Community Art Project For Environmental Cleanness

Summary of The Project

Discuss about the Environmental Cleanness Community Art.

Community art based project is an artistic activity or process whereby the whole community is involved or rather most of the people in the community (Koo, 2015). In this kind of projects, the whole community is engaged in a discussion on the project to be done and are consulted before any decisions are made. However, in these projects, not only the professional artists that are involved but those who do not actively engage in arts as well i.e. the ordinary community member who may be interested in the project or in art to be specific. Furthermore, these community based projects are often found or conducted in the communities that are less privileged or are more economically deprived (Ramsey et all, 2005). However, these communities must have good relations with one another and be community oriented for these projects to be successful.

The community’s art project will be on environmental cleanness by collecting of garbage and wastes. The project will be focused on cleaning the environment and ensuring that no waste materials that lying on the anywhere in the community’s surrounding. It will obviously include the development of garbage collection points, drawings of people collecting garbage, construction of a compost pit or garbage collection point where the wastes will be being decomposed from. The drawings will be done majorly by the community members who are good in art or are professional artists. This will be so to make sure that the drawings are pleasing and attractive to the eyes of anyone who may come across them.

However, even the community members who are not good in art will participate in the drawing but under the supervision of the professional artists in the community. This will be able to encourage people to speak out their minds and ideas in a different way rather than talking. In addition to that, the community members will have a chance to express their interests in environmental cleanness and the value put on that same cleanness. Furthermore, the project will also focus on all the people in the community including the old-aged people and the underprivileged. By doing this, the project will be in a position to receive all the views and ideas of most or all of the community members either artists or non-artists.

The project’s expense budget ranges between $160,000- $180,000 and the revenue estimation is $195,000. This therefore means that there will be some profit made after the project is completed. However, this profit is not to be utilized and instead it is to be saved and wait for another community art project or any other community project that may come up in the future.

Biography of the Applying Group

The art project is to be conducted by the youths and the adult people in the community. However, even the old aged people who may be interested in the art and environmental cleanness will be highly encouraged to participate. Also the project’s directors or leaders will be the youths who are good and very much interested in art work or are professionals in art. There will be a consideration of the experiences, skills and ideas of the youths who will be interested in becoming project directors.

Nevertheless, this group will consider every participant’s ideas, skills and character for the projects to be successful. This will also encourage many other community members to join and participate.

As stated earlier, the project will be focusing on drawings that will encourage environmental cleanness. This includes drawings of people collecting garbage, garbage collection bins, clean green environment, and other type of drawings that will be supporting environmental cleanness. The project will be concentrating on good and clean environment and ways of keeping it that way. The pictures that will be drawn will be placed at strategic places where a good and large number of people will be able to see it. Also the pictures will be simple, easy to understand, attractive and clear for everyone to pursue their (picture’s) intentions.

The pictures’ aim will be to encourage the community members to keep the environment clean by not dumping their wastes anywhere and everywhere in the surrounding but rather make sure that any waste is dumped at its right place like a dumping sites. This is because most of the wastes thrown away by people are plastic papers and other plastics which biologically tale a very long time to decompose. Therefore, with this art project, the members will have a good idea and understanding of not dirtying the environment with plastic papers and other plastic materials.

The project will also concentrate on encouraging people to work together and enhance community co-operation. When the community members (i.e. of all ages especially the youths and older adults) come together to do some work, it means that there is team work and co-operation among them. Furthermore, it means that they are ready and interested in sharing their ideas, skills and talents for the general development of the whole community. This definitely ensures that the creativity of each and every person involved is taken into consideration and heard.

Project Outline

The project will ensure that the community members who are talented in art are able to utilize their abilities and skills in a very productive and helpful manner to the whole community. In addition to that, it will make sure that even other ordinary community members who may be interested in art are given a chance to learn. The art project will help the members to learn to appreciate and respect other peoples work. When the participants come together, they will need to work at the same speed and with the same goal. Therefore it will be helpful to members to learn to work with other people and respect as well as appreciate the different ways in which they do things.

The art project will be done from the community hall. This is because the place has enough space for everybody to be comfortable and perform their duties as they should. The drawings will be done from this hall and also all other activities that are indoor. The drawing will obviously include the mixing of different colors accordingly but with the help of the art professionals. The drawings will be done in groups to increase perfection and preciseness. Also by doing this, the ideas of most members will be represented and portrayed in either of the drawings.

The project pictures will be a meant for the public to see and so will be done in a way that the message addresses all the community members and not only those who made them. Therefore, the aim of the project is to use the most simple and direct images that can be understood even by the people who may not be learned at all. The images should contain direct and convincing message so that the viewer can be able to connect all the dots and understand the message desired. However, the images should only be portraying messages that are environmentally related and nothing more or less.

This project however involves just a few of the professional drawing artists from the community and the ordinary community members (the youths and the older adults). However, there will be an overall consultant who will be available to advice the leaders i.e. professionals on the best drawing to display and publicize. This consultant will be a professional and experienced artist and marketer too. He must have good knowledge on artistic work and community based art projects experience. He will be helpful to the group and especially when it comes to making the very last decisions on the drawings.

This project is very important to the community as whole because generally there has been a realization by the Youths that the member are becoming so careless towards the environment and disposing their wastes whenever and wherever. This actions may cause serious problems (like diseases and death) not only to the people living here but also the livestock and other animals around. Therefore, there is a great need for such a project to be able to curb those problems.

Some of the objectives that the project is expected to achieve are:

• To ensure friendly and clean environment is available for the community members’ existence
• To encourage co-operation and team work among the people living in the community in question
• To ensure that the hidden and unrealized talents of the community members are exposed and realized and used in a helpful manner
• To ensure general community development
• To recognize and strengthen the role of professional and potential artists in the community
• To increase public participation for the members in the general activities of the community

The art project I to be done from the community hall where the morning opening and first meeting will be held. Also this is where the first steps towards the project will be taken, which includes: dividing the participants into groups, identifying the art professionals and choosing the project directors from them, diving the jobs and activities to done to respective groups among other activities that are termed as indoor activities. After the first meeting is over, the people will start working on their drawings immediately so that they can be able to finish on time.

However, when the groups are being divided, the people will be mixed with no price character, skills, experience, gender or age. The grouping will therefore be random but planned. This will ensure that there is no biasness in the selection and that everybody is comfortable doing the drawing they will be assigned. After the members have finished the drawing, then the pictures will be taken out to be placed in strategic places for the public to see. For instance, they will be placed near the markets where dumping of wastes is very rampant and done very frequently, on the roads especially the junction where many people pass by, near the churches and schools like colleges and high schools, near dumping sites like compost pits to name just but a few places.

The participants will certainly be given breaks especially the lunch breaks for them to eat or take something they get back to work. This be done after the first half of the day is over i.e. after the drawing session is over. The projects activities will go on doing the advertising of the drawings, there will be a closing meeting in the evening to complete the day’s activities. This is where the participants will be given an opportunity to interact before they part with one another. This will however mark the end of the project’s activities for the day.

Nevertheless, before the exact deal day of the project or the final day, the meetings will be being held at the Community Hall. However, because the project is meant to benefit the general public and the community as a whole, then the meetings will be open meeting and everybody will be invited to attend and air their ideas and views. The project will have to take a few weeks of the summer holiday so that all the youths who are students may participate as well as the old adults who will mostly be in for their holidays. This will be so to make sure that there is maximum participation and complete engagement in the activities.

The project is expected to solve the problem of unclean environment and rampant waste disposal in the community. It is supposed to teach the community members on better ways of keeping their surrounding clean and tidy. In addition to that, the art project will teach the community members on good methods of waste disposal like to dispose them in the compost pit where they can decompose. Furthermore, the project should be able to teach the community members on the best ways to treat the non-decomposable wastes like plastics.

Also, the art project should be able to bring the community members together and work on one thing. It should not matter who is professional. Experienced or skilled in what field, what should matter in a community based art project, is mostly the co-operation and team work that is experienced in the process. Therefore, the project will be able to bring different people together and have them work with each other with one goal (coming with the best drawing that will communicate the importance of a clean and friendly environment)

The project is also expected to be able to utilize the skills and ideas of the professional artists in the community. In addition to that, it will give a chance to other community members who may have an interest in arts for them to get to learn. This will definitely help them realize whether they have the talent of doing art or not. Also they will be able to know how good they are apparently which is a good tool for measuring their capabilities, passion to learn and their rate of understanding or making an idea become a drawing or picture.

The project will also ensure that the community members are living a healthy lifestyle because of the clean environment that will be availed. There will not be any break outs for certain diseases (like cholera) that are inter-related with dirty and untidy environmental surroundings. The environment will be very inviting and attractive to the eyes of the community members as long as they take heed of the project’s message.

Some of the resources that are to be used include:

• The Community Hall which will be used as the rehearsal, preparations and drawing place. Also all the meetings will be being held at this location.
• Administrative equipment access which will include telephone, office equipment, printing, emailing, internet, research materials among others.
• Time volunteered by the professionals especially the artists and other supporting people.
• Transportation services that may be donated for free.

Conclusion

This community based art project will definitely be very helpful to the community as long as it becomes complete and successful. It will reduce the many problems that are already found in the surrounding and also prevent the occurrence of others that are related to dirtiness, uncleanness and unfriendliness of the environment.

Koo, A., 2015. Arts and Education for Underprivileged People: Community-based Art Projects Case Study. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 174, pp.64-68.

Buffington, M. L. (2007). The Service-Learning and Art Education. Art Education, 60(6), 40-45.

Merli, P. (2002). Evaluating the social impact of participation in arts activities. International journal of cultural policy, 8(1), 107-118.

Wang, V. (2015). Art, Research and Society: New Ecology: The Affective Power. In Arts, Research, Innovation and Society (pp. 75-99). Springer International Publishing.

Ramsey White, T., & Rentschler, R. (2005, January). Toward a new understanding of the social impact of the arts. In AIMAC 2005: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Arts & Cultural Management. HEC, Montreal.

Kay, A., 2000. Art and community development: the role the arts have in regenerating communities. Community development journal, 35(4), pp.414-424.

Galloway, S., 2006. Cultural participation and individual quality of life: A review of research findings. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 1(3-4), pp.323-342.

Galloway, S., 2009. Theory-based evaluation and the social impact of the arts. Cultural trends, 18(2), pp.125-148.

Bowitz, E. and Ibenholt, K., 2009. Economic impacts of cultural heritage–Research and perspectives. Journal of cultural heritage, 10(1), pp.1-8.

Carey, P. and Sutton, S., 2004. Community development through participatory arts: Lessons learned from a community arts and regeneration project in South Liverpool. Community Development Journal, 39(2), pp.123-134.

Lowe, S.S., 2000. Creating community art for community development. Journal of contemporary ethnography, 29(3), pp.357-386.

Matarasso, F., 2007. Common ground: cultural action as a route to community development. Community Development Journal, 42(4), pp.449-458.

Ruiz, J., 2004. A literature review of the evidence base for culture, the arts and sport policy. Scottish Executive Social Research.

Reeves, M., 2002. Measuring the economic and social impact of the arts: a review. London: Arts Council of England.

Jermyn, H., 2001. The arts and social exclusion: A review prepared for the Arts Council of England (pp. 1-43). London: Arts Council of England.

Guetzkow, J., 2002. How the arts impact communities. Centre for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies.

Hoxmeier, J. and Lenk, M.M., 2003. Service-learning in information systems courses: Community projects that make a differences. Journal of Information Systems Education, 14(1), p.91.

Newman, T., Curtis, K. and Stephens, J., 2003. Do community‐based arts projects result in social gains? A review of the literature. Community Development Journal, 38(4), pp.310-322.

Raeburn, J.M., 1986. Toward a sense of community: Comprehensive community projects and community houses. Journal of Community Psychology, 14(4), pp.391-398.

Heller, K., 1989. The return to community. American Journal of Community Psychology, 17(1), pp.1-15.