The main thing I hate, if I hate anything, is the word itself, community. In fact the title, was supposed to be ‘The ‘C’ Word’ although, thinking about it, that probably wouldn’t have shifted the focus. That word is used to hide a lot of terrible ideas, flawed funding streams, and shifts of responsibility to the groups of people councils should be helping (see. Big Society).

*Of course* I’m not against networks of people that support and interact with each other. I do think its a bad idea to try and force these networks or presume they exist instead of actually seeking out and helping the ones that already exist.

I do, however, think a lot of community art is rubbish, but that’s fine because I think a lot of other established ‘mainstream’ art is also rubbish. Making the distinction between the two is actually patronising to the former.

To be honest the post was more of a writing exercise, I wanted to hit a certain tone, a style that I sometimes flirt with. I sent it to Chris and Ian honestly thinking that it wouldn’t get posted and if it did it would make a change from the very neutral, balanced pieces the call for submissions would almost certainly attract.

I am not however trying to retract anything I wrote or even apologise for it, merely clarify.

It’s true, I feel more at home in an old community centre than an elitist institution of ‘high’ art. I guess whatever art you dig is fine, but community art isn’t about art by committee – It’s about discussing issues (using art) with people beyond your bedroom window. I agree, mostly it hangs around for longer than it should, and is probably meaningless to you (and anyone else who didn’t make it). But that’s because you’re too old to be playing table tennis at the youth club. You, your gang/unit/community/ group probably has no problems finding a wall to draw on.

“The major purpose for which we must use our money is to cultivate new audiences for the arts; it must not be done by means of a confidence trick… It is very necessary, if we are to be a civilised and cultivated nation, that we teach people the worthwhile things in life” (Lord Goodman, chair, Annual Report of 1966)

and here’s today’s quangospeak:
“We’ve worked with our funded organisations to introduce new ways to measure
how effective we are at working together as a sector, leading to the recruitment of 150 artistic assessors and a new self-evaluation framework for arts organisations.” (Alan Davey, Chief Exec, Annual Review 2010)

Perhaps Danny could write next year’s report? – I’m up for proofreading :)