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Engaging Matters

Doug Borwick on vibrant arts and communities

Shifting the Center

October 6, 2012 by Doug Borwick

ShiftingTheCenterYou are now privy to the reason I became a musician rather than a visual artist. (Or at least one reason.) I deeply appreciate good graphic design but my capacity for creation is, shall we say, limited. What you see here is the best I can do. Honestly!

Yet as crude as this is, I think it gets the point across. I have attempted to articulate the thought that the picture expresses on a number of occasions and I discover that the adage about pictures and words is correct.

Historically, arts organizations have placed art, their understood mission, at the core of their work and thinking. To be honest, in that construct, the “community” outside of the arts organization is often an afterthought, if it rises to the level of thought at all. My argument is that the mission really lies in the relationship between the arts organization and the community. The art is at the center of that.

The engagement mode of thinking sees the art as something that grows out of the relationship between the arts organization (and/or artist) and the community. In this view, the center of the things, the art, lies immediately between them. I am advocating for a shifting of our frame of reference about the art from our own internal understanding of (and passion about) it to the point at which the art brings meaning to the larger community–shifting the center.

Engage!

Doug

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Filed Under: Principles Tagged With: arts, change, community engagement

Comments

  1. Duncan McGibbon says

    October 8, 2012 at 6:28 am

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better visualisation of the very problem we’re facing here at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute.We have private bookings which can pay fees and we convenors cannot. Yet the private bookings often respect the local community more than the institutes own commissions.

  2. Craig Fleming says

    May 13, 2013 at 12:29 pm

    A Venn diagram is crucial.

Trackbacks

  1. Bad math and desire – Evidence of our times | Minor Expletives & Better Questions says:
    April 20, 2013 at 10:30 am

    […] Shifting the Center – Engaging Matters – Been thinking about this lately – my need to think about the relationships I’m interested in as much as the research in the nature of art. It’s not a zero sum game, nor do all makers need to be the same, but this articulates some of what I’ve been thinking about. More soon (with venn diagrams!) […]

About Doug Borwick

Doug Borwick is a past President of the Board of the Association of Arts Administration Educators and was for nearly 30 years Director of the Arts Management and Not-for-Profit Management Programs at Salem College in Winston-Salem, NC. He is CEO of Outfitters4, Inc., providing management services to nonprofit organizations and ArtsEngaged providing training and consultation to artists and arts organization to help them more effectively engage with their communities. [Read More …]

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About Engaging Matters

The arts began as collective activity around the campfire, expressions of community. In a very real sense, the community owned that expression. Over time, with increasing specialization of labor, the arts– especially Western “high arts”– became … [Read More...]

Books

Community Engagement: Why and How

Building Communities, Not Audiences: The Future of the Arts in the United States Engage Now! A Guide to Making the Arts Indispensable[Purchase info below] I have to be honest, I haven’t finished it yet because I’m constantly having to digest the ‘YES’ and ‘AMEN’ moments I get from each … [Read More...]

Gard Foundation Calls for Stories

The Robert E. Gard Foundation is dedicated to fostering healthy communities through arts-based development, it is currently seeking stories from communities in which the arts have improved the lives of citizens in remarkable ways. These stories can either be full descriptions (400-900 words) with photos, video, and web links or mini stories (ca. 200 words) […]

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