THE DUNDEE CITY CULTURAL PATHFINDER PROJECT
Interim Report
The Dundee Cultural Pathfinder project aims to liaise with target communities and any relevant agencies/ individuals, to create and support opportunities for collaborative action that develops cultural opportunities locally or citywide.
To achieve this aim we are engaging in four main task areas:
- Consultation
- Networking
- Pilot programmes
- Project monitoring
Task 1
The Dundee Cultural Pathfinder project is keen to explore the "notion of culture" that exists in the target areas and what cultural activities people living in the target areas of Dundee West and North West are interested in. In order to achieve this we are currently engaged in dialogue with local people, through questionnaires, focus groups and public workshops, to gain insight into current thought regarding the cultural aspirations that exist within the target communities. This research, which will establish a baseline of current cultural trends in the target areas and reveal perceived barriers and issues that prevent participation, will then be used to better inform the community planning process and the development of future practices.
This process is progressing well with a number of questionnaires completed, feedback from activities attended received, several public workshops delivered and focus group participants identified. A range of information has been collected and as part of the investigation into the notion of culture within the chosen communities, local people were asked the question:
"What does culture mean to you?"
Some of the responses given were as follows:
- Tradition
- Architecture
- How people live and what they do
- Heritage
- History
- Youth
- What's acceptable
- Art, music & language
- How we make sense of the world
- Influences
- Constantly changing with time
- What we create through our interactions
- Points of reference in common with others
- Education
- Ethnicity
- Shared interests
- Scenery
Also as part of this investigation into the notion of culture within the chosen communities, local people were asked to identify the barriers that prevent them from participating in cultural activities.
Some of the responses were as follows:
- Laziness
- Apathy
- Transport
- Transport costs
- Health
- Times of workshops and performances
- Family commitments
- Location
- Admission costs
- Perceptions of agency
However, some of the participants informed us that they were engaging in the cultural activities that were of interest to themselves, listing:
- Gardening
- Socialising
- Attending groups & organisations
- Sporting activities
- Reading
- Dancing
- Golfing
- Drinking
Task 2
This project is, by its very nature, a cross cutting exercise that will require collaboration between a host of partners in an effort to achieve its aim. This collaboration has resulted in partners giving free or reduced price entry to events and exhibitions, providing workshops and giving support through the projects steering group. Partners include:
- Dundee City Council
- DCA
- Dundee Rep
- Industrial Heritage
- Scottish Dance Theatre
- SPACE
- Camperdown zoo
- Sensations
- Scottish Government
- Ardler Village Trust
- Dundee Partnership
- Chalmers Church, Ardler
- Local community management groups
- Community Family Support Project
- Healthy Living Initiative
& more are becoming involved as the project progresses.
Task 3
Along with this piece of consultation, the project is encouraging people to make good use of existing cultural provisions, such as those provided by Dundee's cultural agencies. The project is seeking to develop public awareness and access of cultural services by developing opportunities to support and facilitate community groups and individuals visiting, or being visited by, cultural service providers. As part of this process we are:
- Aiming to organise and fund 5 cultural pieces of work for a community group from each of the six neighbourhoods. We anticipate that this will result in attendance figures of approximately 350 people, and this is progressing extremely well as fifteen pieces of work, such as visits to the theatre, art galleries, museums, zoos and dance events have took place and 326 people have participated and initial indications are that the targets will be surpassed.
The project is also keen to support the development of creativity in Dundee and is endeavouring to create opportunities for local people to display examples of their work at both a local and city-wide level. There are no stipulations on what type of material can be displayed; it can be anything from poetry, dance, music or paintings. This is involving work to publicise, resource and facilitate events and trying to encourage the development of support networks being created that will result in:
- 12 exhibitions being held throughout the target areas, and city-wide, within the lifetime of the project consisting of productions by local people. We will attract approximately 400 people to these events based upon the success levels of the events staged so far which have already resulted in approximately 150 people attending the first four exhibitions.
Task 4
The networking officers are developing a narrative of the learning journey experienced by themselves throughout the lifetime of the project in an effort to offer insights that may better inform future practice. Along with these recordings the networking officers are endeavouring to publicise and promote the project, and its partners, through the local press. Lessons learnt by the networking officers already are:
- It's important to remain focused on the Pathfinder project's tasks as quite often others appear to view networking officers as auxiliary staff to help with their workload and to supervise their clients.
- Things happen in a very organic manner and much of the success of the project lies in the networking officers having a sound knowledge of opportunities available and mentally linking them to people, quite often informally and spontaneously.
Summary of progress
The project is progressing well and has been supported in a positive manner by those involved. So far we have:
- Engaged & supported one group from each of the six neighbourhoods to participate in a programme of cultural activities, these activities being identified by the group themselves. These have included trips to theatres, art exhibitions, radio shows and tourist attractions
- Facilitated and supported several exhibitions by local artists within the target communities that displayed examples of photography, literature and painting.
- Started developing sustainable support networks within target areas and at a city wide level involving a number of stakeholders.
- We have also assisted with funding applications to allow the target areas to fund a programme of cultural activities that reflects the needs and wants of the local people.