How Can The Arts Create Cultural Cohesion In Our Community?

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August 26, 2020

Rhythm is Life: Bringing dance back to the people

August 25, 2021

Published by Heartdancers on June 22, 2021

How Can The Arts Create Cultural Cohesion In Our Community?

Carlos Agamez
Working for Uptown Festival was a great experience that had a meaningful impact on my life as an artist and community member. The festival took place in October 2017 and was organised by Uniting Harris Community Centre and PUNS, with Heardancers Charity leading the artistic direction of the festival. As Visual Arts Director for the festival, I was responsible for graphics and motif creation. Uptown had a profound impact in the community of the inner city of Sydney the neighbouring areas of Ultimo and Pyrmont that were once joined together as a single neighbourhood. Today they are considered separate neighbourhoods and have experienced massive changes in terms of gentrification and social issues in recent years.

The social division in this area is noticeable, especially once you interact with the locals and get to know the area better. The proximity to the city and the influence of students and University life (in contrast to the family houses) were all the more reason for us to create an opportunity to bring the community together.

Uptown Festival aimed to promote the cultural and historical richness of the area and provide an opportunity to learn from First Nations people and their ongoing connection to this place known as ‘Pirrama’. We provided a platform for locals to connect and share their stories by using art as a vehicle for connection. We brought local artists together to create exhibitions of their work and we had music and rhythms from bands of diverse traditional and contemporary backgrounds. Our vision was to bring locals and people from outside the area together in a safe, positive and enjoyable way.

Art has the potential to make some themes easier to understand or digest by opening an immediate dialogue between artist and audience to consider a wide range of topics - some more sensitive or challenging than others. By using art as an avenue to consider different lived experiences and some of the issues faced in the local area, this dialogue has the potential to influence new ways of thinking about our relationships to place and people. When local people have the opportunity to engage with their neighbours and see themselves represented in an artistic and creative space, boundless opportunities are created for new conversations and connections within the community that nurture shared values over time.

By creating a unique platform for the Ultimo-Pyrmont community to share art, music, dance and culture, we opened the doors to a new way for people to engage with their neighbourhood spaces and consider their relationships to place and to each other. We saw the importance and the positive impact that this had for each community member and the special moments that were shared and created have left a lasting impact on myself and others in the community that remember it fondly.

If you are interested in learning more about how we can use the Arts as a vehicle for positive social connection and cultural cohesion in your community, please visit the Heartdancers Charity website and get in touch with us about our Culturally Diverse Arts Education programs.

Carlos Agamez

Heartdancers Visual Art’s Coordinator and Cultural Educator

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