In times of growing social fragmentation and social inequality combined with austerity measures, cultural institutions must redefine or sharpen their role and function in society.
Community building can consolidate the outreach activities of cultural institutions or contribute to the optimization of outreach activities. While traditional outreach activities often aim to impart knowledge and promote understanding of art and culture, for example, community building focuses primarily on fostering a deeper and more sustainable relationship between the cultural institution and the local community, thereby maintaining or deepening interest in the institution in the long term. The aim is to anchor the institution locally in various population groups. This goes hand in hand with a change in the role of the cultural institution: it is now a place of culture and a place for encounters, exchange and debate. By bringing people from different backgrounds together, cultural institutions promote empathy, critical thinking and social cohesion and take responsibility for social challenges.
The following factors contribute to successful community building work:
Analyze the local situation and population structure
A thorough analysis of the population structure helps to recognize the needs and interests of the local community and to identify specific target groups that may have been underrepresented or excluded in the past (e.g. in terms of diversity). Through appropriate associations and institutions, an active exchange can be established with the groups of people and their life situation and interests can be better understood.
Developing projects together
In community building projects, the ideas and needs of the community are incorporated into the planning and implementation from the outset, e.g. through workshops, open forums or joint working groups. With the Open Mic, Vienna's Belvedere 21 art museum has created a public format in which the audience shapes the program. Here, people talk about their professional, private and everyday lives; citizens express their opinions on current topics. Over a maximum length of 8 minutes, people are given a stage for presentations, debates, speeches, spoken word, comedy, text contributions and musical performances.
Strengthening long-term and trusting cooperation
Instead of holding one-off events, community building is aimed at long-term collaboration. Ongoing collaboration in individual projects generates new ideas, relationships and interactions that lead to further community activities. Here, one stone sets the other rolling, provided there is an atmosphere of trusting cooperation. For example, Mustafa Akça, former neighborhood manager of Berlin districts, initiated the “Selam Opera!” project in 2011. Within this framework, the Komische Oper Berlin continues to develop a wide variety of formats, such as pop-up operas and backyard concerts, with which it engages in exchange and mutual inspiration with often little-noticed population groups.
Authenticity and relevance
The projects must address real needs and interests of the people and not just serve as symbolic gestures. A first authentic way to reach the community is through “scouts”. These people have the same social or cultural background as the interest groups and act as bridge builders between the institution and the community. The Staatstheater Hannover, for example, employs young people as “theater scouts” who observe various processes in internal operations as well as interaction with the audience and suggest measures to make the theater more youth-friendly.
actori supports cultural institutions in finding creative ways to tap into new target groups on the basis of sound knowledge about visitors and non-visitors. In doing so, actori incorporates the measures into a strategic overall view and thus shows ways and possibilities to make the relevance of the institution visible to the public or to increase it.
_
A contribution by Marietta Schoenberg, project management