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COMUSITÀRIA

Comusitària is a Community Cultural Development agency based in Barcelona run by Noemi Rubio and Laia Serra. They work in the production, management, research and dissemination of artistic projects that build social capital and enable citizens to live more active, critical and creative lives.

Since Comusitària began in 2008, Laia and Noemi have carried out an investigation into community music practices and projects throughout the UK with the support of the Arts Council of Catalunya and have undertaken a residency with the Community Arts Network in Adelaide (Australia). They recently conducted a study with the University of Barcelona looking at the potential of Community Cultural Development as a new model for cultural facilities management and have subsequently been invited to present their research at the European Research Network Sociology of Arts conference (Vienna, 2013) and at the International Conference in Arts and Cultural Management (Bogotá, 2014).

Both Laia and Noemi are members of the teaching staff on the Postgraduate degree in Sociocultural Animation and Community Development at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. They co-edited the monograph ‘Cultural Action and Community Development’ published by Graó (2011). They also are included in the “Map of experts and successful cases” of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Family of Catalunya and they are signed up to the ‘Inclusive Barcelona’ Agreement.

Check the website: comusitaria.wix.com/comusitaria

PERIPLUS

PERIPLUS is a project which aims to investigate, document and promote contemporary art practices in cultural and social contexts where arts are used as a key element in community building.

Our objective is to disseminate knowledge gathered from projects and practitioners working in the fields of education, society and the arts and to critically analyse the synergies which arise from the connections between these three fields.

PERIPLUS will contribute to critical discourse on Cultural Community Development through research into organisations whose initiatives are grounded in the social context in which they are situated and which employ collaborative arts practices. To gather this information, Comusitària will travel to fourteen countries across five continents. The results of this journey will be an R&D programme, communication through a web platform and published articles and the creation of a documentary film.

During the trip we will make contact and share ideas with state universities to form an International Research and Development (R&D) group focusing on community art practices.

The main hub of this research activity will be the Ramon Llull University of Barcelona, which houses experts in the field of social education, community arts and cultural management.

Alongside this, we will produce a comprehensive study of all the projects visited, resulting in a PhD (Cultural Community Development). This analysis will consider the project's relationship with the territory, the agents (management), methodologies (processes and artistic results) and new trends of thought.

To make the project accessible to those working in the field and other interested parties, and to help promote our activity, we will develop a website to disseminate case studies and other ideas and questions that arise during the journey.

This website will also be a platform for emerging artists who are participating in the creation and editing of the documentary to promote their work.

Besides this, we will publish a number of articles in professional journals and write a book, detailing in full, the knowledge gained from the research.

We are commissioning a documentary made up of short films of a number of the arts projects that we will visit in route. The films will be created by local filmmakers and curated by a group of experts with the support of CCCB (Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona) and the Fabra i Coats Arts Factory of Barcelona.

The documentary will then be coordinated and post-produced by Polacos Film Collective and David Gutierrez Camps and, once finished, will be screened at various festivals and cultural events.

RESEARCH COMMUNICATION CREATION

PROJECT TYPES

We are looking for organisations that use the arts to promote community development. All the projects will have music as the backbone (although we are also interested in interdisciplinary arts projects), and we will prioritise projects that attempt to address social issues and have a high level of community participation and social impact, those that have a strong local/regional presence (collaborative networks of practitioners working in the arts, social and educational fields), and those which use innovative and participatory methodologies. We will also look at the artistic process and the results derived.

ADDING VALUE TO THE RESEARCH

PERIPLUS would like to connect with universities around the world working in the field of Community Cultural Development to facilitate an international network, establish future collaborations and create a Research & Development team. We want to find out about Masters and other Postgraduate programmes to deepen the knowledge about specialized training in this field. We will also make contact with other professionals and research teams in order to maximise opportunities for collaborative working during the journey.

We will be assisted by an expert in Social Education who, during the course of the journey, will travel along a parallel route in order to carry out further research, add his findings to the research and provide an even broader view on the issues.

INNOVATION

The uniqueness of the project lies in the collaborative production of a documentary that will provide an independent point of view from fourteen artists in residence drawn from the visited countries. Periplus’ purpose is to invite a contemporary museum, a well-known documentary maker, an art critic and a film production company to curate this film. There are currently no films dedicated to portraying this field of work from an artistic perspective which can help to promote a critical debate on Cultural Community Development. The documentary will attempt to describe a global picture of the role of the arts in contemporary society incorporating multiple cultural contexts.

Finally, the finished film will be displayed at a range of arts events and documentary film festivals in Spain, in other European capitals and in the countries visited.

COMMUNICATING THE RESULTS

The project findings will be communicated in both digital and printed formats. We also plan to publish regular articles in professional journals. In this way we aim to share this project in all its parts with all interested parties, from academics to arts practitioners who are working day to day with local communities. Comusitària aims to be an open door to as large a community of arts practitioners as possible, thus contributing to the diffusion of knowledge and best practice in this field.

In addition to gathering information about international practices, we will also share our experience and knowledge of Cultural Community Development from a Catalan perspective through presentations and workshops, en route (in certain destinations) and later in Catalonia and the rest of Spain.