Lead Partner: The Eden Foundation
Description
Eden Project’s role as lead organisation in this programme was based on its identity as a regeneration site and its growing experience of how to use cultural activities and different methods of public engagement as a focus for exploring and transforming society’s narratives.
Cornwall has seen the collapse of all major traditional industries, but the loss of mining is arguably the most profound. Outside of the fishing villages, it has been seen as the activity and industry that defined the county for thousands of years. Cornwall also exhibits all of the challenges of a peripheral area, exacerbated by the physical nature of a long thin peninsula which can make places within the same county feel like they are a long way apart. In a cultural sense, Cornwall exists at the pivot point of the Celtic Atlantic sea board rather than the geographic margins of the UK. Being “on the edge” also has distinct benefits (not least in allowing new ideas and new originality to bloom), but for these ideas to lead to sustained change we need effective processes for community transformation. This means using the past as a foundation for moving forwards rather than systematically undervaluing its continuing impact on the present.
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New Ground' trialled and developed culture-led projects that explored the nature of change and the narratives that help people honour the past and take forward what is valuable, but still evolve and change. Eden have worked on this with WildWorks Souterrain project and the Clay Futures Projects and consultation and more latterly through place based education work with Will Coleman. They are also developing an intergenerational project called Four Generations with international links.
Eden think culture-led approaches are vital in reframing how people see themselves and their futures. The St Dennis-based Clay Project highlighted a number of key community values, for example the importance of a shared sense of purpose, a proud history of community service, events that bring people together to create something- tea treats, local theatre, brass bands, clay carnival, and local services run by the community for the community.
They have focused on an area that is undergoing radical change. They believe that the practice of community development needs to take account of the special challenges that arise in such circumstances. Eden also believes that dealing with radical change will become the norm in many more communities in the 21st Century. (A working definition of radical change is when the past is no guide to the future and so progress needs re-framing and re-imagining rather than modifying existing practice.)
On the back of this work and more Eden are developing a theoretical model of how radical change can best be faced - not by attempts at prediction, but by strengthening the qualities that communities need to be adaptable, and by identifying the enabling conditions that make it more likely that positive outcomes and positive reframing will result.
The full key findings and lessons from their work can be read here.
A full description of 'New Ground' can be found on the website.
Contact Details
Juliet RoseProject Co-ordinator
Bodelva
Cornwall
PL24 2SG
Website: http://www.new-ground.org.uk/