Who Ordered Humble Pie? Paper delivered by Elio Gatti 10th Annual International Arts and Health Conference 12-15 November 2018, Port Macquarie NSW
Elio Gatti SALUS CREATIVES Paper delivered by Elio Gatti 10 th Annual International Arts and Health Conference 12-15 November 2018, Port Macquarie NSW Who ordered humble pie? Synopsis This presentation explores several reasons why local government is well placed to be a powerful and strategic partner in the promotion and support of creativity and wellbeing within a regional context. There are however limitations that frame and contain the scope of a local government involvement. Understanding these boundaries and addressing their constraints upfront can in turn lead to establishing productive cultural collaborations guided by more informed and mature expectations . About walls and barriers Any practitioner involved in Arts and Health would have experienced a degree of frustration in dealing with a local Council. Although proposals from creatives vary a great deal in scope and budget, they would have met with some common responses. Something along the lines of: • “Sorry, arts and health is not part of a Council’s job ”. • “Sorry, you should first submit this proposal to the Local Area Health District”. • “Sorry, you submitted a proposal as a solo trader. Our grants are only directed to not-for-profit organizations. Please find a local association that can auspice your proposal and try again”. • “Sorry, we cannot see how our local community festival can benefit from your proposal”. • “Sorry, we are very proud of the current arrangement between our regional gallery and the local public hospital. Managing the installation of paintings on the hospital walls is a significant commitment of staff and resources for us and there is no room for your proposal.” • “Sorry, we have allocated our resources in other urgent social priorities, like homelessness, domestic violence, children’s abuse, single parents’ assistance, senior citizen’s centres, youth centres, children’s centres, suicide prevention projects, disability action plans… …..and the list of course is painfully long. After having served for fifteen years as a Council Cultural Officer, I am here to add that unfortunately frustrations are also experienced by Councils in their dealing with local artists. • Some well-established artists simply refuse to be engaged by a local Council. It’s a matter of maintaining a high profile reputation. Who ordered humble pie? 1
Elio Gatti SALUS CREATIVES • Some local artists express their disappointment for not having been chosen for projects because they believe it is their “right as tax payers” to have a priority over Joe and Jill…..especially if Joe and Jill come from another region….and (God forbid!) from another country! • Some great local artists simply cannot work with community. They have never been trained to listen. • Some local artists in the middle of a contracted project…suddenly find a much better idea of going forward and off go the initial plan of action and its budget! • Further it is not uncommon for local artists to disappear one day before the project is set to begin...without leaving a note. This list too can be painfully long! I am aware there are no numbers in this list. No hard data expressed in percentages. No measures. However, anecdotal as it is, this list begins to shed some light over the fact that Councils remain cautious in entering the field of Arts and Health despite its thirty-year existence. Equally artists, especially registered art, movement and music therapists continue to see little relevance in collaborating with local Councils. About regional councils It would be reasonable to ask if there is a real solution to this conundrum? Plus a further consideration. If this field has already clocked thirty years with little or no input from Councils, isn’t this sufficient proof that this area may be better off ignoring the involvement of local Councils? Within the context of a region and within the purview of a twenty-year professional experience, I’ve always found local Councils to be unique strategic centres for the cultural development of their own communities. Ignoring the involvement of local Councils is tantamount to settling for the often mis/quoted definition of a region as “a cultural desert”. Australian capitals and well-developed Australian cities have in their urban centres peak cultural organizations as well as state and federal institutions who can relieve city councils from their public cultural commitments. In the economy of a region however, any cultural organization finds it impossible to survive without the direct or indirect partnership with the local Council. It is therefore imperative that Councils come on board of the arts and health operations if we are to see this field develop in the regions. About definitions The more pragmatic question however remains open. What exactly is the role of Councils? Or what is a good fit for Councils beyond the successful management of an agreement between public hospitals and regional galleries? Of course this is not an easy question to answer! Part of the difficulty is due to an elusive definition of the field. For those who approach it for the first time, Arts and Health can appear to be as wide and ominous as an ocean. An ocean filled with amazing flora and fauna that is partly explained and mostly unexplored. An ocean whose liquid boundaries shift with time and currents and politics since there are no clear signposts. Who ordered humble pie? 2
Elio Gatti SALUS CREATIVES For those who have worked in this field for several decades Arts and Health remains exactly the same wondrous and ominous ocean…..a field where just about anything can happen…anywhere! Metaphors aside, I’ve already listened to something close to 250 presentations over the past three years and the breath and nature of the Arts and Health topics have never ceased to surprise me. From practitioners dressed in orange pushing trolleys filled of arts and craft materials along hospital corridors in Sydney, to a nurse turned harpist in Canberra who plays her seven therapeutic harps on demand from patients inside and outside the hospital. From the recording of an interminable heart beat echoed in the longest known tunnels in Scotland, to a successful visual art program for child bearing Aboriginal women in Brisbane and the Blue Mountains. Then there are ingenious and effective preventive promotional campaigns on depression, on breast cancer, on addiction, and many other urgent social topics. Extraordinary creative training programs for young clinicians and medical personnel that use theatre techniques and visual arts in NSW. An institutionalized music and movement program that restores a degree of human dignity in dementia care centres across Norway and touring plays in Canada that restore a sense of normality for service personnel affected by post traumatic disorders. These are all impressive initiatives! But where does a local Council fit? The short answer is that Councils don’t really fit in this area albeit as silent and passive partners of local area health districts. However there is much more to the field of Arts and Health than it may first appear. Let me explain further this crucial point. About a compass Since I left Council I’ve been working on an ambitious model aimed at mapping the expansive territory covered by Arts and Health. After various disappointing attempts I realized I was going about it the wrong way. Maps and cartography come as a result of good navigation and good navigation is best informed by navigating tools. To put it another way, without a sense of direction and orientation even the best maps become useless. Therefore I set out to create a compass of sorts that provided a strong sense of direction. Since the four cardinal points of a compass (North, South, East and West) are the fruit of an abstract concept superimposed on reality as a grid, I created a compass that uses four extreme cardinal points which together become a useful grid/framework/tool for orientation purposes in the field of Arts and Health. On the vertical axis I placed two extremes representing Health. At the top I placed the Clinical Approach and the bottom the Social Approach. Both have in common the provision of health and wellbeing supplied and organized by a given society. The Clinical approach focuses on the individual body and often it is only specific parts of the individual body. The Social approach instead goes beyond the individual body in order to focus on the relationship between one body to other bodies. The Clinical approach studies the material and visible parts of the human body and its visible symptoms. The Social approach studies instead the invisible and intangible relationships between bodies of a given group and community. Another assumption in this vertical axis is that the Clinical approach is capable of producing quantified and measured results in relatively short terms case by case, individual body by individual body. While the Social approach takes a much longer Who ordered humble pie? 3
Recommend
More recommend
