Art and Culture Issues in Oxford Cowley Road - Essay Example

Topic: Art and Culture issues in oxford Cowley Road Cowley Road is an arterial road in the of Oxford, England. It is the primary shopping area and a passing leisure time for the adjacent communities of east Oxford scrolling on the Cowley Street. Ethnically and economically diverse communities inhabit the area, particularly South-Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities with recent joining of East European, Chinese and African communities. Cowley Road was renovated in 2005 by Oxfordshire County Council with a grant of about £1,000,000 from central government to re-structure the busiest part of Cowley Road (Wikipedia, 2010). The tradition of celebrating the Cowley Road Carnival started in 2001. It was a regeneration project. Before the Carnival project, the Cowley Road had a notorious image of crime. It was the local communities demand to cleanse the Cowley Road from the negative impact through East Oxford Action’s regeneration programme. Since then, the Carnival has become a regular practice for the regeneration of the area (seco). The Cowley Road has become a place for art and culture exhibition openly. According to Marcusen (2006), artists are not evenly scattered in cities, their distribution depends on their choices to live, employment opportunities in industries like media, advertising and publishing and keen interest taken by local authorities to support art work for its development. Artists add to the regional economic growth by exporting their art work and creating opportunities for import functions from other cities and areas to their city. Smaller performing art spaces also play a significant part in expansion of art work to other areas. A group of artists get formed in such urban spaces where local art flourishes and gets a place in economy of the region (p.1). It seems so true of the experience the Cowley Road Carnival of cultural show is giving to the ethnic communities there. The Cowley Road Carnival attends to local communities’ aspirations by contributing to specific themes and resolving of certain issues, which have become a priority. Issues and themes include: * fortifying communities and partnering with people * generating employment through economic growth * promote training, skills development and life-long learning * health issues of children and young people * decreasing crime rate and fear of crime The carnival has become a symbol of local peoples’ tolerance of each other communities with the celebration of their feelings through the multicultural show. The carnival has become a raging success because of the collaborative support from the people, groups, schools and local organisations, representing art and culture but where from these artists come? (seco, 2010) In this context, it is argued by social theorists that artists are the soul of society, attacking aggressively and finding public support for issues like peace, environment, tolerance and freedom of thought. It is well expressed by Wendy Morris, dancer, arts administrator and consultant, that the illusion is quite tempting to think that artists are one big creative class family. There is something wrong in the status quo of the society. Social structures don’t add anything positive to the deficiency of human conditions; they make the condition even worse. Truth is not as simple and easy to believe and we need to accept the truth. “Creative class” is formed by such people who are finding ways to make the society humane; they are concerned to create a society that is based on the principles of equality, justice and sustainable social and physical environment. Actually, artists have keen interest in initiating issues of public interest (Marcusen, 2006, p. 23). Social issues like safety, wages, education and health find active support from artists and cultural shows. The current example of such initiative by artists has been taken by the Artists’ Trust in the Washington state, fighting for the insurance of the artists, associated to the organization and also for all those who are not insured. Major tolerance campaigns are run by artists on GLBT issues. Causes of ethnic communities are taken forward, which are well exhibited through urban city cultural shows (Marcusen, 2006, p. 26). Such cultural and art exhibits add to the city’s robust life to regenerate the feeling of kinship among communities. Health of the local communities is one such issue that the government is promoting in different ways like using arts in healthcare training, designing of healthcare infrastructure for the wellbeing of patients, using theatre as a medium to highlight themes related to sexual health, health benefits of laughing and by providing health related knowledge to the communities through libraries (seco). It is for the policy makers to see how artists are impacting societies and cities through their collaborative art work. What are their areas of interest, the crucial issues and the place the policy initiatives hold in the process? After diagnosing the targeted talent and art, policy makers need to invest in city planning tactics and draw cultural policies to spend resources in the development of the city, enlivening it and bringing the city at par with other developed regions. A lot of work needs to be done by city planners in the urban redevelopment process of a city, not just from tourism promotion angle but from the point of view growth of specific areas. The main conclusion is that some cities become the central place of art and cultural activity not because of atomistic responses to facilities but due to investment made by city planners in the art and cultural growth of space and organizations (Marcusen, 2006, p. 30). Testing Marcusen’s thesis on city planning, we find that the Cowley Road Carnival has paved the way to spatially plan the city for cultural rejuvenation by raising their living standards, providing employment, houses and better community locations for celebrations and gatherings. Such spatial planning helps in saving the natural environment and open spaces for the local communities well being and entertainment (http://www.communities.gov.uk/citiesandregions/about/). Such planning of the inner cities and popular roads is happening at national scale by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) through planning policy and issuing policy statements. In the south east region, the Regional Assembly is responsible for presenting a Regional Spatial Strategy. Other than regional strategies, sub regional strategies in collaboration with local authority cover Central Oxfordshire, the Gatwick area and South Hampshire. Local Development Framework for the local urban regeneration and growth is prepared by the local authorities. One of the cultural benefits of such planning has been securing the communities. It is the vision of the government to develop cities and regions into economically growing areas full of opportunities for all people to bring the cities at par with top competing cities of the world (http://www.communities.gov.uk/citiesandregions/about/). Let’s see the Cowley Road Carnival in the context of what Sharp (2007) has discussed through the notion of ‘new genre public art’ which has become the medium to ‘engage with communities and existing social struggles, to develop collaboration and dialogue with residents, and to employ different modes of address’. Public art has become the end of celebrating the community participation in urban regeneration by using artists as means of the end result. Art contributes to the city life and makes it vivid and ‘convivial’ by seriously participating in such projects initiated through concurrent urban policy to provide them a feeling of relatedness and common identity. It is claimed that public art adds to the local specialisation by better use of urban space, creating rights, decreasing vandalism, and bringing performance in different economic measures of a region (p. 275). The Five Spaces project in Glasgow, Scotland is an example of the role of public art in designing the urban public space and life. The Five Spaces were developed by artists and architects with community support as part of the city’s year as UK City of Architecture and Design 1999 (hereafter shortened to Glasgow 1999). The purpose was to present the logic that the city was not just a place of holding events and museums in the city centre or earnings through tourism or developing business over there. The bid for the award for Glasgow’s sense of ‘participation’ in the City of Architecture and Design stated: ‘Architecture and design are not enough. If a city is to serve its people, and not impose upon them, the processes by which a city is created, and re-created, must be opened up to everyone’. The purpose was to move away from city centre to marginal areas giving an opportunity to the communities to frame the agenda (Sharp, 2007, p. 277). Other than the government spatial planning of the Oxford inner city and Cowley Road, the great yearly event has been funded by a host of sponsors like Arts Council England, Oxford City Council and BMW Group Plant Oxford. Consecutive successful parading of the carnival has impacted the social structure of the city positively. Crime rate has come down, particularly during the carnival. All ethnic communities become a part of the carnival (seco, 2010). References: Markusen, Ann. (2006) Urban development and the politics of a creative class: evidence from the study of artists. Environment and Planning Vol. 38 (10) pp. 1-30 [online]. Available from: http://www.hhh.umn.edu/projects/prie/ [accessed 5 May 2010] seco. (2010) (SECO) [Internet]. UK. Available from: http://www.seco.org.uk/laatoolkit/content/contentcasestudies/thecowleyroadcarnivalarearegenerationandcommunityinvolvement.html [accessed 5 May 2010] Sharp, Joanne. (2007) The life and death of five spaces: public art and community regeneration in Glasgow. Cultural Geographies Vol. 14 pp 274-292 [online]. Available from: http://cgj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/2/274 [accessed 5 May 2010] Themes. (2010) Health themes [Internet]. Available from: http://www.communities.gov.uk/citiesandregions/about/[accessed 5 May 2010] Wikipedia. (2010) Cowley Road, Oxford [Internet]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowley_Road,_Oxford [accessed 5 May 2010] Read More