Getting to know the island: Artistic experiments in rural community development

Rural Arts Festivals as Contributors to Rural Development and Resilience

“…Other exhibitions and festivals which have opened subsequent to Salmela, for example the Katajainen Kansa experimental exhibition, and which seek to focus more deliberately on the promotion of local art as a community‐centred activity have usefully highlighted some of the differences between more market‐driven and community‐driven models. These relate to the range of social and economic development roles that each potentially fulfils in a development context, the varying emphases on endogenous and exogenous arts resources, on the cultural significance of maintaining local social and place identities but of also diverging from these dominant practices and perspectives in promoting innovation and experimentation, and the importance of a balance among these as part of achieving rural sustainability and resilience (Ray ; Markusen ; Crawshaw and Gkartzios , ).…”

Researching Rural Housing: With an Artist in Residence

“…Something almost universal with this research in social sciences is how art and artists are positioned as objects of study, rather than a mode of inquiry – although scholarly explorations of the artistic practice can be found in the context of engaging communities (see for example Cowie ). In our previous research (Crawshaw and Gkartzios , ) we set out to explore the role of artistic interventions in relation to Ruth Liepin’s framework of community. We started out as researchers of art, but ended up highlighting the potential of research with art by suggesting that the role of art can be understood as a ‘relational diagnostic’ or a mode of inquiry itself.…”

“…To get a sense of its history, its smells, its past and future potential, and to share these experiences in a sensorial way, as revealed both in Guide the Guide and the ‘walkshop’. In previous works we have argued how artistic practice offers a relational diagnostic of places (Crawshaw and Gkartzios ) – a way to ‘read’ a community ‘in the making’ in support of enhanced and continuously transformative governance arrangements. Particularly in Guide the Guide we see this diagnostic opportunity again, a community experiences a place on its own terms, at its own pace, communicates and ‘commons with’: ‘To communicate with people is then to common with them in the participatory process of living together’ (Ingold , p. 15).…”

Poetry, Painting and Change on the Edge of England

“…Although marginally attempted in rural studies (Crawshaw and Gkartzios ; Crawshaw ) our work seeks to demonstrate the way in which creative practice not only informs critical analysis but is also a critical tool in itself. Our practice is transdisciplinary in nature and involves extensive creative fieldwork through walking, drawing, writing, photography, historical and archival research.…”