Julie Crawshaw

BA Hons Fine Art (Drawing and Painting): Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, University of Dundee, 1993.

MSc Management and Implementation of Development Projects: Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, 2005.

Beyond Targets: articulating the role of public art in support of sustainable communities

Supervisor: Joanne Tippett and Albena Yaneva

This is a trans-disciplinary qualitative study to articulate the role of public art in support of sustainable communities.

There are a number of ‘disconnects’ across stakeholders in the understanding of the role of ‘public art’ in support of community sustainability. There is a ‘universal belief’ (Mooney, 2004) that art can support regeneration and renewal, but a lack of knowledge to support this view (Selwood, 2002). There is a call for evidence to support public policy, but a lack of evaluation frameworks that ‘go beyond what is easy to measure’ (Holden, 2004; Belfiore and Bennett, 2004). This research aims to respond to Holden’s (2004) call for ‘a new language to articulate the role of art and the artist’ in order to build bridges of understanding across stakeholders in support of making development more sustainable (Munasinghe, 2008).

The research is framed around four inter-related questions: (1) What is the role of ‘public art’ in support of community sustainability? (2) How is this achieved? (3) How can this be articulated? (4) What are the implications for policy and practice? The project is positioned at intersections across literatures concerned with: art, community and sustainability (from a sociological perspective).

Sustainability, community development, regeneration, art, evaluation, soft systems methodology.

Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) Doctoral Training Centre (DTC)

Julie is a SCI DTC scholar. The Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) is a multidisciplinary centre of global excellence researching major national and international issues associated with sustainability and encouraging consumers to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Graduates of the Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) will be uniquely qualified to contribute to the emerging areas of activity linked to sustainable consumption and sustainable development.

Funding partnership

Julie’s PhD is supported by a partnership between the DTC SCI, Renaissance North West and The Whitworth Art Gallery. Representatives of the partnership meet as a quarterly steering group.

Fellowship

She has a fellowship at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, as part of the ‘Art, Science and Business’ programme. She will be resident at the Akademie in August, September, October 2010.

Professional experience

Julie has worked independently for fifteen years at the intersection of art and development (‘culture-led regeneration’) in the UK. She edited a national arts magazine before setting up and directing festivals, galleries, studios, seminars, workshops and conferences, in order to look at the role of the artist from a development perspective.

She originally trained as an artist before undertaking a postgraduate in Development Studies (The Management and Implementation of Development Projects) at IDPM, University of Manchester. For the last five years, before starting her PhD, she has been evaluating art and regeneration projects for a range of clients (Arts Councils, City and Regional Councils, galleries and museums, and environmental and arts agencies) using Soft Systems Methodology (as developed by Peter Checkland). With Jason E. Bowman, she is currently reviewing a pilot project they designed with residents of Openshaw, East Manchester. The project, developed in partnership with Eastlands Homes, Manchester City Council and New East Manchester, aims to investigate the role of the artist in creating ‘a sense of place’ as part of the extensive Housing Market Renewal programme across the East of the City.

Crawshaw, J (2009). Breaking the Waves: Evaluating the Value of the Arts in Supporting Community Sustainability. II International Conference on Sustainability Measurement and Modelling. Barcelona.

Crawshaw, J (2009). Measuring the Value of the Arts in Support of Social Inclusion. UK Systems Society Oxford, Systemist.

Crawshaw, J (2008). Beyond Targets: an holistic approach for evaluating the impact of the arts in community development. UK Systems Society Oxford, Systemist.

Crawshaw, J and J. Bowman (2007). Made Visible: The East Midlands Rural Visual Arts Review. Leicester, East Midlands County Arts Officers Group.

Expert advisory input to:

Tippett, J., V. Farnsworth, F. How, E. le Roux, P. Mann and G. Sherriff (2009). Improving Sustainability Skills and Knowledge in the Workplace - Final Project Report – July 31, 2009. Manchester, Sustainable Consumption Institute: 130. www.roundview.org.

Teaching and learning

Julie is interested in opportunities to develop her teaching portfolio.

Enquiry based learning

Julie will be facilitating one of the multidisciplinary student teams as part of the CEEBL/SCI Manchester Sustainable City Project. Student teams will work with local organizations on real-world sustainable development projects as part of a new cross-faculty 10 credit course unit.

Experiential learning

For the last two years (September 2008 and September 2009), as a core member of the IDPM team, Julie has supported the development and delivery of the six week experiential (stage 2) programme of MATT2 (Managing at the Top). MATT 2 is a significant programme coordinated by a partnership between the Government of Bangladesh and the Department for International Development (UK) to develop reformed human resource management systems within the Bangladesh Civil Service as an important building block for incremental administrative reform. The seven year strategically designed programme aims at creating a critical mass of reform-minded civil servants to create and sustain reform action across priority project areas.

Lecturing

Julie has given guest lectures within Fine Art programmes including: Birmingham Institute of Art and Design; Blackpool University; De Montfort University, Leicester; Newcastle University; Stoke on Trent College of Art; University of Central Lancashire, Preston; Wimbledon College of Art and Wolverhampton University.