Hepburn, Moorabool and
  Pyrenees Shires)
• Casey Arts Participation Initiative (City of Casey)
• LEAPing into Arts and Culture Mildura (Mildura Rural City Council)

CDN’s Director John Smithies has been travelling the state working with these councils as their projects shape up. Find out more:
www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/LEAP

Download flyer

Home Lands

Home Lands is an internet television program made with entry-level technical resources that connects young refugees to their home lands and separated communities.

Home Lands is underpinned by the premise that refugee youth resettlement is more successful if identification, communication and engagement is maintained with home communities.

Low-cost digital media production tools and networks overcome the previous barrier of privilege usually associated with access to traditional media production facilities.

Evolving media technologies enable production storage, streaming, broadcast, mobile communication and therefore new forms of storytelling to give true global access to an audience.

The pilot undertaken in Melbourne, Australia worked with young refugees from Karen and Sudanese refugee communities and the corresponding refugee camps and home communities.

The project partners are proud to launch Home Lands as part of Federation Square's program for The Light in Winter.
Saturday, June 26, 6.30 - 7.45pm
Atrium, Federation Square - Download an invitation

This launch event will showcase multimedia stories and videos created by young Karen people in both Melbourne and Thailand over the last six months.

More about the Home Lands project

Generations

Building civic engagement through the arts in five communities across Australia

Visit the Generations website

The Generations project commenced in 2006 to explore links between engagement in community based arts activities and active civic engagement. There is growing literature that supports the link between creative or ‘artistic’ activity and improved health and well-being, but the links between creative communities and civic engagement are less well documented. The Generations project was conceptualised to contribute to research on this topic through a significant research component. It was thought that demonstration of this link could have significant effects on the development of public policy and the targeting of resources to community-based arts projects. The research proejct was carried out by Dr Martin Mulligan with researcher Pia Smith at Globalism Research Centre (RMIT) over the three years of the project.

In preparation for the project, each of the five participating councils worked with the Cultural Development Network to identify issues of serious concern for their municipalities. Five community projects addressing these local issues got underway in 2006 in councils across Australia; Charters Towers Regional Council (Queensland); City of Liverpool (New South Wales); Rural City of Wangaratta (Victoria); City of Greater Geelong (Victoria); and Latrobe City (Victoria). The projects completed their formal engagement with Generations in late 2009.

The work of the five councils and the communities was celebrated within a national conference held in Melbourne in September 2009. Key findings of the research are expected to be released early in 2010.

Preliminary findings and an extensive literature review presented by researchers Martin Mulligan and Pia Smith from RMIT at this conference, appear in this article.

Art, Governance and the Turn to Community: Putting Art at the Heart of Local Government
Dr. Martin Mulligan and Pia Smith, RMIT University

The Generations Project was a test of the view that truly sustainable communities need the addition of fourth dimension, or pillar, of cultural vitality to the accepted triple bottom line indicators of a viable economy, a healthy environment and good social policies.

Arts and Disability Research Project: increasing participation in the arts

Cultural Development Network for the Office for Disability, Arts Victoria and Department of Human Services, May 2008 - February 2009

The Cultural Development Network undertook a research project examining ways that the participation of people with a disability in the arts, as artists and as audience members, can be increased. The project was commissioned by the Office for Disability and partners, Arts Victoria and Department of Human Services. The report and literature review have now been published.

Picture This: Increasing the cultural participation of people with a disability in Victoria, Literature Review and Community Consultation Reports detail findings of the research and the context for arts and disability in Victoria, nationally and internationally.

These reports provide a unique snapshot of a dynamic and burgeoning Victorian arts and disability sector, and also identify some of the barriers that we need to continue to work to remove. They offer ideas, suggestions and possible strategies for increasing the cultural participation of people with a disability, relevant to both government and community.

Read the report

CDN Project team:
Project Team Chair: Dr Nick Hill, University of Melbourne
Project Manager: John Smithies, CDN, john.smithies@culturaldevelopment.net.au
Lead researcher: Kim Dunphy, CDN, kim.dunphy@culturaldevelopment.net.au
International Research Associate: Associate Professor Petra Kuppers, University of Ann Arbor, Michigan
Literature review research and editing: Chris Brophy
Research Advisor: Professor John Toumbourou, Deakin University
Research Assistant: Indrani Parker