OECD Culture and Local Development.pdf - PACA

1. USING A TERRITORY’S CULTURE TO PROMOTE LOCAL DEVELOPMENT
in urban settings than elsewhere, are systematically frustrated, and cultural integration
mechanisms will be seen as a sham; failure at social assimilation will sooner or later
result in the failure of cultural assimilation; the suburb will become a ghetto, whose
denizens enjoy internal equality but are cut off from the outside world.
The trend in graffiti and tagging reflects this tension. At first, they delivered an
explicit message calling for political or ideological revolution, they then turned to
subversive messages scrawled on advertising posters and billboards, challenging
society’s dreams and puncturing its illusions. Today, graffiti sprayings are seen as
meaningless except for whatever artistic value they may have. They are merely urban
hieroglyphics showing that the taggers still exist. They demand, not for material
advantage, but recognition, which explains why the favourite place for these graffiti
is on transit, police and education facilities. The limits of the city are redefined in this
way, and public space is privatised. Facing a difficult integration, graffiti artists mark
out a new urban space in their own image.
It is impossible then to explain a systematically positive view of the impact of
culture on social integration behaviour, as it is to deny its possibility. In fact it is less
culture itself than the process of creation inherent in any cultural activity that is at
issue here.
Social integration experiments using artistic activities
Personalities and identities have always been reconstituted through artistic
pursuits, and the history of the arts reveals a number of works created in this way.
If we look at the most recent experiments in local development, the project
involving the Cavern of Cork is surely one of the most interesting (Greffe & McDonnell,
1996). In this town, where the unemployment rate had reached alarming proportions
(averaging more than 30%) there were no job possibilities for young people, who not
only sought to get out of the territory but carried with them the darkest feelings about
it. An association was set up to help young people shoot films about their town, their
families and their communities. When they were placed behind the camera, their
viewpoint changed fundamentally and they began to take an interest in problems and
in people they had previously rejected. This artistic experiment was certainly not enough
to make up for the lack of job opportunities on the market, but it did have the effect
of sparking in them a sense of loyalty to their territory, and the idea that they could
build their future there.
A comparable experiment took place in Bologna. Although the municipality had
initially placed its bets on tourism, it decided to deal with growing unemployment
among youth by encouraging them to launch small-scale cultural businesses and to
try their hand for the first time at project initiatives. Many of those initiatives survived
CULTURE AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT - ISBN 92-64-00990-6 - © OECD 2005 39