Art, governance and the turn to community: Lessons from a national action research project on community art and local government in Australia

This article reports on the outcomes of a major action research sponsored by the Australia Council of the Arts and the Melbourne-based Cultural Development Network (CDN). This project aimed to explore the contribution that well-planned and well-resourced community art projects could make to the capacity of local government authorities (LGAs) in Australia to engage more effectively with the concerns of their local communities and to carry out more effective strategic planning. The project was initiated by CDN in 2004 and gained the support of the Australia Council. It was suspended in 2005, as the Australia Council undertook a review in order to establish a new Community Partnerships programme within the organization. The project was revived in 2006 because it was seen as having a role to play in informing the work of the new Australia Council programme, and funding was secured for the development of projects in five different local government areas, ranging from urban Geelong to a rural shire centred on the Queensland town of Charters Towers. Mulligan and Smith tracked the development of the local projects in all five local government areas and presented a comparative study on what had been achieved in relation to the national aims of the project to the Australia Council, CDN and the participating LGAs. This article includes a concise rendition of the findings contained in the research report presented to the Australia Council. As well as reiterating what was learnt by comparing the outcomes of the five local projects, the article looks at what was learnt about the nature of good practice in community artwork as well as what was learnt about how to build more effective partnerships between people working within local government organizations and art practitioners working within and for local communities. Such partnerships require a determination to work across very different ways of working and thinking. The researchers were able to document the work of several very experienced and skilled Australian community art practitioners and it argues that the contribution such people can make to the well-being of local communities has been long undervalued. The article argues that the creation of an inclusive sense of community at the local level has now become a central task for local government in countries such as Australia. It argues that art can play a critical role in the creation of community.