For a large print version please contact the engage office: [email protected]
This PDF is an extract from engage publication:
• engage review Promoting greater understanding and enjoyment of the visual arts
• Inclusion under Pressure
• Issue 11 – Winter 2001
• 72 pages
• ISSN 1365-9383
The original publication is available from engage as below, subject to stocks.
This text is copyright, and is made available for personal/educational use only, and may not be used commercially or published in any way, in print or electronically, without the express permission of the copyright holders engage. engage reiterates its gratitude to the authors and editors concerned, many of whom work without fee. For more details of engage see end.
Contents
Inclusion under Pressure Issue 11 – Winter 2001
Editorial
Phyllida Shaw Home Truths
Bernadette Lynch If the Museum is the Gateway, who is the Gatekeeper?
Kahve-Society The International Art World and its Exclusions: a Coffee-House Conversation
Sophie Hope Subversive Social Work
Mark O’Neill The People Versus
Alison Cox & Jane Sillis The Climate of Debate: a view from the ground
Liz Ellis The Backlash to Access
Roz Hall Tailor-made Practice
Felicity Allen The Hayward Gallery working with the Department of Health
Sally Tallant & Jane Sillis Blind Spot: the Serpentine Gallery and Look Ahead Housing
Kajsa Ravin Inclusion depends on Professionalisation: Interview with Christopher Naylor
Reviews Emily Pringle Crossing the Line: Extending Young People’s Access to Cultural Venues Educated About Public Art?
Felicity Allen Museums and Social Inclusion: The GLLAM Report
Editorial, Inclusion under Pressure
Karen Raney
I am happy to say that the editorial advisory board for engage review has expanded. We now have two new UK members and five international members:
Sue Clive (freelance arts educator, England) Catherine Orbach (De La Warr Pavilion, England) Declan McGonagle (Director, City Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland) Gavin Jantjes (Director, Hennie Onstadt, Oslo, Norway) Kaija Kaitavuori (Head of Education, Kiasma, Finland) Claude Fourteau (Associate Director Education, Louvre, France) Ken Robinson (Education Research & Development, Getty Centre, USA) Erico Osaka (Curator, Art Tower Mito, Japan) I look forward to working with the new group and to developing the international profile of the magazine.
This has not been an easy issue to put together. ‘Social inclusion’ is a subject that has had much airing in the UK over the last few years. The Labour government’s policy has generated research, publications, project work, a good deal of confusion, and some vehement opposition both from within museums and galleries and from outside sources. On the one hand, people have grown weary of talking about social inclusion. On the other hand, there is a feeling that the subject has not been debated in sufficient depth by those working in gallery and museum education. The aim of this issue is to provide a space for those in the field to clarify their positions and thus add to the understanding of the complex ideas involved. Where disagreement arises, what is being fought over is the very nature of art and artefacts, and the purpose of the institutions which govern their display.
Phyllida Shaw gives a brief history of public policy regarding inclusion since the Labour Party’s election in 1997. The advisor to the government, cutural critic François Matarasso, understands social exclusion not as a label but as a process, a side-effect of the way majorities organise to meet their interests. The process operates throughout society and its institutions. In this view, a gallery or museum will be part of the ‘excluding’ process and thus can play a part in reversing it. As a result of this kind of analysis and documents like the PAT 10 report which flowed from it, different parts of the public sector - health, justice, education and care - have been working more closely together with arts institutions. Shaw is optimistic that this sharing of responsibility will lead to the long-term changes the policy makers have in mind - the involvement of more people in the political and economic life of the nation. The interview with Kajsa Ravin in Sweden is a reminder that, while the UK may be concerned with social inclusion, elsewhere it may scarcely be on the agenda.
In inclusion or access work, certain groups are identified as ‘excluded’ and programmes are devised to cater for them. Hovering over this seemingly simple act are big questions about culture, class and difference. What is the basis for making these judgements? What are the ‘excluded’ being included into? Roz Hall points out that while the rationale for inclusive art education is to empower, labelling people ‘excluded’ can be in itself disempowering. In the course of a community arts project, Hall had to revise her own assumptions about the group of young people she was working with. Few want to see themselves as the ‘other’, society’s victims in need of rescue, or a target group with predetermined needs.
Kahve Society’s article offers the most sceptical view, regarding ideas of social inclusion and cultural diversity as suspect products of globalisation and neo-liberal capitalism. Terms such as ‘multiculturalism’, ‘internationalism’ or ‘transnationism’ may serve to gloss over the very real conflicts of interest and hierarchies of power which underpin the workings of the international art world.
Kahve Society reports on the recent Istanbul / London ‘Coffee-House Conversations’ that took as their subject the international art bienniale, and ways in which inclusion and exclusion are negotiated in the age of globalisation. One of the speakers, Zeynek Celip, points out the tendency for non-Western artists to be consigned to the role of the ‘other’ in the art institutions of Europe and North America. As a consequence, such artists feel the need to fashion themselves as ‘hybrid’ or ‘authentic’ in response to the demands of Western markets. To another speaker, Kevin Robins, the very concept of ‘identity’ is suspect. It is rooted in nationalism and based on the idea of unitary cultures to which one either belongs or does not belong. He urges an enlargement of the concept of identity, to take into account the modern condition of living between cultures, semi- attached to, and semi-detached from, each one.
One criticism of the inclusion policy in the UK is that cultural organisations are being asked to compensate for the failure of other social agencies. ‘Can museums really be a catalyst for positive social change’ writes Felicity Allen, ‘if housing, education, health - the realities which define social exclusion in the first place - are left to deteriorate?’ Another criticism is that the social inclusion agenda corrupts the higher purpose of galleries and museums. The Insitute of Ideas (IoI) has recently organised some high profile events to air these kinds of reservations. According to the IoI, the misguided attempt of museums to cure social ills leads to ‘dumbing down’, and distraction from what is assumed to be the core function of museums - the preservation, study and display of their collections. Several of the articles in this volume are, in part, a response to the IoI’s charges. Jane Sillis, Alison Cox and Liz Ellis draw attention to the many inaccuracies they perceive in the IoI’s account of social inclusion work. They argue that both the history of the idea of social inclusion and the nature of gallery education have been misunderstood and thus misrepresented. Mark O’Neill finds the IoI’s arguments weak and suggests the anxieties which might lie behind their position. It is the lack of robust debate within museums themselves, he says, that leaves them open to attacks of this kind.
Sophie Hope’s article shifts attention from education to art practice. She identifies art practice which is ‘socially engaged’, that is, committed to change but also committed to challenging the ideology of social inclusion. Far from carrying out policy directives, socially engaged art can be intentionally exclusive, and often works for change outside of institutions. Rather than labelling groups and then administering to them, these works try to set up situations where individuals can decide how they want to be understood and perceived. Hope calls attention to the subversive potential of art and the complicated relationship artists have toward social responsibility and received notions of inclusion.
Inclusive education work will take a different form in museums and in galleries. Galleries take as their starting point a current exhibition or work of art; bridges are built from this to the experiences and creative activities of the participants. The Serpentine Gallery’s collaboration with Look Ahead Housing and Care, and the Hayward Gallery’s work with the Department of Health, are examples of this approach. In museums, inclusion work is often about re-interpreting ethnographic collections. Bernadette Lynch details a project at The Manchester Museum in which Somalian women are invited to respond to one of the photographic collections. The emphasis is on allowing ‘hidden’ or ‘other’ histories to break into the fixed story usually told about the museum’s objects. Lynch suggests that this kind of intervention might help all of us to rethink, not only a particular set of objects, but the rationale of museums themselves.
A primary challenge for galleries and museums working with a social inclusion agenda is to seek good, long-term partnerships between arts organisations and social agencies. Such partnerships may be difficult to set up and sustain, but they are vital if projects are to be of lasting benefit to all concerned. Another challenge is to combine access with excellence - to ensure that any artwork produced through inclusion projects is of a high standard, while being realistic about what the arts can do for vulnerable or marginalised people. Self-critique and debate must be actively encouraged: thus the emphasis by many of the writers below on thorough and balanced evaluation which admits of failure as well as success.
Rather than just assisting ‘access’ to a more or less intact programme, inclusion in its wider sense means galleries and museums laying themselves open to change through the infiltration of other views. This can only be done by giving over some of the real power of decision making and interpretation. But inclusion in the wider sense is not just a matter of unseating privilege or being fair. It is a matter of deepening and complicating our relationship to culture and its products. Ken Robins reminds us that ‘the achievements of European culture were a consequence of openness and creative incorporations’. If galleries and museums are to evolve along with the societies that give rise to them, such a spirit of openness and creative incorporations may prove to be essential
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
engage is a registered not-for-profit educational association which promotes access to and understanding of the visual arts through gallery education and cultural mediation nationally and internationally.
engage has a membership of over 1000 worldwide, including galleries, arts centres, museums, artists studios, artists, curators, teachers, students as well as gallery education and cultural mediation staff and freelancers. engage works in three key areas: action-research (including the Collect & Share lifelong learning network in Europe – see www.collectandshare.eu.com), professional development, advocacy (see www.engage.org).
engage is building an international online case study database, and a resource and library of relevant reports, evaluations, and research. engage welcomes offers of material to make available to the sector through these channels.
To enquire about copyright, to subscribe to the engage journal or join engage, or to offer material for the database or website, please email [email protected]
engage is grateful to the Arts Councils of England, Scotland and Wales, to the Depts of Culture and Education in England, to the British Council and the European Commission, and to the Esmee Fairbairn and Baring Foundations for ongoing support.
This PDF is an extract from engage publication:
• engage review Promoting greater understanding and enjoyment of the visual arts
• Inclusion under Pressure
• Issue 11 – Winter 2001
• 72 pages
• ISSN 1365-9383
The original publication is available from engage as below, subject to stocks.
This text is copyright, and is made available for personal/educational use only, and may not be used commercially or published in any way, in print or electronically, without the express permission of the copyright holders engage. engage reiterates its gratitude to the authors and editors concerned, many of whom work without fee. For more details of engage see end.
Contents
Inclusion under Pressure Issue 11 – Winter 2001
Editorial
Phyllida Shaw Home Truths
Bernadette Lynch If the Museum is the Gateway, who is the Gatekeeper?
Kahve-Society The International Art World and its Exclusions: a Coffee-House Conversation
Sophie Hope Subversive Social Work
Mark O’Neill The People Versus
Alison Cox & Jane Sillis The Climate of Debate: a view from the ground
Liz Ellis The Backlash to Access
Roz Hall Tailor-made Practice
Felicity Allen The Hayward Gallery working with the Department of Health
Sally Tallant & Jane Sillis Blind Spot: the Serpentine Gallery and Look Ahead Housing
Kajsa Ravin Inclusion depends on Professionalisation: Interview with Christopher Naylor
Reviews Emily Pringle Crossing the Line: Extending Young People’s Access to Cultural Venues Educated About Public Art?
Felicity Allen Museums and Social Inclusion: The GLLAM Report
Editorial, Inclusion under Pressure
Karen Raney
I am happy to say that the editorial advisory board for engage review has expanded. We now have two new UK members and five international members:
Sue Clive (freelance arts educator, England) Catherine Orbach (De La Warr Pavilion, England) Declan McGonagle (Director, City Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland) Gavin Jantjes (Director, Hennie Onstadt, Oslo, Norway) Kaija Kaitavuori (Head of Education, Kiasma, Finland) Claude Fourteau (Associate Director Education, Louvre, France) Ken Robinson (Education Research & Development, Getty Centre, USA) Erico Osaka (Curator, Art Tower Mito, Japan) I look forward to working with the new group and to developing the international profile of the magazine.
This has not been an easy issue to put together. ‘Social inclusion’ is a subject that has had much airing in the UK over the last few years. The Labour government’s policy has generated research, publications, project work, a good deal of confusion, and some vehement opposition both from within museums and galleries and from outside sources. On the one hand, people have grown weary of talking about social inclusion. On the other hand, there is a feeling that the subject has not been debated in sufficient depth by those working in gallery and museum education. The aim of this issue is to provide a space for those in the field to clarify their positions and thus add to the understanding of the complex ideas involved. Where disagreement arises, what is being fought over is the very nature of art and artefacts, and the purpose of the institutions which govern their display.
Phyllida Shaw gives a brief history of public policy regarding inclusion since the Labour Party’s election in 1997. The advisor to the government, cutural critic François Matarasso, understands social exclusion not as a label but as a process, a side-effect of the way majorities organise to meet their interests. The process operates throughout society and its institutions. In this view, a gallery or museum will be part of the ‘excluding’ process and thus can play a part in reversing it. As a result of this kind of analysis and documents like the PAT 10 report which flowed from it, different parts of the public sector - health, justice, education and care - have been working more closely together with arts institutions. Shaw is optimistic that this sharing of responsibility will lead to the long-term changes the policy makers have in mind - the involvement of more people in the political and economic life of the nation. The interview with Kajsa Ravin in Sweden is a reminder that, while the UK may be concerned with social inclusion, elsewhere it may scarcely be on the agenda.
In inclusion or access work, certain groups are identified as ‘excluded’ and programmes are devised to cater for them. Hovering over this seemingly simple act are big questions about culture, class and difference. What is the basis for making these judgements? What are the ‘excluded’ being included into? Roz Hall points out that while the rationale for inclusive art education is to empower, labelling people ‘excluded’ can be in itself disempowering. In the course of a community arts project, Hall had to revise her own assumptions about the group of young people she was working with. Few want to see themselves as the ‘other’, society’s victims in need of rescue, or a target group with predetermined needs.
Kahve Society’s article offers the most sceptical view, regarding ideas of social inclusion and cultural diversity as suspect products of globalisation and neo-liberal capitalism. Terms such as ‘multiculturalism’, ‘internationalism’ or ‘transnationism’ may serve to gloss over the very real conflicts of interest and hierarchies of power which underpin the workings of the international art world.
Kahve Society reports on the recent Istanbul / London ‘Coffee-House Conversations’ that took as their subject the international art bienniale, and ways in which inclusion and exclusion are negotiated in the age of globalisation. One of the speakers, Zeynek Celip, points out the tendency for non-Western artists to be consigned to the role of the ‘other’ in the art institutions of Europe and North America. As a consequence, such artists feel the need to fashion themselves as ‘hybrid’ or ‘authentic’ in response to the demands of Western markets. To another speaker, Kevin Robins, the very concept of ‘identity’ is suspect. It is rooted in nationalism and based on the idea of unitary cultures to which one either belongs or does not belong. He urges an enlargement of the concept of identity, to take into account the modern condition of living between cultures, semi- attached to, and semi-detached from, each one.
One criticism of the inclusion policy in the UK is that cultural organisations are being asked to compensate for the failure of other social agencies. ‘Can museums really be a catalyst for positive social change’ writes Felicity Allen, ‘if housing, education, health - the realities which define social exclusion in the first place - are left to deteriorate?’ Another criticism is that the social inclusion agenda corrupts the higher purpose of galleries and museums. The Insitute of Ideas (IoI) has recently organised some high profile events to air these kinds of reservations. According to the IoI, the misguided attempt of museums to cure social ills leads to ‘dumbing down’, and distraction from what is assumed to be the core function of museums - the preservation, study and display of their collections. Several of the articles in this volume are, in part, a response to the IoI’s charges. Jane Sillis, Alison Cox and Liz Ellis draw attention to the many inaccuracies they perceive in the IoI’s account of social inclusion work. They argue that both the history of the idea of social inclusion and the nature of gallery education have been misunderstood and thus misrepresented. Mark O’Neill finds the IoI’s arguments weak and suggests the anxieties which might lie behind their position. It is the lack of robust debate within museums themselves, he says, that leaves them open to attacks of this kind.
Sophie Hope’s article shifts attention from education to art practice. She identifies art practice which is ‘socially engaged’, that is, committed to change but also committed to challenging the ideology of social inclusion. Far from carrying out policy directives, socially engaged art can be intentionally exclusive, and often works for change outside of institutions. Rather than labelling groups and then administering to them, these works try to set up situations where individuals can decide how they want to be understood and perceived. Hope calls attention to the subversive potential of art and the complicated relationship artists have toward social responsibility and received notions of inclusion.
Inclusive education work will take a different form in museums and in galleries. Galleries take as their starting point a current exhibition or work of art; bridges are built from this to the experiences and creative activities of the participants. The Serpentine Gallery’s collaboration with Look Ahead Housing and Care, and the Hayward Gallery’s work with the Department of Health, are examples of this approach. In museums, inclusion work is often about re-interpreting ethnographic collections. Bernadette Lynch details a project at The Manchester Museum in which Somalian women are invited to respond to one of the photographic collections. The emphasis is on allowing ‘hidden’ or ‘other’ histories to break into the fixed story usually told about the museum’s objects. Lynch suggests that this kind of intervention might help all of us to rethink, not only a particular set of objects, but the rationale of museums themselves.
A primary challenge for galleries and museums working with a social inclusion agenda is to seek good, long-term partnerships between arts organisations and social agencies. Such partnerships may be difficult to set up and sustain, but they are vital if projects are to be of lasting benefit to all concerned. Another challenge is to combine access with excellence - to ensure that any artwork produced through inclusion projects is of a high standard, while being realistic about what the arts can do for vulnerable or marginalised people. Self-critique and debate must be actively encouraged: thus the emphasis by many of the writers below on thorough and balanced evaluation which admits of failure as well as success.
Rather than just assisting ‘access’ to a more or less intact programme, inclusion in its wider sense means galleries and museums laying themselves open to change through the infiltration of other views. This can only be done by giving over some of the real power of decision making and interpretation. But inclusion in the wider sense is not just a matter of unseating privilege or being fair. It is a matter of deepening and complicating our relationship to culture and its products. Ken Robins reminds us that ‘the achievements of European culture were a consequence of openness and creative incorporations’. If galleries and museums are to evolve along with the societies that give rise to them, such a spirit of openness and creative incorporations may prove to be essential
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
engage is a registered not-for-profit educational association which promotes access to and understanding of the visual arts through gallery education and cultural mediation nationally and internationally.
engage has a membership of over 1000 worldwide, including galleries, arts centres, museums, artists studios, artists, curators, teachers, students as well as gallery education and cultural mediation staff and freelancers. engage works in three key areas: action-research (including the Collect & Share lifelong learning network in Europe – see www.collectandshare.eu.com), professional development, advocacy (see www.engage.org).
engage is building an international online case study database, and a resource and library of relevant reports, evaluations, and research. engage welcomes offers of material to make available to the sector through these channels.
To enquire about copyright, to subscribe to the engage journal or join engage, or to offer material for the database or website, please email [email protected]
engage is grateful to the Arts Councils of England, Scotland and Wales, to the Depts of Culture and Education in England, to the British Council and the European Commission, and to the Esmee Fairbairn and Baring Foundations for ongoing support.