Building Public Will For Arts And Culture

Probably The Only Time Comic Sans Is Appropriate In A Planning Document

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Back in February CityLab covered an effort by residents of the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul, MN to get people invested in contributing to the Small Area Plan for their neighborhood.  This was in part driven by the experience the Frogtown Neighborhood Association voted to refurbish an historic theater in town but the mayor choose to direct the money to a police shooting range because the theater wasn’t in the neighborhood’s small area plan.

Because Small Area Plans, like strategic plans tend to be dry documents that get put on a shelf never to be consulted, the Frogtown Neighborhood Association were determined to make their plan a living document with which people interacted. They did this by placing the plan and the feedback they received from hundreds of residents into the framework of a comic book.

What I admire about the document is that they create 8 characters who are experts on major areas of concern like land use, housing, transportation, education, arts, health and wellness, economic vitality and resource allocation.  They make each of these people representative of different demographic segments like long time residents, house owners, apartment renters, kids, married couples, single college grads, etc.

By doing so they put a face and connect expertise to different people in the neighborhood so it is more difficult to dismiss people as gentrifiers or cranky malcontents standing in the way of progress.

They reiterate their goal quite a few times across the book to employ design thinking to “Sculpt our community into a mixed income, arts, entrepreneurship and education centered urban village.”

Because it is a planning document it is still pretty text heavy, but this is an example of what is contained within the book.  As I sort of implied before, you could probably do worse than applying this approach to your strategic plan.

 

Kickin’–Erm, Springboarding Infographics Up A Notch

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Hat tip to Andrew Taylor for calling attention to ever awesome Springboard for the Arts’ “Year In Review” report which consists of a short letter from Executive Director Laura Zabel but more prominently features the following infographic which you can print and color.

I feel like this is a great example of the underlying message and goal of the Creating Connection I keep advocating for.

It basically tells people, “Springboard for the Arts is an organization that promotes arts, culture and creative expression, all things in which you can participate…so pick up crayons, markers or colored pencils and get started.”

If you are like me and are inspired by this sort of thing, share it! (Or maybe color it first and then share it)

 

Oh The Places You’ll See When You Can Ride The Rail For Free

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Last week CityLab wrote about the European Union’s plan to offer 18 year old residents a free 30 day Interrail pass this summer.  What this means is that potentially 20,000-30,000 teenagers will have the opportunity to travel across 30 countries this summer.

Why fund a bunch of free trips? The intent is to broaden young participants’ horizons and hopefully instill some sense of Europe’s connections. “Education is not only about what we learn in the classroom, but what we discover about the cultures and traditions of our fellow Europeans,” Tibor Navracsics, E.U. Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, said in a press release.

This reminded me of a program I wrote about a couple years back where the Italian government provided a culture voucher worth €500 to 18 year olds.

As I quoted from an article on The Stage (UK):

It can be used to buy books, pay for entry fees to parks, museums and archaeological sites, and instead of cash for theatre, cinema and concert tickets. The euros in the app are spent by the young people and the arts organisations then reclaim this money off the state.

I will have to see if I can find an article about how well Italy felt the program went. It bears reading The Stage article because it explores the idea of funding culture on the demand side versus the supply side.

Move Over Laughter, Singing May Be The Best Medicine

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When Daniel Pink tweets that choral singing might be the new exercise, you know I have to investigate even if it is just clickbait.

There seems to be some scientific basis to the claim, however.

Choral singing calms the heart and boosts endorphin levels. It improves lung function. It increases pain thresholds and reduces the need for pain medication,” Pink claims, citing research published in Evolution and Human Behavior. It also seems to improve your outlook, boosting mood and self-esteem while alleviating feelings of stress and depression.

These aren’t simply effects of singing. “People who sing in a group report far higher well-being than those who sing solo,” he notes. It’s about synchronizing with others. Rowers and dancers have similarly shown a greater capacity to endure pain when performing in time with others.

While there are some benefits accrued from the physical flexing of lungs and diaphragm, most of the benefits seem to result from the collaborative and communal aspects of choral music.

So even for those who don’t want to participate because they don’t enjoy singing, this seems to point to there being some benefits in active participation in arts and cultural activities. The close coordination found in choral, dance, theater productions seem to bring the best benefits, probably because they require a employing social skills connected with concession and negotiation.

But I have to imagine people would gain some benefits, albeit to a lesser degree, participating in a social, hands on creative activity with others versus passive observation.

The study in Evolution and Human Behavior looked at the bonds formed between people who met frequently (~once a week) in small choral groups and then came together with other choral groups to form a mega choir once or twice a year.

Importantly, we show that even after only a single session of singing, a large group of unfamiliar individuals can become bonded to the same level as those who are familiar to each other within that group.

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Our results suggest that communal singing can cause a significant increase in social closeness of large groups of unfamiliar individuals (c.f. Pearce, Launay, & Dunbar, 2015). In other words, communal singing may bypass the need for personal knowledge about other individuals that more intimate relationships require.

I suspect the shared experience and interest in singing helps form these strong bonds quickly. The study says music specifically has a pivotal role forming bonds across human evolutionary history. The study also seems to say there is an aspect of social bonding that allow these connections to coalesce quickly even during less formal and infrequent contacts.

Something to think about and explore.