Academics are to work with resilience
planners from UK cities to explore how art and performance
could be used to establish successful social distancing strategies.
Over the past six months social
distancing has become part of everyday life for people around the world and
could continue to be so for the foreseeable future as we find new ways of
living with the challenge of Covid-19.
But with reports that compliance with
social distancing regulations is on the decline, new ideas are being sought to
keep people engaged and ensure they adhere to guidelines in cities across the
UK.
Academics from Northumbria University,
in Newcastle upon Tyne, and Brunel University London have identified an urgent
need to understand how to practise, make sense of and sustain city life in the
context of social distancing – and that the arts and arts research are vital to
that work.
They
also aim to highlight the key role the arts have played during the pandemic,
and the importance of arts education and research and the arts industry as a
whole, especially at a time when the value of higher education is often judged on graduates’ incomes rather than the
impact they make on society.
Dr Patrick Duggan and Dr Stuart Andrews
have received funding of more than £120,000 through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as part of UK Research and Innovation’s rapid response
to Covid-19 fund – set up to support projects which contribute to our
understanding of, and response to, the Covid-19 pandemic and its impacts.
Their project, Social Distancing and
Reimagining City Life: Performative strategies and practices for response and
recovery in and beyond lockdown, will explore the role the arts have played
in the public’s response to Covid-19, and how artistic practice and research could
inform hazard mitigation planning in UK cities.
Dr Duggan, Associate Professor of
Performance and Culture at Northumbria University, explains: “It is clear that
social distancing will need to be maintained for some time to come; to make
this sustainable, we need to find new and creative models for understanding and
participating in city life, helping people cope with social distancing, both
practically and emotionally.
“In our research on Performing City
Resilience, we have shown that incorporating performance theory and practice in
the strategic planning of social distancing at a city level can offer new ways
of rethinking city challenges.
“In terms of social distancing,
techniques such as using arrows and signs only have limited success – there’s a
real need for imaginative ideas, creative practices and new thinking in the
ways we’re responding to the pandemic.”
Dr Andrews, Lecturer in Theatre at
Brunel University London, added: “The arts are often used when it comes to the
messaging element of public health campaigns such as social distancing, for
example designing graphics or logos, but they are seldom used in actually
developing the strategy behind such campaigns.
“This project will explore how the arts
could provide new models for understanding and practising city life, helping
people cope with social distancing in the long term.”
Over the next 18 months Dr Duggan and Dr
Andrews will work with strategic decision-makers in hazard mitigation,
sustainability and resilience from Bristol, Glasgow and Newcastle City Councils,
as well as with artists and arts organisations.
They will explore performance practices
which have helped people through lockdown and social distancing during the
Covid-19 pandemic, for example, Spanish dancer Albert Garcia who, unable to dance freely during
Spain’s nation lockdown, took the opportunity to perform for his neighbours
each night when taking out his rubbish.
Another example is the weekly clapping
for the NHS during the UK’s national lockdown which brought people together in
a common practice.
As Dr Andrews explains: “All over the
world we have seen examples of art and performance being used during lockdown
to allow people to engage creatively and at times collectively with the places
in which they live during these restrictions.
“From exploring the ways that artists
have responded to Covid-19 and so discovered new ways of practising life and
work, to analysing social performances such as musicians performing in their
streets for neighbours to enjoy, this project asks how such performances work
and, in turn, how, by understanding these performances, we can inform strategy
at a city level.”
During the research, Drs Duggan and
Andrews will draw on their recent experience of working in NewOrleans, where they
carried out an interdisciplinary investigation into the usefulness of performance
to policies and practices of city resilience.
Their work resulted in the Office of
Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness fundamentally changing their
hazard mitigation policy and practice, and in significant changes to the strategies
of major arts organisations in the city.
It is hoped this latest social
distancing project will lead to new understandings of the place and function of
performance, broker creative thinking on response and recovery, and make
strategic recommendations for arts strategy, pandemic planning and hazard
mitigation policy.
Recommendations from the research will be
shared through Core Cities, a network of eleven UK cities, and arts strategy
organisations, meaning the findings could lead to changes in social distancing
strategy across much of the UK.
It is hoped the project will also shine
a spotlight on the role of the arts in our society, and the value placed on
higher education degree courses in the arts and humanities.
Dr
Duggan concluded: “The value of a particular subject or career is often
measured only by how much one can earn, but we can see from the way people have
embraced the arts during lockdown that ‘value’ needs to be measured in other
ways too.
“I
defy anyone to say they haven’t engaged with the arts since March – whether
that’s reading, knitting, television, online theatre, radio – the arts are what
people have turned to in their millions during this crisis, and yet at the same
time we’re being told they are not important.
“We
hope this project will highlight how the arts can and should be incorporated
into other areas of our lives such as strategy and policy development. We need
to rethink the ways the arts are valued in the UK.”
