Progress in Arts and Culture Research: A Perspective

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Abstract

New research on arts and culture points to a range of impacts in US communities. Arts and culture - including informal activities such as gatherings in parks and community centers where group traditions are maintained and/or invented, church-based artistic activity, and through the convergence of professional working artists in neighborhoods - shape communities in a variety of ways ranging from community health to community development and the creation of social capital. Planners and policymakers would do well to incorporate new research findings about arts and culture into their work on the design and revitalization of communities

Introduction

Several years ago, in Pittsburgh, on the heels of a big conference on arts and culture in the United States, I was asked by a news reporter to comment on the impacts of the arts on communities. Having spent the previous 10 years or so researching the topic?investigating the myriad ways in which arts and cultural activity are often present in communities, the roles that various manifestations of arts and culture can play, and the ways in which cultural vitality can be measured and monitored over time?I relished the opportunity to share what I was learning. ?What specifically would you like me to comment on? The presence of artists in neighborhoods? The incidence of amateur arts practice in communities? Audience participation at downtown venues and events? Arts education?? The reporter, rather than being pleased with a menu of items from which to choose and diverse ways of thinking about arts impacts, was slightly perplexed, annoyed, and taken off course by my question. He told me that he needed a brief statement about arts impacts and that if I would talk about activity downtown and its economic impacts that would be just fine. I told him that I could comment on downtown arts activity, but that if he was truly interested in the original question he had asked me, limiting the answer to downtown activity and economic impacts would not do the topic justice. The reporter, not wanting to be perceived as taking short cuts, indulged me. I was pleased to push the envelope.

In the few minutes we had, I called his attention to a range of other ways in which arts and culture are present in cities and also ways in which people actively participate?through recurrent festivals and community celebrations, informal but recurrent gatherings in parks and community centers where group traditions are maintained and/or invented, church-based artistic activity, and also through the convergence of professional working artists in neighborhoods, among other manifestations. These are often important aspects of communities that go overlooked and are missed only when they are gone. I talked about how the most developed areas of study on impacts had to do with arts education in schools and the economic impacts of arts-presenting organizations, such as museums, theaters, and concert halls. I had to tell him that there was research that provided suggestive evidence that other manifestations of arts and culture mattered in important ways?for building social capital and collective efficacy within groups and across diverse groups, for workforce development through the acquisition of critical thinking and problem-solving skills, for mitigating crime and improving public safety, and for the advancement of creativity in and of itself. However, there was still quite a bit of research to do to integrate the presence and value of these activities into discussions and assessments of community conditions and dynamics.

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