This is THE handbook for creating work with communities, a must-read for anyone working in this space. It is also just full of great writers that exemplify Australia’s socially engaged practice and offer a vision of how creative practice could and should be led.

CHAPTER 1 - First Peoples First

This is the first chapter of a book I have been excited to read for a long time.

This chapter was laid out simply ways that a First People’s ally can start to think about how to work in community without being patronising or paternalistic.

“Things to keep in mind"

Know yourself and your culture. What beliefs/practices are you bringing into this work? Understand your own culture and cultural practice. If applicable, recognise your white privilege and how your whiteness operates internally and externally.
Understand the unique history and culture of place. Each First Peoples community is different. Spend time learning and understanding the local context.
Work yourself out of a job. Create opportunities to strengthen and support local mob to take over your position.
Don't think you know best. Communities have the answers to their own problems.
Learn from the past. Listen and learn about what has gone before. Support community aspirations and existing projects rather than reinventing the wheel.
Do not speak for First Peoples. Always know your place as a supporter and an ally, not as a leader in the space.
Make a long-term commitment. The longer you work with a community, the greater your understanding and the more effective you will be.
Take time to build trust. Communities have experienced many workers come and go, with a range of positive and negative experiences. There have also been many disappointments due to broken promises and policy failures. Take the time you need to prove your worth.

CHAPTER 2 - Intersectionality

This chapter by Alia Gabres takes the term ‘intersectionality’ coined by Black Feminist writer Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and relates it to arts practice and institutions.

It shows how some identities are marginalised
This includes those not thought of as ’mythically normal’
Identities can overlap to multiply discriminations (ie being disabled and black)

Self-awareness of privilege is a recurring theme so far in this book.

Ends with a great quote from Aboriginal Artist and Activist Dr Lilla Watson:

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, let us work together

Chapter 3 - The Art of Collaboration

Like the title of the book declares The Relationship is the Project and this chapter outlines how collaboration is a kind of relationship. As in any good relationship three factors are key: Trust (ethical behaviour by all parties), language (how we talk about each other in the collaboration) and time (time is the key for establishing the other two factors, it is also often undervalued).

In this chapter Eleanor Jackson discusses the importance of being vulnerable and letting go of control, acknowledging power imbalances and being honest about yourself and your collaborators.

Chapter 4 - Ethics and Self-Determination

This Chapter by Tania Cañas describes the difference between Self-expression and Self-determination, and how it relates to collaborations between communities and artists.

the ever-continuing struggle to seize back their creative initiative in history through a real control of all the means of communal self-definition in time and space
- Ngũgi wa Thiong

This chapter made me think of the topic of black tokenism brought up briefly by the character playing Margaret Sloan-Hunter in the tv show Mrs. America. It is not enough to represent community using the privilege that we enjoy. We must strive to develop the opportunity for self-determination and true autonomy.

Chapter 5 - Access and Inclusion

I was lucky enough to be part of a workshop that Caroline Bowditch held for Polyglot Artists at the Abbotsford Convent in February this year. It was a great experience and it was equally great to read this chapter on access and inclusion in the arts.

Caroline outlines Social Model thinking that recognises people are disabled by barriers that society creates not by their condition or impairment.

Dissability results from an interaction between a non-inclusive society and an individual.
-United Nations

A remedy for the injustice that is disregard for the needs of a great number of the population may be found in universal design principles.

Universal design is the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialised design.
- Ron Mace

More about universal design can be found here: Centre for Universal Design Australia

Chapter 6 - Creating Communities

Chapter 7 - Creatively and Culturally Safe Spaces

Lia Pa’apa’a

Chapter 8 - Platforming for Community: Going beyond surface representation

Adolfo Aranjuez

Chapter 8 - Cultural Safety: An overview

Ruth De Souza and Robyn Higgins

This chapter gives an overview of cultural safety and how it can apply to arts institutions and arts practice. The practice of cultural safety education comes from advocacy by Māori nurses. It was taken up by the New Zealand nurses association and asks people to examine their inherent cultural biases and how they might affect their practice.

This chapter also highlights the Australia Council statistics that highlight the inequity in the Australian Arts industry. The principles of cultural safety include critical self-reflection, engaged communication, minimising power imbalances and decolonising practice. Through a lifelong commitment to these principles, we can get onto the road of a more equitable arts landscape.