I have been contacted by a student from the University of Manchester who is writing his major dissertation titled “What role does art/culture play in urban regeneration?”.
He has asked some specific questions and wanting my own opinions, however after a week of deliberating thoughts, I can’t get to the bottom of the true reasons to why art/culture is used to attract investors for regeneration.
His questions are:
- Why is art used in regeneration in your opinion?
- What sort of art should it be?
- How should this type of art be produced?
- How should it be incorporated into the development?
- What impact does art have on the development?
- What are the impacts upon the local population?
Please post your own ideas, get some thought process happening to aid this student.
Maybe you should point him in our direction here at The Public Gallery in West Bromwich. I am the Gallery Technical manager (former employee of Millennium Point and Thinktank).
There’s also the planning gain element in that some councils require large developments to provide a percentage for artworks (sorry I can’t remember the actual rules for this or how uniformly applied the scheme is).
Applying a percentage for art usually results in sculpture of highly variable quality, though sometimes there have been more interesting projects funded in this way: http://www.museumoflostheritage.org/index.htm
Comedia and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have both published research on the impact of culture on regeneration and their reports are on the web.
The Guardian had an interesting debate on what the public involvement should be in deciding what the art actually is: http://tinyurl.com/62dtcc
[...] Why is Art and Culture used to stimulate redevelopment? Simon from the Birmingham Eastside blog has been asked some questions related to the above on his blog. Suggestions for answers are welcome. [...]
Direct him to – http://www.lowereastsidedialogues.co.uk/
This explains the public Dialogues that Steve Harding and myself organised a year or so back on these issues. Most notably the first one, on Culture and Regeneration, at which Franco Bianchini, Glenn Howells and Mary Matthews spoke, T
he Dialogue was filmed and a dvd is available with all the participants discussing the question – Culture and Regeneration.
Remember – there’s Upper Eastside – steel and glass and new build; and Lower Eastside, heritage and grain and grunge.
Roger Shannon