Facilitating intercultural contact – arts as a way for people to come together; collaborate and produce something. Example of intercultural contact of two people from different backgrounds filmed coming together and sharing a meal. Highlighting incompatible beliefs- questioning beliefs and assumptions and highlighting discrepancies between values. Example: Barkly Arts Sisters and Brothers- primary school focus – encourages people to develop bystander intervention skills; hip hop dance and song used to explore issues of what can be done Addressing false beliefs and stereotypes- humour and comedy around stereotypes. Example: Black Cabaret. Building positive social norms – accrediting certain attitudes. The researchers found that approaches 1-4 are easier to use, while 5-7 are more difficult, as they are more confronting, and less ‘feel good’ and celebratory. Anne added that arts projects which are more confrontational are deemed to be riskier. There are indeed challenges in using the arts in this way; it must be done carefully, and in a way that does not reinforce negative views. Should the arts deal with these overtly or subtly? Anne also cautions the fact that audiences can tend to be those who have an appetite for the arts already and are less likely to be typical targets for anti-racism. This underpinned her comment that evidence-based research and evaluation are critical for VicHealth’s work. Forum Wrap Up As facilitator, John Smithies initiated the forum wrap-up with his thoughts on some themes. Reminding that art and culture are not synonymous -but rather the arts are a reflection of culture- he noted the challenge of the arts in reflecting many cultures. Another challenge was to think about ‘multi-culture’ more inclusively; considering those subcultures which are harder to find than, for example, ethnicity and disability. These include, youth, gaming, gay, blind and deaf cultures, each of which have their own artforms. Questions posed were: how do we make our art representative? Are we inclusive? Are there marginalised cultures? How does difference become the cultural norm? John then opened the floor for delegates to share their own thoughts. Jill Morgan commented on outreach issues; stating that multicultural artists are often unaware of the systems in place. The difficulty for ‘lone officers’ to come to such forums and take great ideas back to their organisations was then raised. Ideas tend to be filtered
Facilitating intercultural contact – arts as a way for people to come together; collaborate and produce something. Example of intercultural contact of two people from different backgrounds filmed coming together and sharing a meal. Highlighting incompatible beliefs- questioning beliefs and assumptions and highlighting discrepancies between values. Example: Barkly Arts Sisters and Brothers- primary school focus – encourages people to develop bystander intervention skills; hip hop dance and song used to explore issues of what can be done Addressing false beliefs and stereotypes- humour and comedy around stereotypes. Example: Black Cabaret. Building positive social norms – accrediting certain attitudes. The researchers found that approaches 1-4 are easier to use, while 5-7 are more difficult, as they are more confronting, and less ‘feel good’ and celebratory. Anne added that arts projects which are more confrontational are deemed to be riskier. There are indeed challenges in using the arts in this way; it must be done carefully, and in a way that does not reinforce negative views. Should the arts deal with these overtly or subtly? Anne also cautions the fact that audiences can tend to be those who have an appetite for the arts already and are less likely to be typical targets for anti-racism. This underpinned her comment that evidence-based research and evaluation are critical for VicHealth’s work. Forum Wrap Up As facilitator, John Smithies initiated the forum wrap-up with his thoughts on some themes. Reminding that art and culture are not synonymous -but rather the arts are a reflection of culture- he noted the challenge of the arts in reflecting many cultures. Another challenge was to think about ‘multi-culture’ more inclusively; considering those subcultures which are harder to find than, for example, ethnicity and disability. These include, youth, gaming, gay, blind and deaf cultures, each of which have their own artforms. Questions posed were: how do we make our art representative? Are we inclusive? Are there marginalised cultures? How does difference become the cultural norm? John then opened the floor for delegates to share their own thoughts. Jill Morgan commented on outreach issues; stating that multicultural artists are often unaware of the systems in place. The difficulty for ‘lone officers’ to come to such forums and take great ideas back to their organisations was then raised. Ideas tend to be filtered
VLGMIN-2014-Forum-Report.docx