Unit 3 - Community arts project

What is a community arts project?

The main aim of a community arts project is to bring together lots of different members of a community together through the form of art. The different people within the community can come from very diverse backgrounds but they all share a love for art. Another aim of community arts project is to entertain an audience. Lots of people in the community come together to watch the project being performed or displayed within the community. As well as bringing the wider community together, it also brings the organisations involved in the project together. This then enables them to have closer working relationships for the future where they can work on other possible community projects which could then work on bringing in other organisations to form more strong working relationships. This process then just keeps repeating. Community projects can be used in communities which are quite diverse. They have the main aim to bring all the people there together as they may not speak to each other but they all share the love of art. A community project also aims to educate the audience. This requires the process of making sure that the audience understands the them of the project and what it is all about. The project within the community can also inform. This involves telling the audience about certain issues/situations/scenarios of which the whole project is based around. The project was to be well thought out in order to do this so can take a very long time to develop the full project.

I have used the internet to help me research community arts. It enables me to understand what a community arts project is and how a project brings the community together. Here are some links which I think are useful to understanding what a community arts project is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_arts

http://inspireart.org/en/resources/communityart/

By using the internet I was able to find many examples of amazing community arts projects that have been created and presented across the world. Here is the link to the website showing 'The 25 most amazing community art projects':

http://www.socialworkdegreeguide.com/25-most-amazing-community-arts-projects/

As you can see on the list there a many great community arts projects that have been presented within communities with the aim to bring the whole community together. One of the projects that caught my eye was ‘The Incredible Edible Park’. The park was created in a town in California as there was a great need for nutritious food within the area. The park is sustained by members of the community. This therefore brings together diverse people from the community coming together to show their love for art as they are making sure the park looks nice and is in great condition. It also educates younger members of the community as they help to maintain the look of the park and the growth of the crops within it. Since the parks creation in 1999, there has been a massive increase in the involvement and enjoyment between diverse members of the community.