Doing Democracy: Activist Art and Cultural Politics

Chapter 14Conclusion

339 Chapter 14 Conclusion Activist Arts, Community Development, and Democracy Mark Mattern and Nancy S. Love Art cannot be about the people; it cannot be for the people; it must be by the people. —Jan Avgikos, “Group Material Timeline: Activism as a Work of Art” In this concluding chapter we take a closer look at an increasingly important form of activist art: intentional, directed attempts to use art to drive community development. Many neighborhoods, cities, states, and even nations are turning to the arts and culture as a stimulus for community development. These diverse efforts incorporate many different approaches. This chapter addresses two dominant approaches: an elitesdriven approach and a community arts approach.1 These should be seen as polarities, with many arts-related development projects actually falling somewhere in between.2 Some of the earlier chapters in this volume discuss projects that are located on this continuum. For example, Luke’s analysis of the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, might be located near the elites-driven pole. Baum’s piece on how the In the House Festival transformed the city neighborhoods and streets in Vancouver , British Columbia, belongs much closer to the community arts pole. Other chapters, such as those on South African resistant theater, 340 / mark mattern and nancy s. love Day of the Dead festivals, and the parades of New Orleans, Louisiana , feature communal uses of the arts for celebration and protest that do not directly engage development-related public or private policies. These examples do not belong on the aforementioned continuum with its emphasis on direct policy interventions in community development. However, by bringing public attention to community needs, these and other uses of the arts and popular culture discussed here may indirectly shape future policy initiatives. The roots of these two approaches to arts-led community development extend at least to the late nineteenth century,3 and a lively debate over their relative merits is ongoing. Both approaches are employed today in arts-led community development efforts. After describing the features of elites-driven and community arts approaches, we briefly address two case studies to illustrate the approaches. As illustrated by the Santa Ana, California case study, many cities continue to embrace an elites-driven approach. The second case study, of Music & Performing Arts at Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio, is based in a community arts approach and serves as a critical response to some of the shortcomings of an elites-driven approach. We argue that, in its current form, the community arts approach is more intrinsically democratic, and it promises more genuine and lasting community development within urban environments. The elites-driven model can, however, be modified to incorporate more democratic elements. Community development can mean many different things. Sometimes it is conflated with economic development, where all community development efforts are aimed at increasing a city or region’s tax base, commercial activity, or productive capacity.4 A broader understanding includes this economic component, but adds other considerations such as building social capital, addressing marginalization, preparing a foundation for addressing public problems, and actually addressing those public problems, only some of which are economic.5 In this chapter, we adopt this broader understanding. Elites-Driven Public Art The elites-driven approach to public art is generated by public officials, philanthropists, business leaders, and other elites to raise a city’s or region ’s profile and image; increase tourism, commercial activity, and civic pride; commemorate dominant figures and events drawn from a dominant conclusion / 341 account of history; and adorn prominent features of a city or region. Characteristic of this approach are big-ticket downtown and other “flagship ” projects, cultural centers, and arts districts. This kind of public art is usually linked to “top-down, ‘pro-growth’ development initiated by or for business elites,”6 in which community development is understood primarily as economic development. It generally takes as given the already existing “social and artistic conventions.”7 In this approach, participation in the arts is typically assumed to be synonymous with consumption of the arts, and audience-as-consumer participation at professional arts events is favored over other forms of participation, such as amateur participation in art-making. According to advocates of this approach, audience development is best accomplished by exposing people, especially youth, to so-called high art.8 This exposure will, in theory, increase understanding and appreciation for (high) art, generating more consumption of it. Related to...