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Civilization Advances on the Land, from Grasslands - Where Heaven Meets Earth, an artist-community arts event at the Grasslands National Park near Val Marie, Saskatchewan. (Photo: Common Weal Community Arts Inc.)
See article, Living culture in the grasslands. |
Acting as true cultural citizens
All over the world, the arts are breathing renewed life into cities, neighbourhoods and regions. Culture and quality of life seem to go together – but how can we assemble all the ingredients to ensure that new cultural strategies are successful in bringing about lasting transformations in our societies?
These were the issues being debated at Cultural Cities, Cities of the Future,1 an international symposium held in Montreal this October, organized by Culture Montréal and SECOR in partnership with the City of Montreal. Individuals working in the arts and culture from Frankfurt, Lyon, Lille, Strasbourg, Barcelona, London, Toronto, Quebec City and Montreal were unanimous in agreeing that everyone – politicians, business men and women, artists and citizens – had a responsibility in ensuring that human development remains an ongoing priority.
Despite a host of successful cultural initiatives that can be seen on every continent, there is no guarantee that the arts and culture will automatically be taken into account when key development decisions are being made. Indeed, it is often necessary to cajole and convince politicians and decision-makers to take up the culture challenge. Often faced with indifference or resistance, it is sometimes tempting to throw up one’s arms and let culture be relegated to the fringe. After all, just whose responsibility is it to ensure that culture be actively promoted: federal, provincial or municipal politicians, the arts community on its own, private investors, the general public?
The Montreal symposium, which brought together municipal and regional politicians and cultural administrators from around the world, demonstrated very clearly the importance of making culture a core component in our lives.
At the first session, Quebec City Mayor Jean-Paul L’Allier spoke about a project to revitalize the city’s St-Roch neighbourhood, which is taking place thanks to the presence and work of visual artists. He described how economic interests had let the neighbourhood fall into disrepair and how further damage had been inflicted by mindless road construction. Today, the neighbourhood has come back to life. It is home to major schools; Méduse (a centre that houses arts and community organizations) has established its offices and studios there; and green spaces have been developed. The inhabitants can see clearly that there is a political commitment to investing on a human scale. Mayor L’Allier emphasized the importance of a ‘cultural predisposition’ among politicians.
Marie-Christine Staniec Wavrant, a city councillor from Lille, described the phases involved in the transformation of the former industrial town in the north of France into a European cultural capital – with the added bonus of rejuvenating a highly populated and economically-disadvantaged neighbourhood. Ferran Mascarell discussed the unifying role that culture has played in the post-Franco development of Barcelona. And Patrice Béghain, from Lyon, emphasized the increasing responsibilities of municipalities in championing cultural matters.
These presentations resonated strongly when three young individuals from Saint-Michel, one of Montreal’s most underprivileged neighbourhoods, described the extent to which TOHU, La Cité des arts du cirque (which played host to the first day of the symposium), has played a role in the social, economic and multicultural rejuvenation of their community. Their message was filled with gratitude, enthusiasm and hope, and would have moved even the most skeptical critic of culture.
The most eagerly awaited event of the second day (held at the Canadian Centre for Architecture) was a talk by Charles Landry, known internationally for his work on the cultural revitalization of cities. Landry’s presentation, to an audience of about 200, was a rapid-fire tour of the world filled with thought-provoking remarks and riveting images. A sad-looking city with concrete buildings repainted in vivid colours to break up the monotony of the community followed an image of a magnificent natural site collapsing under the weight of garish boutiques, eager to exploit the tourist potential.
At the heart of his presentation was a simple question: What is culture? To Landry, it is the possibility of thinking creatively – an answer full of enormous potential for debate in summing up the complexity of contemporary life. Landry’s observations attested to the positive results that come from involving all citizens in creative thinking, and from giving people a right of cultural citizenship.
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| Lecturer Charles Landry, of the United Kingdom , at the symposium Cultural Cities, Cities of the Future, during his presentation The Creative City: Rhetoric and Reality. (Photo: Alain Chagnon) |
Tim Jones from Artscape Toronto discussed how the creation of the Gibraltar Point arts centre had literally saved the life of the city’s historical distillery district and given Torontonians a new cultural hub. Lise Bissonnette, director of the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, talked about how the architecture of Montreal’s new library would allow users to make use of both the premises and literature in a wide variety of ways (reading rooms, workshops, lectures, etc.).
The over-all tenor of the symposium’s discussions (see: www.culturemontreal.ca) was nicely encapsulated in opening remarks by Simon Brault, Chair of Culture Montréal and Vice-Chair of the Canada Council for the Arts: “We need to reinvent, expand, open up, reposition and refinance the cultural programs and tools that have been in place for the past sixty years, so they can live up to today’s challenges, and most of all, so they can stimulate the enormous potential for human development that our citizens hope for and deserve.”
The conclusions were clear: in their neighbourhoods, villages, towns and cities, Canadians are entitled to a diverse cultural citizenship that is strongly-rooted and outward-looking, and everyone needs to be engaged in the full cultural development of their communities.
1 The symposium was held as part of the 17th edition of Les Entretiens Jacques-Cartier, an annual event that encourages the pooling of knowledge from different realms.
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