A member of a community forms sustainable relationships with others in a space, grounded in a shared geography, sense of responsibility and purpose to one another. Community is built through the process of honest communication and maintained by service to one’s peers, elders and youth. It exists within words and is reflected in stories told. A community is a collective of traditions, ideologies, dreams and materials, which describe the people of a place in time. Community arts encompass both the physical and metaphysical remains which emerge as a product of a generation of people.
As an arts manager, I am a story collector, a recorder of dreams, a listener, a facilitator and a maker. I believe in the profound potential of the individual spirit, the power of a united community in creating positive social change, and artistic expression as a fundamental necessity in the human experience.
A couple of responses.
1. Good distillation of values and approach, and role.
2. I challenge you to replace your “to be/is/are” verbs in your first paragraph with active tense verbs. See what shifts when you do this.