Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Cultural Agencies - Collection

'Collection' explores the vehicular tools that the 'Gulsuyu, Gulensu Daukkani' can create and utilise to gather both empirical data about the residents of the area, and, viewpoints of individuals about a common platform.

The existing tools and methods for 'Collection' at the Dukkan had been carried out by means of a 'Mobile Vitrin.' The introduction of the 'vitrin' as an alien object was intended to spark curiosity and trigger community interest into collecting and displaying historical artefacts and photographs for a (short) limited period of time within one given community centre/political party centre before the same procedure would be carried out elsewhere. Having researched the outcome of the previous attempts to utilise the 'vitrin' in this manner (of which only one attempt materialised) together with the findings of my Live Project colleagues and other interviews with local community members, it was evident that the scope of the 'vitrin' in this manner was very limited. Firstly, due to the fact that the communities that these 'vitrin' events were planned for are largely closed communities that are only accessible by the members of a given sector of society; i.e. any collection or display would merely represent the experiences of a group of people who share political views or geographic backgrounds etc. Secondly, aside from photographs of the 'vitrin' and a number of very impersonal contact cards recording names of contributors, the documentation and representation of these events for dissemination to the wider community at a 'neutral' location such as the 'Dukkan' is practically non-existent. For these reasons, I believe the 'collection' project at the 'Dukkan' is not fulfilling its participatory potential in collecting a broader sample of data from more contributors, or presenting this information back to the wider community of Gulsuyu and Gulensu.



By providing a participatory tool that draws attention to it and invites discussion about the needs and feelings of the residents, an open platform for conversations can be had beyond the constraints of a political party, or place of origin. I am of the opinion that it is only then that a real discussion about the future planning and development of Gulsuyu and Gulensu can be approached in a meaningful way that can be presented to higher authorities in defence of the sustainability of cultural agency.




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