Capacities and Impacts of Community Arts and Culture Initiatives in Singapore

Abstract

With reference to “Arts and Culture Nodes” strategy initiated in 2012 by the National Arts Council (NAC) in Singapore, this paper outlines the study that investigated the impacts of community arts and culture events on five local housing neighborhoods and their communities. “Neighbourhood Arts and Culture Impact Assessment (NACIA)” framework was developed and applied through spatial opportunity analysis (on-site observations and mapping), surveys, focus group discussions and interviews with residents, artists and event organizers. Key findings reveal the capacities of the initiative to generate positive spatial, social and participation impacts and build stronger neighborhood arts ecology in local Singaporean neighborhoods.

Keywords:

• Community arts
• arts and culture impact assessment
• arts ecology
• creative placemaking
• arts and culture nodes

Acknowledgments

A study “Arts and Culture Nodes in the Heartlands of Singapore: Exploring Strategies, Spatial Opportunities and Impacts” discussed in this paper was conducted at the Centre for Sustainable Asian Cities (CSAC), National University of Singapore (NUS) and funded by the National Arts Council (NAC), Singapore. The authors express their thanks to Rita Padawangi for collaborating in this study, as well as all node partners and residents for generous support and participation.

Notes

1 Since 1996, the National Arts Council (NAC) has been conducting population surveys on the arts to gather insights about Singaporeans’ attitude towards arts and culture and the level of attendance and participation in arts events and activities in order to effectively direct the development of Singapore arts scene. However, there are only few empirical studies focusing on participatory arts and their impacts on quality of life and physical and mental health of Singaporeans (Yuen and Kong 2018).

2 Since 1970s, the government has continued to offer similar community-focused programs throughout the island (Hoe 2018). Chong (2010) argued that such “instant Singapore multi-cultural identity” projects in the 1970s paved the ground for the subsequent “Global City for the Arts” project in the 1990s, in which arts and culture were employed as instruments for boosting tourism. Moreover, “Art for Everyone” (1970s) program could be seen as the “predecessor” of “Arts for All” movement (2008).

3 Some of the programs already established before “ACSR” were the “ExxonMobil Concert in the Park” initiated in 1996, and “Busking Scheme” started in 1997 to bring and enable music events on streets and public spaces of Singapore. The revamped “Arts for All” movement (2008) was enriched by a number of new initiatives. For instance, “Arts in Your Neighbourhood” (since 2014) brings one-month long series of arts programs performed by established artists and arts groups to various locations across the city twice a year. “Silver Arts” (since 2012) is an annual festival that targets at senior residents, while “Got To Move” (since 2015) offers free dance classes and performances in local neighbourhoods. Among the programs initiated by agencies other than NAC are: “PAssionArts Movement” started in 2012 by People’s Association (PA) to promote collaborations between art practitioners, talented individuals, grassroots organisations and wider community through arts; “Community Week” initiated by the Housing Development Board (HDB) in 2012; and “Our Favourite Place” started by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) in 2013 to support community-led arts projects and creative placemaking in local neighbourhoods.

4 Woodlands Regional Library (WRL) and Kallang Community Club (CC) are the eldest arts and culture nodes established in 2012, while SAFRA recreational clubs are some of the youngest ones.

5 It should be noted, however, that in some instances certain spatial conditions prioritised in these maps, such as large-scale over small-scale spaces, may in fact not be more favourable for specific types of events, such as workshops, which may require smaller and more intimate settings.

6 In his Design with Nature, a landscape planner Ian McHarg (1969) outlined a decision-oriented method, which used the “transparent map overlay technique” to distil the most appropriate locations for human development, considering environmental constraints and opportunities. This technique is considered a milestone in the development of Geographic Information System (GIS) software tools.

7 Such pilot FGD findings resulted in substantial additions to the Final Survey instrument. In addition to the question provided in the Pilot Survey about the enjoyment level resulting from attending specific arts event, the Final Survey also included the questions about the quality of the event and the level of engagement. Moreover, new questions (in form of statements) regarding the specific impacts of arts and culture events were added to the Final Survey. These include: “After attending an art event I feel like pursuing additional arts-related activities.”; “After attending art events in the neighbourhood, I feel happier and healthier.”; “Attending this art event improved my understanding and appreciation of different cultures and lifestyles.”; “After attending this art event, I feel more positive about the community I live in.” “Upon attending this art event, I feel more attached to the neighbourhood I live in.”; and “Because of art events in the neighbourhood, I feel that the neighbourhood spaces are more vibrant.” For this reason, the following statistical analysis covers either data gathered through both surveys (shared questions) or data gathered through the Final Survey only.

8 Nominal variables are those that have two or more categories, but there is no intrinsic ordering to the categories, such as gender (male and female). Ordinal variables are those that have categories that can be clearly ordered, such as the perceived overall quality of an arts event, which has five categories with intrinsic ordering (very poor, poor, average, very good and excellent) (see e.g., Greasley 2008). Moreover, “Pearson’s chi-square test,” “Mann-Whitney U test,” and “Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient” were employed to investigate any relationships between nominal or ordinal variables.

9 Pilot FGDs included the same set of questions across all neighbourhood nodes, namely: (1) “Did you attend or/and practice arts and culture events and activities in your neighbourhood? Where? Do you think those venues are suitable? Why?”; and (2) “Do you think that arts make any change/difference to your neighbourhood? What are the changes?” Final FGD questions were more specifically tailored according to each node partner’s objectives.

10 A non-parametric “Mann-Whitney U test” is used for comparing the differences between two independent samples “when the dependent variable is either ordinal or continuous but not normally distributed” (Brockopp et al. 2018, 140).

11 A non-parametric “Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient” is used to test the strength and direction of association between two continuous variables, which are measured on at least an ordinal scale (Pallant 2005). The strength of the relationship is indicated by the correlation coefficient (r) and can be interpreted as: very weak (r = 0.00–0.19); weak (r = 0.20–0.39); moderate (r = 0.40–0.59); strong (r = 0.60–0.79); and very strong (r = 0.80–1.00) (Evans 1996). The significance of the relationship is expressed in probability level (p), i.e., significant at p < .01 or p < .05.

12 “Pearson’s chi-square test” is employed to find out any relationship between two categorical variables (Greasley 2008).

13 Despite the open-ended form of focus group discussions and interviews, no negative impacts of neighbourhood arts and culture were raised, except for certain conditions (such as visual or sound distractions) affecting negatively the actual performance and the experience of it.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Arts Council — Singapore, under the Grant number (R-294-000-061-490).