Peter Wright PhD

This report provides an evaluation of Big hART’s SMASHED project. It considers both the processes and products of the project, and foregrounds both its successes and challenges. Recommendations are presented in the light of these outcomes. First, the background to the project is overviewed. Next, the evaluation methodology is presented. The project is considered in terms of its scope and significance, and evidence is presented in relation to both outputs and outcomes. Finally, a series of conclusions and recommendations are presented.

This report provides an analysis of Big hART’s GOLD Project. It documents and evaluates successes and challenges faced through this project. First, the evaluation methodology employed is described, then the project itself in brief is introduced with its aspirations and methodologies. Second, the project is situated in a broader context locating it within an interconnected web of pressing social issues, climate change, and participatory arts practices; it is the correlations between these issues and Big hART’s practices that make the global local, and the local global providing better tools for understanding the impact of the GOLD project. A broad overview of the project’s intents is presented showing in brief what was and was not achieved. Third, the three key project objectives are considered and evidence—the Results Chart—in relation to those objectives is presented in order to better understand the project, its outcomes, and challenges. Fourth, a summary is provided of the strengths of the project, its achievements, and the lessons learnt.

This document represents an inquiry into Big hART’s LUCKY project run primarily in the North West of Tasmania. It contains a series of portraits, and thick descriptions of contexts and individuals involved in various ways with the project. There are observations of processes and products, each revealing ways in which the work of Big hART impacts on individuals and the communities around them. It is an outcome of a series of visits to various project components from July 2005 (Radio Holiday), to 2008. It includes descriptions, observations, inquiry into and reflections on such LUCKY project components as Radio Holiday and Drive In Holiday, This is Living, and Drive as a work in progress. There also some insights presented that have been gleaned from adjunct projects such as the No Comply skate event held in Burnie during 2005. It includes and gives voice to project participants such as young people from locations including Burnie, Wynyard, Smithon and surrounding areas; older project participants such as those resident in Smithton Nursing Home, the site of one project component; project partners such as those either directly or indirectly involved in support of project participants—both youth and elders; and those who functioned to provide advice and support from local councils, youth support workers, and government agencies. This document is not an audit style report where objectives are measured against outcomes. In this sense it presents a ‘knowing how’ rather than a ‘knowing that’. What this means is that is the personal knowledge of, and knowledge about project participants can contribute to understanding LUCKY in terms of knowing how, when, why, whether, and for whom such projects work. Its power lies in the way it is grounded in the interactions of project participants with Big hART and those involved in this work. Consequently, as the project work is reflective of, and grounded in the lives, times, and communities that surround project participants, it can reveal what is usable and useful. Simply put, what this document reveals is the knowledge that is produced through use, that is, what is learnt through doing. The document includes a series of portraits or narratives. It reflects knowledge of project participants both as groups and as individuals, and portraits of particular individuals who can be seen as representative of themes or patterns of project impact broadly speaking. As these studies are presented in a narrative form they are accessible, and act as agents of understanding, revealing what works in practice. These narratives are informed by multiple lines of evidence including: focus groups, interviews, observations, review of artefacts, and commentary provided by a range of informants including young people, support workers, team members, project directors, and those with a concern and/or involvement with the project. Taken together, these constitute a body of experience that provide evidence against which the impact of LUCKY can be judged. In this document, a context is first set that evokes much of Big hART’s work. Next Big hART’s processes are described. These include themes and principles that run through the project and provide its distinct characteristics. Following this a range of outcomes including enhanced opportunities for learning, connection, work and understanding are illuminated. Finally, observations are made revealing how and in what ways LUCKY is successful with some recommendations for future practice.

The following report provides a review of Big hART’s work in the Northcott Estate since 2002. From this time, Big hART in association with project partners carried out a series of community cultural development projects that culminated in the production of photographic portrait work, music, geo-spatial maps, performance theatre, filmmaking, narrative and writing pieces, and a series of other performance and arts-based activities. The intention of Big hART was to help ‘empower’ and assist tenants of Northcott to tell their stories, help build people’s sense of community, and encourage conditions that decrease violence and isolation. The Northcott Narratives Project is the title used to encompass all the separate but related projects undertaken by Big hART at the Northcott Estate from the period 2002- 2007. This report does two things. Section one describes the purposes of the evaluation and considers the aims and aspirations of Big hART and its two major funding partners against the evidence. This section involves an ‘audit review’ of the work1. The second section draws on recent scholarship within the field to make a series of observations about how this was achieved and the approaches used by Big hART and its partners. This section involves an ‘open inquiry’ into the personal, social and organisational changes and benefits brought about by Big hART’s. It is the combination of both of these approaches that not only describes the social impacts of the arts in relation to the Northcott Narratives Project, but how they can be better understood and built on (Belfiore & Bennett, 2007).

Initiatives designed to support young people’s engagement, participation and civic involvement with community have grown in popularity in Australia over the past decade. This is coincident with an increased emphasis on communitarian aspirations such as building community, promoting civics and encouraging social capital (Bessant, 1997; Botsman & Latham, 2001; Brennan, 1998; Harris, 1999). In this new policy environment, young people’s social problems, issues and needs are largely seen as a reflection of their declining levels of inclusion in civic life, a loss in community, a failure on the part of local associations to encourage social cohesion at the local level and a growing distance between the generations. According to those advancing this style of social policy, something has gone awfully wrong with the social fabric, community participation is dropping and different generations are becoming cut off from each other. The answer is often seen to be in interventions that develop social capital, build community capacity, encourage partnerships, support community enterprise, and strengthen democratic and civic participation. Precisely what this means, or how it might be achieved in youth practice settings, is not clear. Intergenerational practice has emerged as one general approach that may help put substance to aspirations for bringing young people into closer contact with others in their community. Although as yet not a significant part of the Australian policy landscape, the field of intergenerational practice has gained considerable support in the United States and is growing rapidly in Europe.