What role do the arts and artists play in complex community change?
These days, our neighborhoods and communities are complex systems in which many individuals and agencies interact, resulting in unexpected behaviors alongside entrenched repeating patterns. In this kind of unpredictable and swirling context, traditional approaches to planning for change simply aren’t up to the task.
To work effectively at the community or neighborhood level nowadays we must navigate the complex dynamics at play, and bring an experimental mindset to learning our way into “next practices” for a brighter shared future. Artists and arts organizations can contribute uniquely to these efforts, not only through arts-based community activities, but also by offering their embodied knowledge of how to operate in complexity and leading groups to discover their own creative solutions. The strategy of bringing these artistic skills to community development work is rapidly catching on, as can be seen in the popularity of "creative placemaking" programs, but there’s still a long way to go in shifting attitudes and building the capacity to think and act differently when the conditions are complex.
