SURF

by Ruth Barker, 18 Mar 2011

Hello,

Yesterday I went to SURF’s annual conference.

It was a long day, but interesting. And very cold (!) as the heating was broken so we were blasted with chilled air for most of the morning sessions. Brrr!

I thought I’d give a run-down on the day. I’ll start with the programme to give an idea of the range of speakers, and will transcribe some of my notes, below.

Programme:
Early Morning Session
9am Registration and coffee
9.30 Welcome and introduction
Guest Chair Andrew Lyon, Converger, International Futures Forum.
9.45 ‘Who and What?’ Electronic voting session
10am Community Resilience and Poverty
Julia Unwin, Chief Executive, Joseph Rowntree Foundation
10.20 Cross Border Lessons
Pat Ritchie, Chief Executive, Homes and Communities Agency
10.40 Questions and comments
11am Coffee, networking.

Late Morning Session
11.25 National Priorities and electronic voting session
Andy Milne, Chief Executive, SURF
11.55 Healthy Resilience
George Dodds, Director for Programme Design and Delivery, NHS Scotland
12.15 Themed and facilitated discussion groups
1.15 Lunch

Afternoon Session
2pm Resilience and community participation
John Cassidy, Chair, Cambuslang and Rutherglen Community Health Initiative
2.20 A Transatlantic View
Denys Candy, International Creative Regeneration Practitioner
2.40 Discussion Group Feedback
3.15 Where Now? Panel session
4pm Summary
4.10 Close and coffee.

These are my notes – they’re a little messy but I hope they might give an impression of my train of thought as the day progressed. Some are directly related to particular presentations, but some are more general. As you’ll see some of the presentations were more relevant to the field of public art than others, but I think that all of them provided least one question to take with me. You can download the slides from the keynote presentations from the SURF website.

- what is resilience?
- who generates it?
- What do we hope it brings?
- Or protects us from?

Creativity as a process of: keeping as many things as possible in your head at the same time without taking a decision about any of them; and then making something new out of understanding them.

Encountering difficulties? Don’t bounce back – bounce beyond!

Julia Unwin:
- changing social contract.
- Emphasis on local
- Economy of deficit following an economy of surplus.

Andy Milne
- What do we mean by Regeneration? Perhaps it’s a collective response to the damaging effects of change.
- If a process does not result in benefits to the health and well-being of people, then we cannot justify calling it ‘regeneration’,

- Scottish Government describes themes of Solidarity (closing the gap between rich and poor); Cohesion (closing the gap between geographical areas); and Participation.

- Housing associations are now considered ‘key delivery vehicles’ of regeneration.

George Dodds
- ‘The Big Society’ has been around for 100s of years. It doesn’t need a new label. We need to say Thankyou to the people who are already living this way, and who always have had that sense of social responsibility. Not the ‘heroes’ but the ordinary people who do small things, like knocking on a neighbour’s door to ask if they’re ok. They’re the people who build societies, but they’re the people we never find out about.
- Nb place of artists within all of this…
- Reference to Raploch URC site as an example of a good project (Peter McCaughey link)
- do things with people, not to them

John Cassidy – community volunteer. Comment to speakers: You’re using too much jargon!
- Nb what does language mean when is no longer communicates, but instead conveys (eg. a set of ideas or references)?

Quote from the Tackling Poverty Board 2011
“We must not underestimate the resources needed to include people effectively”

Time for Change 2010
Quotes from Dr Harry Burns (quotes I think by John Cassidy – apologies if I’m wrong here)
“We need to do more. At a time of economic uncertainty threats to the health of disadvantage communities increase and, if Scotland is to continue to progress and to do so at an accelerated pace, new approaches to health creation need to be considered.”

- our body chemistry is affected by our social conditions.
- Health benefits are not always delivered by traditional health mechanisms. Eg huge health benefits from community radio project, but heard to get this funded by health budgets.

Denys Candy
Denys’ presentation was great! I have a vested interest though as he’s recently written a Reflection for PAR+RS (due to go live on the site very soon) in which he discusses the Find The Rivers project. In the meantime, here’s an account of his SURF presentation.

How do we heal post industrial places?
Pittsburgh: already depressed before the economic crash. Previously a steel city, but production much declined. Post industrial.

View Larger Map

History of civic displacement as ‘regeneration’ strategy. ‘Areas of blight’ defined by civic authority – often tied to race, as tended to be African American neighbourhoods (still a very segregated culture). When areas are geographically isolated they degenerate very quickly in terms of health, poverty, and housing. Interdependent aspects of health and wellbeing.

‘we need to include planning strategies, but also to go beyond planning’

Denys’ strategy has been a community driven process of re-experiencing place.
Appreciate existing community leadership.
‘Power of a confluence’ – point where the rivers join one another.
Hill District of Pittsburgh was a poor and socially isolated area, which people from other parts of town didn’t either visit or cut through. Thinking about the perceptual maps we have of a city – the areas you go and don’t go. Areas are often racially defined. Segregation.
Denys attempted to changing perceptions by changing experiences. He bypassed planners and went straight to individuals living in the Hill District.
Thinking about the river as a place but also as a metaphor. A transformative act: got people to go out onto the river. Gave people a new perspective looking from the river back onto their own neighbourhood. The took people up into the hills to look down and see new routes through the city.

Re-imagining places.
A new narrative emerged of the district as a place full of trees, surrounded by the river. This narrative was accepted by the community because they had seen it themselves (from the river perspective).
Also lots of events – art, music, artists.
Led to sense of reconnection – to people, to rivers, to the Northern edge of the district.

Design vision emerged from this re-imagining. Specific design plans emerging from the process, and from the various stakeholder.

Need to bring lots of people into the process, and to give creative people permission to think and to explore. BUT also need to make this creative exploration serve the broader vision of the people who live there.

‘Confluence’ project. A mixed music event designed to attract a mixed audience. Event based in the Hill Distict, intended to draw people in who wouldn’t otherwise enter the District.

Value placed on creating ‘joyful space’ without worrying too much about what the outcomes of that might be.

Brought in bigger partners once the groundwork had been done,

Walter Hood.

Less a masterplan, and more an ecological framework on which development can take place. Lots of small events and actions. Challenge of climate change. Produced a ‘greenprint’ that re-imagined the Hill District as a ‘village in the woods’. Launched the Greenprint with a barbeque and a big sign outside where everyone could come along and eat and talk about it.

Civic ecology – planet falling apart. Look at water, energy, food at local level. What are our local ecologies?

Link to Helix project in Falkirk, and some of the strategies being used there.

‘We’ve got to get to work. We’ve got to be artful, we’ve got to be communitarian, and we’ve got to honour history but not be shackled by it. We’ve got to go beyond simple engagement and do some deep looking. We’ve got to know the local dna, and respect that uniqueness.’

More later,

R.