In the world of community arts there exists a heated debate around process and product and which is the more important. Until recently I took part in the conversation by nodding my head sympathetically at both sides of the argument, forming opinions for the sake of it and saying them quietly enough that no-one would hear. Until I got some more experience under my belt, I didn’t really understand the argument or why it mattered.
So, let’s celebrate my new-found knowledge with an explanation: process refers to the time spent in a project making, doing and exploring with participants (the people taking part), sometimes, but not always leading to a final product, which might be a performance, a sharing, a documentary, a recorded song etc. I came up with a rather long and tedious cooking analogy here, which, for your sake, I’ve left out.
So let me say where I stand, loud enough that you can hear it (and, by all means, challenge it). I believe in placing participant enjoyment at the centre of a project, so that whatever they produce, it will be their own, will belong to them; by prioritising the process, I hope that a voice or a collection of thoughts will truly be given expression and an audience will receive and acknowledge it. Although the quality might be varied in this way of working, there is something tougher, more resilient that lives in it, the outside can be polished, re-worked but the inside has grown from a healthy, strong root and that, in my experience shows- it shows in the delight of the performers taking part, in their positive feedback and in their willingness to take part again.
In a project where the final product is prioritised, and where participants are taken through the motions of getting to a final show, where little or no creative voice is given room to grow, you’ll have a group of puppets on stage, doing just what you asked. Now, even if what you’re asking of participants is brilliant, if their voices aren’t at the heart of it, if their expression isn’t at it’s core, it’s missing a heart. To borrow a friend’s phrase, to prioritise the final product is to ‘polish a turd’.
For me, making excellent art with the community isn’t about reaching an excellent final product, it’s about people having an excellent time, so that they’ll come back and join in again, have another excellent time and as a whole we’ll get to a final product that is excellent, but in a way that includes everyone and is a real expression of the people that made it. People are not puppets, and real art that can affect change and provide a means of understanding and communicating different viewpoints of the world are not polished turds.
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