{"id":863,"date":"2016-09-16T15:47:22","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T15:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rachel.we-are-low-profile.com\/blog\/?p=863"},"modified":"2017-12-07T12:06:47","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T12:06:47","slug":"succession-planning-arts-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rachel.we-are-low-profile.com\/blog\/succession-planning-arts-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Building in succession (as a requirement) in arts & community projects"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social Making: Building in succession (as a requirement)\u00a0in arts & community projects<\/h1>\n

One of the strongest insights for me from Take A Part’s Social Making event<\/a>\u00a0was the need to build succession into socially engaged and community development projects – ensuring that initial projects are followed by others with minimal interruption and that skills are built within the community to allow this to happen without \/ with less future intervention. If projects are interested in genuine engagement and empowerment, this process should be a requirement that informs all other activity.<\/p>\n

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Darren O’Donnell, Mammalian Diving Reflex Photo Credit: Take A Part<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Darren O’Donnell from Mammalian Diving Reflex<\/a> spoke most explicitly on the topic, detailing the company’s methodology for embedding succession in every project they begin\u00a0(outlined in “Methods For Mammals”<\/a>). The principles of the approach start by asking the question “What if these guys [the young people MDR work with] took over the company \/ the project?”. Then MDR take this position seriously, identifying the need for training to support and actively facilitate the development of the young people they work with, to help them thrive within the context of designing, managing and delivering their arts projects.<\/p>\n

MDR’s focus on developing skills for running and sustaining socially engaged projects revolve around four main points:<\/p>\n

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  • Collegiality<\/span> – working with young people as colleagues, establishing a situation of equality and mutual affect and giving youth projects main stage (rather than treating these as a sideline)<\/li>\n
  • Social Capital<\/span> – building and distributing social capital by actively involving the people they work with in their professional networks, facilitating new contacts and socialising together<\/li>\n
  • Friendship<\/span> – establishing genuine friendships with the young people, sharing each other’s lives and looking out for each other<\/li>\n
  • Performativity<\/span> – creating situations where equity and generosity are the norm and embracing the performative qualities of this, not just to have the young people ‘on stage’ but also to have them generating the ‘stage’ and setting the agenda in performative and creative ways<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    This consideration of how a community formed around a project is empowered through their own activity and supported to take over the project themselves, seems both quite simple and quite revolutionary. Working towards autonomy and embedding this throughout should be a key concern (and evaluation point) for those designing socially engaged projects.<\/p>\n

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    Homebaked grew out of the project 2Up 2Down (Liverpool Biennial & artist Jeanne van Heeswijk) Photo credit: Homebaked<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Both Sam Jones (Homebaked<\/a>) and Kim Wide (Take A Part<\/a>) referenced and discussed the ‘handover anxieties’ caused by the lack of a clear succession plan being factored into projects. This type of succession planning requires a (sometimes drastic) change of orientation, shifting focus and responsibility onto the people involved in socially engaged projects. As an artist or producer working with (and in) a community, the goal is to get those you work with tooled up to take over your job, and this could (and should) happen as an integral part of the project.<\/p>\n

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    #socialmaking<\/a> : @HomebakedA<\/a> “We nurture each other – as the dough rise, we rise” #RiseUpAnfield<\/a> #MoreThanAPie<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/0dQruR6PiZ<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u2014 Rachel Dobbs (@RachelDobbs1) April 29, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n