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Information about The Participation Project
and What do you think happens to a community if the people there make things together, if they collaborate in creative ways to build something? If they build altars or make murals or decorate their neighborhood in other ways, what extra effect might that kind of activity have on the neighborhood and on the quality of their lives? The Participation Project is the name of a research initiative based on the reasoning that there must be some very important answers to these questions, that there are some very helpful "extras" to community-based artmaking. Possibly the act of making art together provides other elements that strengthen community life, like
If we can begin to show how all these things are true, policy makers and funders of all kinds may begin to pay more attention to the importance of supporting arts and culture in the ways it already thrives in our neighborhoods. The Participation Project was started two years ago by Getty Research Institute as a way to engage people in a dialogue about the value of art and culture at the grassroots level—how we can define arts and culture not just as something that exists in a museum, but that exists deeply and richly in our neighborhoods as well. Also we can show how arts and culture at the community level can function as a catalyst for strengthening the social fabric at the same time as it allows for individual creative expression. The Participation Project is a collaboration between the Getty, Self-Help Graphics, and Proyecto Pastoral. The Urban Institute, based in Washington, D.C., is the fourth partner in the Project whose role is to help document and assess the process. The Project is making possible the funds needed for the workshops that are leading up to both the Day of the Dead, Día de La Vírgen de Guadalupe and Las Posadas. The Project is also documenting the entire process, including conducting interviews with a variety of participants. These interviews are part of the information-gathering we have been accomplishing over the past six months, information that we hope will help us understand why and how artmaking is so important at the community level. Sometime in the spring of next year, a report will be released that shares what we learned through this collaboration. The Getty/Self Help/Proyecto case will be one part of a national study that is being conducted by the Urban Institute. We hope that, in conjunction with the information gained from other community based organizations in other cities in the U.S., we can present at least the beginning of a very convincing case about the value of community-based artmaking. If you have any questions about the Participation Project or the Getty Research Institute, please call Josephine Ramirez at 310-440-7454. |