Northumbrian Exchanges: Creative Community Engagement in Rural Northumberland
Lead Research Organisation:
Newcastle University
Department Name: Sch of Arts and Cultures
Abstract
Aims
This proposal responds to identified needs of various partners in rural Northumberland (the sparsest populated county in England), exploring new models of knowledge exchange relating to rural cultural economies. Bringing together multi-disciplinary research excellence in creative practice and theory, it focuses on the under-researched contribution of culture, particularly visual arts practice and music, to rural development and the mechanisms by which this is enacted. A new Masters module in Creative Enterprise involves students in a cross-cutting KE activity. The project delivers through three strands, each responding to key issues identified by partner organisations, such as the Holy Island Partnership (HIP), Allenheads Contemporary Arts (ACA) and Alwinton Festival, who wish to develop new ways of working relating to local communities. We will use the expertise of staff, students and partners to understand creative engagement within rural contexts and test practical ways of addressing needs. Where solutions involve digital applications, we will work closely with the AHRC KE Creative Exchange hub led by Lancaster in which Newcastle's Culture Lab is a partner, and the Social Inclusion through the Digital Economy project, especially around the establishment of virtual networks, a crucial means of empowering scattered communities.
Key Knowledge Exchange Activities will be organised in three main strands:
Strand 1: Creative Community Engagement
HIP was formed in 2009 by the local community and key stakeholders operating on the island, such as Northumberland County Council and English Heritage. Their aim is jointly to address key themes: Visitor Management; Landscape; Community and Cohesion. We will bring in an artist as a creative thinker to:
- pilot innovative means of community engagement
- develop way to realise the community 'voice' within the landscape.
We will also support local musicians, maximising their exposure to their own communities and facilitating interactions with students and graduates. We also seek to capture and promote interest in art forms in danger of neglect or extinction by:
- liaising with village halls to provide platforms shared by local musicians with our student and graduate specialists in traditional music
- developing systematic, sustainable partnerships with institutions, both large (eg Northumberland National Park) and small (eg village halls)
- providing events and ongoing educational activities in partnership with local venues.
Strand 2: SME's contribution to local cultural economy
ACA, in England's highest village, focuses on artists' residencies, disseminating results to a wide audience. We will examine how its residency programme:
- impacts on the local economy
- contributes to a sense of place/identity
This will include artists' residencies, student/graduate business placements and networking with other project partners, examining where aspects of urban SME strategies might be appropriate for this new context.
We will also assess the impact of small music festivals in the Coquet and North Tyne Valleys on the cultural economy and, simultaneously, strengthen their impact through creative exchange involving University staff, postgraduates and graduates.
We will:
- facilitate performative and educational events at designated festivals
- provide opportunities for students to work with festivals within their formal curriculum.
Strand 3: Infrastructure for sustainable creative enterprises within rural communities.
Visual Arts in Rural Communities is based in Tarset, Northumberland. VARC wish to draw on our interdisciplinary expertise, using a researcher to examine different delivery modes for their programme. We will explore ways of networking and sharing best practice across the region through open-source mechanisms to engender greater sharing and awareness of practices, developing digital networks with Culture Lab.
This proposal responds to identified needs of various partners in rural Northumberland (the sparsest populated county in England), exploring new models of knowledge exchange relating to rural cultural economies. Bringing together multi-disciplinary research excellence in creative practice and theory, it focuses on the under-researched contribution of culture, particularly visual arts practice and music, to rural development and the mechanisms by which this is enacted. A new Masters module in Creative Enterprise involves students in a cross-cutting KE activity. The project delivers through three strands, each responding to key issues identified by partner organisations, such as the Holy Island Partnership (HIP), Allenheads Contemporary Arts (ACA) and Alwinton Festival, who wish to develop new ways of working relating to local communities. We will use the expertise of staff, students and partners to understand creative engagement within rural contexts and test practical ways of addressing needs. Where solutions involve digital applications, we will work closely with the AHRC KE Creative Exchange hub led by Lancaster in which Newcastle's Culture Lab is a partner, and the Social Inclusion through the Digital Economy project, especially around the establishment of virtual networks, a crucial means of empowering scattered communities.
Key Knowledge Exchange Activities will be organised in three main strands:
Strand 1: Creative Community Engagement
HIP was formed in 2009 by the local community and key stakeholders operating on the island, such as Northumberland County Council and English Heritage. Their aim is jointly to address key themes: Visitor Management; Landscape; Community and Cohesion. We will bring in an artist as a creative thinker to:
- pilot innovative means of community engagement
- develop way to realise the community 'voice' within the landscape.
We will also support local musicians, maximising their exposure to their own communities and facilitating interactions with students and graduates. We also seek to capture and promote interest in art forms in danger of neglect or extinction by:
- liaising with village halls to provide platforms shared by local musicians with our student and graduate specialists in traditional music
- developing systematic, sustainable partnerships with institutions, both large (eg Northumberland National Park) and small (eg village halls)
- providing events and ongoing educational activities in partnership with local venues.
Strand 2: SME's contribution to local cultural economy
ACA, in England's highest village, focuses on artists' residencies, disseminating results to a wide audience. We will examine how its residency programme:
- impacts on the local economy
- contributes to a sense of place/identity
This will include artists' residencies, student/graduate business placements and networking with other project partners, examining where aspects of urban SME strategies might be appropriate for this new context.
We will also assess the impact of small music festivals in the Coquet and North Tyne Valleys on the cultural economy and, simultaneously, strengthen their impact through creative exchange involving University staff, postgraduates and graduates.
We will:
- facilitate performative and educational events at designated festivals
- provide opportunities for students to work with festivals within their formal curriculum.
Strand 3: Infrastructure for sustainable creative enterprises within rural communities.
Visual Arts in Rural Communities is based in Tarset, Northumberland. VARC wish to draw on our interdisciplinary expertise, using a researcher to examine different delivery modes for their programme. We will explore ways of networking and sharing best practice across the region through open-source mechanisms to engender greater sharing and awareness of practices, developing digital networks with Culture Lab.
Planned Impact
Beneficiaries: Arts community organisations directly involved - HIP (Holy Island), ACA (Allenheads), VARC (Tarset), various music festivals (Alwinton, Bellingham, Morpeth, etc)
Needs: Resolving tensions between visitor and resident perceptions of place (HIP); investigating impact of artist activity and residencies on local economy (ACA); developing new modes of programme delivery (VARC); reinvigorating local musical activities (festivals and community organisations). Long-term sustainable mechanisms for effective networking within cultural sector and between cultural sector and HE.
How addressed: Through the case studies, supported by follow-up projects (involving other European partners), and working with projects such as SIDE and Creative Exchange for digital networking. Festivals will benefit from enhanced programmes, increased educational activities and more robust economic models. Body of musicians and artists more rooted in the North East.
Beneficiaries: Agencies directly linked to key partners: Northumberland County Council, English Heritage, National Trust, Natural England, etc
Needs: Greater understanding of partner issues, new models of working. Better networking between agencies and communities, more creative approaches to problem-solving.
How addressed: Through establishing new models of engagement in response to all three strands; tailored digital networks.
Beneficiaries: Other rural arts organisations, eg Deveron Arts (Huntly, Aberdeen), Littoral Arts (Cumbria), Swaledale Festival and other rural music festivals and organisations
Needs: Robust research around rural models, identifying relationships with more familiar urban contexts and suggesting long-term sustainable rural models. Addressed by project case studies in all three strands. Long-term sustainable economic models, drawing on shared best practice facilitated by Information and Development Day and ongoing digital networks. Stronger material for advocacy through publications. Body of musicians and artists more rooted in the North East.
How addressed: By project case studies in all three strands. Sharing best practice facilitated by Information and Development Day and ongoing digital networks. Stronger material for advocacy through publications.
Beneficiaries: Other cultural organisations, including large urban institutions (The Sage Gateshead, BALTIC, Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums)
Needs: Often disconnected with rural agendas and working within urban contexts. Case studies will provide strong comparative evidence.
How addressed: New ways of interfacing with the rural economy. On-going music projects developed with The Sage Gateshead reflecting project outcomes; outreach art projects with TWAM.
Beneficiaries: Local authorities, government think-tanks, consultancies, etc (eg Durham County Council, DEFRA, TSB, NESTA)
Needs: To recognise the key challenges faced by small rural businesses, given that this is an area of expansion in the creative sector. New ways of interfacing with the rural economy.
How addressed: By case study results; on-going music projects developed with The Sage Gateshead; outreach art projects with TWAM.
Needs: Resolving tensions between visitor and resident perceptions of place (HIP); investigating impact of artist activity and residencies on local economy (ACA); developing new modes of programme delivery (VARC); reinvigorating local musical activities (festivals and community organisations). Long-term sustainable mechanisms for effective networking within cultural sector and between cultural sector and HE.
How addressed: Through the case studies, supported by follow-up projects (involving other European partners), and working with projects such as SIDE and Creative Exchange for digital networking. Festivals will benefit from enhanced programmes, increased educational activities and more robust economic models. Body of musicians and artists more rooted in the North East.
Beneficiaries: Agencies directly linked to key partners: Northumberland County Council, English Heritage, National Trust, Natural England, etc
Needs: Greater understanding of partner issues, new models of working. Better networking between agencies and communities, more creative approaches to problem-solving.
How addressed: Through establishing new models of engagement in response to all three strands; tailored digital networks.
Beneficiaries: Other rural arts organisations, eg Deveron Arts (Huntly, Aberdeen), Littoral Arts (Cumbria), Swaledale Festival and other rural music festivals and organisations
Needs: Robust research around rural models, identifying relationships with more familiar urban contexts and suggesting long-term sustainable rural models. Addressed by project case studies in all three strands. Long-term sustainable economic models, drawing on shared best practice facilitated by Information and Development Day and ongoing digital networks. Stronger material for advocacy through publications. Body of musicians and artists more rooted in the North East.
How addressed: By project case studies in all three strands. Sharing best practice facilitated by Information and Development Day and ongoing digital networks. Stronger material for advocacy through publications.
Beneficiaries: Other cultural organisations, including large urban institutions (The Sage Gateshead, BALTIC, Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums)
Needs: Often disconnected with rural agendas and working within urban contexts. Case studies will provide strong comparative evidence.
How addressed: New ways of interfacing with the rural economy. On-going music projects developed with The Sage Gateshead reflecting project outcomes; outreach art projects with TWAM.
Beneficiaries: Local authorities, government think-tanks, consultancies, etc (eg Durham County Council, DEFRA, TSB, NESTA)
Needs: To recognise the key challenges faced by small rural businesses, given that this is an area of expansion in the creative sector. New ways of interfacing with the rural economy.
How addressed: By case study results; on-going music projects developed with The Sage Gateshead; outreach art projects with TWAM.
Organisations
- Newcastle University (Collaboration, Lead Research Organisation)
- Visual Arts in Rural Communities VARC (Collaboration)
- Allendale Forge Studios (Collaboration)
- Bellingham All Acoustic (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Xsite Architecture (Collaboration)
- The Textillery (Collaboration)
- Holy Island Partnership (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Westoe and Seven (Collaboration)
- Northumberland National Park Authority (Project Partner)
- Tarset Village Hall (Project Partner)
- Allenheads Contemporary Arts (Project Partner)
- Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering Committee (Project Partner)
- VARC (Project Partner)
- Alwinton Church Summer Concerts (Project Partner)
Publications
Scott K
(2018)
Creating the Good Life? A wellbeing perspective on cultural value in rural development
in Journal of Rural Studies
Hudson, M.
(2013)
Curating the Northumbrian Commons
in Sustainable North N8 New Thinking from the North Workshop.
Hudson, M.;
(2015)
Dead Logics and Worlds: Sound art and sonorous objects
in Organised Sound
Hudson M
(2015)
Dead Logics and Worlds: Sound art and sonorous objects
in Organised Sound
Hudson M
(2015)
Desire Lines: Open Educational Collections, Memory and the Social Machine
in Online Educational Research Journal
Hudson, M.
Editorial: Landscape, arts and northern landscapes
in Landscape Research Journal
Crawshaw, J.
(2014)
Forceful relations: participatory art and governance
in Complicating the co-production of art: Hidden humans and acting objects, RGS-IBG
Crawshaw J
(2015)
Further in land: Art and Island Knowledge
Crawshaw J
(2016)
Getting to know the island: Artistic experiments in rural community development
in Journal of Rural Studies
Hudson, M.
Ghost notes: landscape, community and musical tradition
in Music and Arts in Action
| Title | 'Living in Memories' by Matthew Rowan |
| Description | Specially commissioned musical composition, public performance and CD recording |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice |
| URL | http://www.northernearlymusic.co.uk/northumbrian-exchanges.html |
| Title | 'Sensing the Park' by Shona Mooney and the Mosse Troopers |
| Description | Musical composition and performance in a concert at Newcastle University in January 2014 Issued on CD - recorded January 2015 and released later that year on MOSSRECORDS001 |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice. Public dissemination of new commissioned works through CD |
| URL | http://www.shonamooneymusic |
| Title | As above, so below |
| Description | Sabine Vogel and Bennett Hogg completed two residencies at Allenheads Contemporary Arts, producing two new pieces, both of which have been performed there. With two other pieces from Bennett Hogg's AHRC-funded project Landscape Quartet, the set will be performed as the inaugural As above, so below project in Allenheads. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | The project impacts on various artists groups in the North Tyne valley. As a result, Bennett Hogg also worked at a residency with the Morpeth Gathering. |
| URL | http://www.acart.org.uk/currentprojects.html |
| Title | Bellingham All Acoustic Festival |
| Description | festival event |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice |
| Title | Dance and movement workshops |
| Description | A series of six dance and movement workshops with residents of Holy Island. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice |
| Title | Drawing and painting workshops |
| Description | A series of two three hour drawing and painting workshops for residents of Holy Island to create works for exhibition. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice |
| Title | Northumbrian Exchanges - Northern Early Music Ensemble and Matthew Rowan (composer) |
| Description | Performances and a specially commissioned musical composition recorded as a commercially available CD 'Northumbrian Exchanges' available through SFZ distributors, Amazon, etc SFZM0114 |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | CD produced as a result of workshops, knowledge exchange between communities, composers and musicians. Provides impact for the project on the general public of music lovers. |
| URL | http://www.northernearlymusic.co.uk/northumbrian-exchanges.html |
| Title | Northumbrian Exchanges Seminar 1 |
| Description | Musical workshop at Morpeth Gathering |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice |
| Title | Northumbrian Exchanges Seminar 2 |
| Description | Workshop |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice |
| Title | Northumbrian Exchanges concert, King's Hall, Newcastle University, 19 March 2014 |
| Description | Newcastle University ICMUS and Northern Early Music Collective Jamie Savan (cornett), Jacob Heringman (lute), Susanna Pell (viol da gamba) Shona Mooney (fiddle), Andrew Watt (guitar) Newcastle University's International Centre for Music Studies and the Northern Early Music Collective in a programme that brings together traditional music from Northumberland and other parts of the British Isles with music of the Late Renaissance and Early Baroque including a newly composed work by Matthew Rowan. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice |
| Title | Photography Workshops |
| Description | A series of five three-hour landscape and portrait photography workshops with residents of Holy Island. |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice |
| Title | Sensing the Park - Shona Mooney and the Mosse Troopers |
| Description | New musical compositions that are being recorded for a new Northumbrian Exchanges CD |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | composition and recording as a result of knowledge exchange activities between musicians, composer and the Northumbrian National Park |
| Title | Sounding the island: field recordings from Lindisfarne |
| Description | 1. facing st cuthbert?s island (3:54) 2. the harbour, facing north (1) (5:21) 3. gertrude?s garden (5:13) 4. seals at dusk (4:42) 5. evening, inside st cuthbert?s centre (9:09) 6. the crown and anchor: early morning beer delivery, with bell, 1. facing st cuthbert?s island (3:54) 2. the harbour, facing north (1) (5:21) 3. gertrude?s garden (5:13) 4. seals at dusk (4:42) 5. evening, inside st cuthbert?s centre (9:09) 6. the crown and anchor: early morning beer delivery, with bell (2:33) 7. the harbour, facing north (2) (4:40) 8. the vicarage garden (4:47), 1. facing st cuthbert's island (3:54) 2. the harbour, facing north (1) (5:21) 3. gertrude's garden (5:13) 4. seals at dusk (4:42) 5. evening, inside st cuthbert's centre (9:09) 6. the crown and anchor: early morning beer delivery, with bell (2:33) 7. the harbour, facing north (2) (4:40) 8. the vicarage garden (4:47) |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice |
| Title | Tarset Hall Ceilidh band |
| Description | Multiple performances that have continued through to 2016 and hopefully beyond. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice and a sustained future for the Tarset Ceilidh Band |
| URL | https://web.facebook.com/groups/1409835615977302/?fref=ts |
| Title | Theatre and Performance workshops |
| Description | A series of four three hour performance workshops on Holy Island. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice. Twenty three-hour photography, dance, performance, sonic mapping and drawing and painting workshops, July to August 2013: - Photography (5 x 3-hour sessions): facilitated by Emma Rothera - Dance and Movement (6 x 3-hour sessions): facilitated by Claire Pencak - Sonic Mapping (4 x 3 hour sessions): facilitated by James Wyness - Performance theatre (3 x 3 hour sessions): facilitated by Tess Denman-Cleaver - Drawing and Painting (2 x 3 hour sessions): facilitated by Jenny Moffitt Island Perspectives Exhibition, St Cuthbert's Centre: Holy Island (September 2013) Over 200 residents, official officers and island visitors attended the Island Perspectives exhibition of works produced during the workshops including: drawings and paintings, a soundscape, photographs and documentation of the performance and dance workshops. |
| Title | https://tim-shaw.net/sound-and-seclusion/ |
| Description | Musical composition and performance in Victoria Tunnel, Newcastle upon Tyne |
| Type Of Art | Composition/Score |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | The development of knowledge exchange and community relationships through creative practice |
| URL | https://tim-shaw.net/sound-and-seclusion/ |
| Description | Processes of knowledge exchange - The co-production of artistic research interventions with professional stakeholders and community members provides collaborative processes rich in opportunities for knowledge exchange. - The creation of 'third spaces' provide platforms for knowledge exchange: spaces that are neither designated as 'university' or 'stakeholder' spaces of engagement. The arts and rural development - The arts have multiple values across economic, social and environmental perspectives: art has the capacity to support rural development outside of the notion of the 'creative economy' as a mediator of relationships. - Arts practice can reveal and re-shape community relationships in support of community development and governance. - There are challenges to the University's idea of civic mission; the concept of rural civics and rural knowledges means immersing our practice in those spaces and understanding the locality of practice. Practitioner-researchers - Knowledge exchange practice moves between academic and practice-based perspectives. - Knowledge exchange researchers should have practice-based as well as academic experience. - This practice means thinking about how we advocate for the University and for communities and how we ourselves create third spaces for meaningful exchange. We have developed new ways of thinking about Knowledge Exchange and circulations of experience in the course of the project. We have constructed an innovative vision of how researchers practice in communities often in conditions of distrust, sensitivity, and prior problematic relations in networks as well as in conditions for SMEs and arts organisations of commercial intellectual property and copyright. Furthermore, the whole conception of sharing and exchanging was often difficult for organisations that we worked with. Some had a resistance to sharing material and insights that they felt had been hard won in previous work, others felt that their knowledge and experience weren't worth sharing because of confidence issues, while others felt that they needed nothing from the university in terms of reciprocity. We found overall that we developed a number of insights into the practices of KE in working with arts organisations, SMEs and artists and musicians across the geographical complexity of Northumberland. So both our research and consultation practice have developed a number of insights into KE practices in rural communities: • Ethnography and the role of the researcher: the development of artistic approaches to experimental ethnographic research in communities, including how to trace and articulate ethnographically the process of KE as mediated by artistic interventions. • Third space practice: new ways of thinking about where research is situated in a neutral 'third space' position in relation to the University, research partners and the community members. • The microscopics of community practice: that only a sustained and intimate engagement with arts, communities and social relations - and recognition of the complexity of that relationship - does justice to the nature of communities. • Multiple knowledge circulations: that rather than thinking about one-way transfer or two- or three-way exchange, we both practice and describe the multiple and complex circulations of knowledge around arts in communities. • The role of the university: that universities have to pre-design and co-design research projects in order to maintain effective KE relationships with communities. This includes establishing KE processes that are genuinely participatory and issues of legacy once interventions come to an end. Trust is a vital ingredient and, if small arts organisations are to be involved in research, remuneration is often vital. • Creativity and entrepreneurship in rural communities: we have described fluid and complex relations around the multiple ways that arts organisations pursue strategies of sustainability. The project has also helped to reveal the hidden value and contribution of arts programmes and organisations to rural places and communities, and their connections to the wider North East. • Families, lineages, and cultural production: this is an essential facet of who speaks for certain kinds of knowledge and who is seen to have 'authority' in performing rurality in the arts. • Knowledge sharing and resistance: we have mapped and understood the challenges around the ownership of information in rural communities and who speaks for it and to whom. • Networking in rural cultures: this is complex, fragmented and enmeshed in difficulties around travel, broadband and personalities. • Archiving cultures in Northumberland: how we do this digitally in a way that can be maintained into the future and about different kinds of archives and intellectual property rights and the university's role in this. • Indigeneity and outsiders: that this is a central theme in who practices art and who represents and speaks for communities. • The peculiarities of rural arts practice: that there is something distinctive about arts practice in rural areas which is not simply perpetuating a rural/urban duality. • Dissemination of findings practice: there are new and exciting ways of disseminating information through networks that go beyond the narrowness of current academic practice. • Landscape and culture: that relations and networks around land and landscape are central to thinking about identity and artistic representation. • Interdisciplinarity: that there are exciting ways of thinking about doing transdisciplinary work in communities and across University schools, agencies and regions that still hold to some sense of social-scientific discipline and ethics. The project has also revealed something of the nature and value of different kinds of knowledge to knowledge production more generally. Conclusions and policies We provide a series of recommendations for policy and future research: • The construction and maintenance of new digital platforms to connect arts organisations, policy makers and creative arts practice into the future. • The use of interventions by artists and musicians into policymaking and the reassertion of the importance of rural arts to social development in the North East of England. • Using creative arts practice to develop connections between regional and European platforms for funding. • Supporting KE activities from below and for universities to support third spaces for arts development and research in order to combat rural social exclusion and the brain-drain of artists and musicians from the region. • Developing new ways of thinking about intellectual property and the creative work of SMEs and supporting the retention of university graduates in creative roles in the region. We have developed new ways of thinking about Knowledge Exchange and circulations of experience in the course of the project. We have constructed an innovative vision of how researchers practice in communities often in conditions of distrust, sensitivity, and prior problematic relations in networks as well as in conditions for SMEs and arts organisations of commercial intellectual property and copyright. Furthermore, the whole conception of sharing and exchanging was often difficult for organisations that we worked with. Some had a resistance to sharing material and insights that they felt had been hard won in previous work, others felt that their knowledge and experience weren't worth sharing because of confidence issues, while others felt that they needed nothing from the university in terms of reciprocity. We found overall that we developed a number of insights into the practices of KE in working with arts organisations, SMEs and artists and musicians across the geographical complexity of Northumberland. So both our research and consultation practice have developed a number of insights into KE practices in rural communities: • Ethnography and the role of the researcher: the development of artistic approaches to experimental ethnographic research in communities, including how to trace and articulate ethnographically the process of KE as mediated by artistic interventions. • Third space practice: new ways of thinking about where research is situated in a neutral 'third space' position in relation to the University, research partners and the community members. • The microscopics of community practice: that only a sustained and intimate engagement with arts, communities and social relations - and recognition of the complexity of that relationship - does justice to the nature of communities. • Multiple knowledge circulations: that rather than thinking about one-way transfer or two- or three-way exchange, we both practice and describe the multiple and complex circulations of knowledge around arts in communities. • The role of the university: that universities have to pre-design and co-design research projects in order to maintain effective KE relationships with communities. This includes establishing KE processes that are genuinely participatory and issues of legacy once interventions come to an end. Trust is a vital ingredient and, if small arts organisations are to be involved in research, remuneration is often vital. • Creativity and entrepreneurship in rural communities: we have described fluid and complex relations around the multiple ways that arts organisations pursue strategies of sustainability. The project has also helped to reveal the hidden value and contribution of arts programmes and organisations to rural places and communities, and their connections to the wider North East. • Families, lineages, and cultural production: this is an essential facet of who speaks for certain kinds of knowledge and who is seen to have 'authority' in performing rurality in the arts. • Knowledge sharing and resistance: we have mapped and understood the challenges around the ownership of information in rural communities and who speaks for it and to whom. • Networking in rural cultures: this is complex, fragmented and enmeshed in difficulties around travel, broadband and personalities. • Archiving cultures in Northumberland: how we do this digitally in a way that can be maintained into the future and about different kinds of archives and intellectual property rights and the university's role in this. • Indigeneity and outsiders: that this is a central theme in who practices art and who represents and speaks for communities. • The peculiarities of rural arts practice: that there is something distinctive about arts practice in rural areas which is not simply perpetuating a rural/urban duality. • Dissemination of findings practice: there are new and exciting ways of disseminating information through networks that go beyond the narrowness of current academic practice. • Landscape and culture: that relations and networks around land and landscape are central to thinking about identity and artistic representation. • Interdisciplinarity: that there are exciting ways of thinking about doing transdisciplinary work in communities and across University schools, agencies and regions that still hold to some sense of social-scientific discipline and ethics. The project has also revealed something of the nature and value of different kinds of knowledge to knowledge production more generally. Conclusions and policies We provide a series of recommendations for policy and future research: • The construction and maintenance of new digital platforms to connect arts organisations, policy makers and creative arts practice into the future. • The use of interventions by artists and musicians into policymaking and the reassertion of the importance of rural arts to social development in the North East of England. • Using creative arts practice to develop connections between regional and European platforms for funding. • Supporting KE activities from below and for universities to support third spaces for arts development and research in order to combat rural social exclusion and the brain-drain of artists and musicians from the region. • Developing new ways of thinking about intellectual property and the creative work of SMEs and supporting the retention of university graduates in creative roles in the region. |
| Exploitation Route | All of the key findings of the project apply to non-academic contexts as they relate to the sustainability of rural creative businesses. Findings have influenced the business plans of individual partners and further on-going research projects. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism |
| URL | http://www.n-ex.org.uk/ |
| Description | Our research and consultation practice have developed a number of insights into KE practices in rural communities: • Ethnography and the role of the researcher: the development of artistic approaches to experimental ethnographic research in communities, including how to trace and articulate ethnographically the process of KE as mediated by artistic interventions. • Third space practice: new ways of thinking about where research is situated in a neutral 'third space' position in relation to the University, research partners and the community members. • The microscopics of community practice: that only a sustained and intimate engagement with arts, communities and social relations - and recognition of the complexity of that relationship - does justice to the nature of communities. • Multiple knowledge circulations: that rather than thinking about one-way transfer or two- or three-way exchange, we both practice and describe the multiple and complex circulations of knowledge around arts in communities. • The role of the university: that universities have to pre-design and co-design research projects in order to maintain effective KE relationships with communities. This includes establishing KE processes that are genuinely participatory and issues of legacy once interventions come to an end. Trust is a vital ingredient and, if small arts organisations are to be involved in research, remuneration is often vital. • Creativity and entrepreneurship in rural communities: we have described fluid and complex relations around the multiple ways that arts organisations pursue strategies of sustainability. The project has also helped to reveal the hidden value and contribution of arts programmes and organisations to rural places and communities, and their connections to the wider North East. • Families, lineages, and cultural production: this is an essential facet of who speaks for certain kinds of knowledge and who is seen to have 'authority' in performing rurality in the arts. • Knowledge sharing and resistance: we have mapped and understood the challenges around the ownership of information in rural communities and who speaks for it and to whom. • Networking in rural cultures: this is complex, fragmented and enmeshed in difficulties around travel, broadband and personalities. • Archiving cultures in Northumberland: how we do this digitally in a way that can be maintained into the future and about different kinds of archives and intellectual property rights and the university's role in this. • Indigeneity and outsiders: that this is a central theme in who practices art and who represents and speaks for communities. • The peculiarities of rural arts practice: that there is something distinctive about arts practice in rural areas which is not simply perpetuating a rural/urban duality. • Dissemination of findings practice: there are new and exciting ways of disseminating information through networks that go beyond the narrowness of current academic practice. • Landscape and culture: that relations and networks around land and landscape are central to thinking about identity and artistic representation. • Interdisciplinarity: that there are exciting ways of thinking about doing transdisciplinary work in communities and across University schools, agencies and regions that still hold to some sense of social-scientific discipline and ethics. The project has also revealed something of the nature and value of different kinds of knowledge to knowledge production more generally. Conclusions and policies We provide a series of recommendations for policy and future research: • The construction and maintenance of new digital platforms to connect arts organisations, policy makers and creative arts practice into the future. • The use of interventions by artists and musicians into policymaking and the reassertion of the importance of rural arts to social development in the North East of England. • Using creative arts practice to develop connections between regional and European platforms for funding. • Supporting KE activities from below and for universities to support third spaces for arts development and research in order to combat rural social exclusion and the brain-drain of artists and musicians from the region. • Developing new ways of thinking about intellectual property and the creative work of SMEs and supporting the retention of university graduates in creative roles in the region. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2013 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | Contemporary Arts in Rural Development: Lessons from Japan and the UK |
| Amount | £46,705 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ES/S013105/1 |
| Organisation | Economic and Social Research Council |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2019 |
| End | 10/2019 |
| Description | Newcastle Institure for Social Renewal |
| Amount | £2,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Newcastle University |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 01/2013 |
| End | 01/2014 |
| Title | Multidisciplinary arts methodologies and ethnographies |
| Description | As well as academic perspectives, each of the research associates also contributed their experience drawn from arts, community and rural development practice. These approaches were shaped by the ambitions of the case partners alongside the researchers' own practice-based and scholarly backgrounds. The practice-researchers worked in collaboration with organisational partner stakeholders and residents across rural Northumberland to co-produce artistic and developmental interventions. These included: music commissions; participatory workshops; a community exhibition; programme development and funding strategies; and a creative writing commission. A set of methodologies was used to describe the activity and processes of knowledge exchange in order to make knowledge exchange itself more meaningful, interactive, and reciprocal. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Our research and consultation practice have developed a number of insights into KE practices in rural communities: • Ethnography and the role of the researcher: the development of artistic approaches to experimental ethnographic research in communities, including how to trace and articulate ethnographically the process of KE as mediated by artistic interventions. • Third space practice: new ways of thinking about where research is situated in a neutral 'third space' position in relation to the University, research partners and the community members. • The microscopics of community practice: that only a sustained and intimate engagement with arts, communities and social relations - and recognition of the complexity of that relationship - does justice to the nature of communities. • Multiple knowledge circulations: that rather than thinking about one-way transfer or two- or three-way exchange, we both practice and describe the multiple and complex circulations of knowledge around arts in communities. • The role of the university: that universities have to pre-design and co-design research projects in order to maintain effective KE relationships with communities. This includes establishing KE processes that are genuinely participatory and issues of legacy once interventions come to an end. Trust is a vital ingredient and, if small arts organisations are to be involved in research, remuneration is often vital. • Creativity and entrepreneurship in rural communities: we have described fluid and complex relations around the multiple ways that arts organisations pursue strategies of sustainability. The project has also helped to reveal the hidden value and contribution of arts programmes and organisations to rural places and communities, and their connections to the wider North East. • Families, lineages, and cultural production: this is an essential facet of who speaks for certain kinds of knowledge and who is seen to have 'authority' in performing rurality in the arts. • Knowledge sharing and resistance: we have mapped and understood the challenges around the ownership of information in rural communities and who speaks for it and to whom. • Networking in rural cultures: this is complex, fragmented and enmeshed in difficulties around travel, broadband and personalities. • Archiving cultures in Northumberland: how we do this digitally in a way that can be maintained into the future and about different kinds of archives and intellectual property rights and the university's role in this. • Indigeneity and outsiders: that this is a central theme in who practices art and who represents and speaks for communities. • The peculiarities of rural arts practice: that there is something distinctive about arts practice in rural areas which is not simply perpetuating a rural/urban duality. • Dissemination of findings practice: there are new and exciting ways of disseminating information through networks that go beyond the narrowness of current academic practice. • Landscape and culture: that relations and networks around land and landscape are central to thinking about identity and artistic representation. • Interdisciplinarity: that there are exciting ways of thinking about doing transdisciplinary work in communities and across University schools, agencies and regions that still hold to some sense of social-scientific discipline and ethics. The project has also revealed something of the nature and value of different kinds of knowledge to knowledge production more generally |
| Title | Knowledge Exchange models |
| Description | We used new models of third space knowledge exchange practice to develop relationships between universities, arts practitioners and communities |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2014 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The embodied and embedded knowledges of communities and practitioners, as we have seen, are often tacit, unacknowledged and partial. The question of how then we exchange knowledge becomes problematic. It might be that knowledge is not framed or recognised as knowledge, so defining knowledge becomes central as a first step to thinking about exchange. The minority practices of individuals and communities are often unperceived by other agents and by universities until the university receives funding or new directives that something is actually worth exploring. These definitions around knowledge establish and construct the knowledge as an object or subjective knowing or material practice that frustrates or enables use of narratives. The defining process is something that often begins in observations about practice or opinions and ensuing conversations about it - the very fact that the 'something worth knowing' is about to be defined is often the consequence of a long series of negotiations to identify and interest potential knowledge holders and exchangers. Negotiations about knowledge - what it is, who owns it and so on - have to be entwined with discussions about the validity and utility of knowledge, but if knowledge exchange is truly a multiple and not a one-way process, then that negotiation has to involve the sharing of knowledge from universities. This has often been on the basis of providing funding, spaces and expertise, but more often than not the knowledge from academia has not been defined and is presented as an amorphous and unfixed 'capital' which the university offers in exchange. Often trusting relationships are undermined by ideas of predatory university structures uninterested in and unwilling to exchange whilst extracting knowledge from minority partners. Often relationships break down on the use of knowledge for either commerce or activism, often displaying the differing power networks involved or the different capital enhancement that individuals, agencies or universities can develop. Extracting knowledge, after definition, identification and negotiation processes have taken place, is often complex and divisive - certainly if the utility of a variety of knowledges is embedded in complex power relationships and differing intentions towards use. But it is important to be aware of issues around knowledge extinction if knowledge is not exchanged or used - particularly around practices in communities that are under threat. Perhaps, then, this is the decisive role of the university - to archive knowledges and practices from communities of knowledge and practice. In this sense the university becomes the memory of practice and knowledge or the intellectual hub of a diffuse and massed series of practices and knowledges. The significance of this lies in the following. Firstly, that far from exchange being situated in exchanging micro-knowledges for university expertise or 'amorphous' capital, or in fact exchanging little at all from the part of the university, exchange takes place on the grounds of exchanging knowledge with archive capacity. Secondly, this exchange of partialized, minority knowledges for an archive or collection centre held digitally (and including film, sound, interviews and so on) is seen as the digital memory of sets of diffused and complex projects. Thirdly, and in order to enhance exchange practice and processes. a central part of the 'memory archive' could be a record of the complex series of negotiations and extractions and appropriate ethnographies captured in film, text and sound. Sound and film archives do this to some extent already, but if arts and the human sciences are to think about knowledge exchange effectively, this aspect of the work is essential and can be built into funding and procurement processes. Fourthly, the development of 'third spaces' can be a critical part of the archive and the archive itself can be a third space in itself - one which exists in a space of but separate from the institutions and processes of the university but galvanised and owned by the networks of individuals and agencies from which knowledge has emerged. Fifthly, the development of archival structures hints not at the totalization of knowledge or a mythical will towards comprehensiveness but at a serious attempt to collect and record as much knowledge in as many differing formats as possible. The actual status of this would be decided as part of the exchange process itself but it would be rooted in a rethinking of the nature of research institutes and their intentions, civic responsibilities, and community impact. Within this not only would we have the development of minority knowledges situated within what we might call a 'knowledge-universalizing' discourse where we might be able to discern a peculiar and rich dialectic between multiple knowledge formations, but if the existence of the archive is perpetuated into the future we would have a material resource for a multiplicity of different intellectual pursuits and scientific projects which are opaque and proto-embryonic at the moment of knowledge extraction, collection and archiving. The material investment of archiving knowledge then becomes one of urgency for universities and one which is of deep concern to educational development and the social futures of knowledge and practice itself. |
| Description | Holy Island Heritage Centre Development |
| Organisation | Newcastle University |
| Department | International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Additional academic partnerships have been developed for the development of the Heritage Centre on Holy Island |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Holy Island partnership |
| Organisation | Holy Island Partnership |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | The KE fieldwork on Holy Island was shaped by experimental ethnography: rather than the ethnographer 'observing' the practices of the island, she worked as part of the day-to-day of island life. Through regular residential visits staying in B&Bs and tourist accommodation, she co-developed a series of artistic workshops involving photography, dance, drawing and painting with residents to map the island from the island's perspective. Through the first stage of ethnographic work, the RA became aware of the tensions surrounding a successful Heritage Lottery Fund award. From their perspective, the HIP coordinator and the 'official' voices of agency representatives had understood the community to have been consulted in the development of the bid. Rather than consulted, residents had felt left out and 'done to'. The ethnographic and artistic research on the island presented a more embedded mode of engagement, encouraging the HIP coordinator and other 'official voices' to reflect on how to develop circumstances for mutuality in support of communicative governance. In Holy Island the knowledge exchange process was embedded within the practices of ethnography and artistic work. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Supported Knowledge Exchange processes on Holy Island the development of community work |
| Impact | Rather than simply exchanging knowledge about the role of art in support of community engagement with landscape development, ethnographic research and artistic practice mediated knowledge production as part of the landscape itself. Through dance, performance, photography, drawing and painting and sonic mapping workshops on beaches and fields, a non-verbal more sensory communication enabled new ways of knowing and articulating the island - by residents to governors, reflecting a crucial shift in power relationships. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | Music partnerships in Northumberland |
| Organisation | Bellingham All Acoustic |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | A series of classes and workshops were held in Tarset Village Hall and Bellingham Middle School. These were facilitated by Nathan Armstrong and involved 10 participants over a period of 18 months. The purpose of these was to encourage more young people to play traditional music and create a more sustainable tradition in these sparsely populated areas of Northumberland. It was successful in supporting an inter-generational group of musicians, including those just beginning to practice in music. It led to a series of events including two Ceilidh concerts and brought together practitioners each Sunday afternoon from remote rural sites in north Northumberland to continue thinking about the Northumberland music tradition and perform key pieces. Fiddle-player Shona Mooney, one of the facilitators in the Alwinton seminar and Matthew Rowan's new piece, was commissioned in partnership with Northumberland National Park to develop a new work performed at Newcastle's King's Hall. A further CD, including her NX commission, will be released shortly. Musical traditions can have a significant relationship with landscape and the localities in which that music emerges and is practised. This has been true of pastoral classical compositions such as those by Vaughan Williams or Holst which take the landscape as a theme to reflect upon or represent. It is also true of much traditional music which has emerged from localised folkloric traditions or the songs of the labouring poor. It is also the case that much sound art work takes as its point of reference field recordings from the landscape as well as performing in and upon that landscape. Often music refracts certain kinds of social relations around landscape but musical practice also has an impact in structuring certain kinds of social relationships in communities. In this sense we have to reflect upon the kinds of natural and social relations which are invested in music but also the impact that the practice of music has upon the communities from which it emerges. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The support of knowledge exchange events for the community |
| Impact | Outcomes listed in publications and dissemination events as well as concluding sections |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | Project report for Allendale Forge |
| Organisation | Allendale Forge Studios |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Project report by Masters students from Newcastle University Business School undertaking consultancy module as part of their studies into Arts, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. Their research was supported by the Northumbrian Exchanges project and provided one of the many knowledge exchange outputs from the project. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | Project report for The Textillery |
| Organisation | The Textillery |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Project report by Masters students from Newcastle University Business School undertaking consultancy module as part of their studies into Arts, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. Their research was supported by the Northumbrian Exchanges project and provided one of the many knowledge exchange outputs from the project. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | Project report for Visual Arts in Rural Communities |
| Organisation | Visual Arts in Rural Communities VARC |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Project report by Masters students from Newcastle University Business School undertaking consultancy module as part of their studies into Arts, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. Their research was supported by the Northumbrian Exchanges project and provided one of the many knowledge exchange outputs from the project. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | Project report for Westoe and Seven |
| Organisation | Westoe and Seven |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Project report by Masters students from Newcastle University Business School undertaking consultancy module as part of their studies into Arts, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. Their research was supported by the Northumbrian Exchanges project and provided one of the many knowledge exchange outputs from the project. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | Project report: xsite architecture |
| Organisation | Xsite Architecture |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Project report by Masters students from Newcastle University Business School undertaking consultancy module as part of their studies into Arts, Creativity and Entrepreneurship. Their research was supported by the Northumbrian Exchanges project and provided one of the many knowledge exchange outputs from the project. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | The Future of Visual Arts in Rural Communities |
| Organisation | Visual Arts in Rural Communities VARC |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Evidence gathering (stakeholder interviews and community focus group) and subsequent report for trustees of Visual Arts in Rural Communities, setting out key options for future sustainability, to inform an internal workshop between NX project researcher and VARC director and trustees. |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Title | Northumbrian Exchanges website |
| Description | Project website |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2013 |
| Impact | Development of knowledge exchange relationships through the site |
| URL | http://www.n-ex.org.uk |
| Description | Music workshops in several locations in North Northumberland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Workshops varied from instrumental classes with schools and adult learners to knowledge exchange events, in some cases connected to public concerts and festivals (eg Bellingham All-Acoustic, Morpeth Gathering, Alwinton Summer Concerts) Further joint events at Alwinton, ongoing workshops with schools, two CDs produced including new compositions |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013,2014 |
| Description | Northumbrian Exchanges Partners Event 1 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Ongoing development of the Northumbrian Exchanges programme The development of the programme |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
| Description | Panel presentation on Northumbrian Exchanges NX including partners from ACA and other organisations at Hyper-Rural - the End of Urbanism conference on 22/11/2017, at Manchester School of Architecture. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Panel presentation on Northumbrian Exchanges NX including partners from ACA and other organisations at 'Hyper-Rural - the End of Urbanism' conference on 22/11/2017, at Manchester School of Architecture. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Researching Rural Housing: with an artist in residence |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Series of art-let workshops as part of an art residency project between Newcastle University's Centre for Rural Economy and Berwick Visual Arts |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |