Community Mapping

A WOVEN WORD BACKGROUND TO COMMUNITY MAPPING

This word map was created in order to show a spread of existing local regional and national connections. It weaves a pattern of work experiences that thread linkages between art, community mapping, filmmaking, youth and Western Sydney and our collaboration on the Creative Medicine project.

The map begins in the mid seventies.
With the help of Aboriginal song writer/musical creator Jimmy Chi, Geoff Buchan created an youth arts/employment scheme in Broome. Together they pioneered many interconnected community projects including the first Brand New Day concert and exhibition in 1978 (see ARTLOOK Brand New Day article). These initiatives were later sustained by the self help arts/trucking 'Co-op' called Dingo Deliveries. The cross-cultural experience enhanced the understanding of the pervasive role of the artist in community building. Geoff was inter-actively painting cultural change, painting with people and with the world.

Creative Medicine, a cross disciplinary filmmaking/painting project, is likewise inspired by a friendship with Jimmy. Visiting him in Perth recently he agreed that our work 25 years ago was a Creative Platform and may be valuable to re-visit in the context of today's social climate.

He said, that where manageable, he would work to further the aspirations of Creative Medicine.

Peter McGregor a professor in Media at UWS, was at the opening of Creative Medicine at the Edith Cowan University Gallery in Perth. (Trudi and Geoff are both Associates of ARTCAP at ECU). He had attended at the urging of a Western Sydney high school art teacher, Sheree Dietrich who had seen a preview at a community showing in Sydney. In a follow up, Peter enthusiastically asked Trudi to show the Creative Medicine videos again at his campus in Sydney (3rd Oct 2003) .

A decade ago, Sheree had pro-actively contributed in the Creative Cultures /MACROC cultural mapping project 1994, which was undertaken with Geoff Pryor. (see her Arts West article “FINDING THE LANGUAGE OF SEEING” and “ANCHORS, KITES, STRINGS” by Katherine Knight). Her students at Eagle Vale High, Campbelltown used cultural mapping to make a video about how they learnt and applied cultural mapping in their community.

The mapping process enables community engagement. It was designed from experiences in Broome. Geoff designed Community cultural mapping to be packaged as wholesomely part of the Eastbend's '4' Mechanisms for Integrated Planning. (See paper by Stephanie Knox and John Craven Southern Cross Uni). Like a 'social entrepreneur' or the Cultural Agency component in this ‘4’ mechanism’s mapping package.

Sheree continues to independently and creatively connect people. (eg bringing her high school students to show their films at Peter MacGregor’s UWS film Co-op). Sheree represents the fluid nature of the mapping process, and here it may be seen to thread across the country and across time in encouraging further creative engagements.

In 1994, Brett Edwards, was filmed with a group of school children on Ten’s “Totally Wild”program explaining their role as catchment custodians of the Eastbend – “Sydney’s Kakadu”. Brett, a young Western Sydney student, introduced a 'hands on' Community Mapping Workshop to delegates at the 1995 International Planning Congress in Sydney. Trigger exhibits for the workshop included MACROC community participants and their maps, and displays of community work in Broome and the Eastbend Initiative. The presentations were integrated in with Stephanie Knox and John Craven who presented a paper on “Community Mapping: a review of its Application in Environmental Planning”. Eastbend was the case study.

A ‘CD’ of the Old Great Northern Road Community Cultural Mapping project, created for WSAAS, is a substantial reference to this cultural mapping process. Particularly the work with Crestwood High School students in Baulkham Hills Shire in mapping ‘Interagency’ Services in the community.

In assisting Trudi in filming the workshops of the Youth Round Table at Parliament House in Canberra, Geoff could see how the visually emphasised Eastbend mapping process could ‘spark up’ and supplement the facilitation workshops. The camera could be engaged as a creative feedback tool. Integrated in with the mapping as the Eagle Vale students had done in the MACROC project.

In 1981, as artist in residence at the Experimental Arts Foundation Geoff remembers how Jimmy Chi had integrated film as a social entrepreneuring device to pioneer Broome music in conjunction with the Kimberley Community Arts Exhibition in Adelaide. This reflection repeats or reinforces the pattern of comment from the previous paragraph about the connection between film, cultural mapping and community building with this ove-stretch of strung out words becoming a signal to wind up the seemless cross threading of the word map.

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FINDING THE LANGUAGE OF SEEING
by the Late Sheree Dietrich, Eagle Vale High School

Not everyone thinks in the same way.
Not everyone speaks the same language
- not everyone can write it down.
Most of us settle or travel in a niche that suits our own way eventually.

However,
what happens when a survey or census is needed
that wants information from everyone?
An interpretation medium can be used but,
translation
carries with it dangers of inaccuracies.

A method of communication is needed that accommodates everyone's way.
A team of high school students from Eaglevale High School is confident
there is a language.

They have had an exciting six months
working with MACROC consultants, Geoff Pryor and Geoff Buchan.
MACROC's work on cultural mapping in the Macarthur
region was featured in the April issue of Artswest.

This innovative "living" research method designed by Geoff Buchan
accommodates different styles of participation
and the participants bind the result together
by forming the links themselves.

"When you research using this new method, it's so easy and
the data fed back is so rich," say the students.

Communication was always meant to be multisensual, a
combination of visual, tactile and audial energies. Whatever
media your thoughts prefer to be documented in is welcome.

Its just a matter of linking it with someone else's.
A simple arrow marked with a pen connects.
A map of connections is an electric catalyst

"This process is not above anyone; you don't have to be an
Einstein to get into it," says Vimala Dejvongsa.
"We have worked alongside both MACROC consultants
as L plate cultural mappers and watched the method develop.
We were approached as art students and asked to be involved.
This seemed strange at first. It seemed obvious to
approach marketing students, rather than us.
Now it doesn't seem at all strange; successful communication is art.
We have learned more about art's role in life too."

Melissa, Steven and Vimala are about to put their new skills
into practice using the research method to design a syllabus
for a course aimed at developing a kit for youth.
The kit will present Gledswood Homestead, a local heritage
centre as a living history lesson.
It will be a unique promotional package.
The students say GIedswood's management recognises art's role
in being able to trigger and stimulate
people to participate in heritage conservation.

The students went on to win a Tourism Award for their work at Gledswood Homestead.

		Professor Stuart Hill Chair of Social Ecology at UWS Hawkesbury and Dr Judy Pinn, with Chesney Schooling former Community Officer at BHSC walking the heritage floor map of the Old Great Northern Road Community Mapping Project and referring to the related images and conversation at the Launch by ABC Radio's " Ian MacNamara" at the Glen Haven Community Centre
		MAROOTA – ‘SYDNEY’S KAKADU’ - CELEBRATED AT PARLIAMENT HOUSE During the week of November 8 – 12, an exhibition in the foyer of Parliament House celebrated the work of Eastbend’s Community Cultural Mapping Project. The exhibits included the Darug story, paintings and photographs of the Maroota Forest, the Biosphere Reserve Concept Map, various sign odyssey community cultural maps and the tactile and magical 3-D map of the Maroota plateau made by Lorien Novalis school. The exhibition attracted many visitors from both Parliament and the general public. The exhibition was opened by Lee Rhiannon (NSW Greens) and Colin Gale (Darug Tribal Aboriginal Corporation). A concise and comprehensive presentation by Ruth Hassall (Eastbend Rural Communications Inc.) was a brilliant inclusion for all newcomers to this exhibit. She showed how a Biosphere Reserve concept for the Maroota Forest region could give a voice to all parties, in a spirit of cooperation, rather than competition. The Biosphere Reserve concept is about learning new ways for reconciliation through processes which value community stories and which elevate the importance of festivity in societal change. The Biosphere Reserve concept represents a real alternative for Maroota Forest, as management by large bureaucracies usually limits community access and use of areas of natural beauty. Bronwyn Eather (Culture Lab) spoke about the exquisite irony of sand from ancient Darug festival grounds being extracted to construct the modern festival grounds at Olympic Park. She supported Eastbend’s call for a festive approach to the work being done in the Maroota area and called for all voices to come together to support and organise an annual festival on the ancient Darug festival ground, the Muru Durabin Festival. On Wednesday of that week, the Legislative Assembly made contributions to the Aboriginal Reconciliation debate. To the delight of Eastbend organisers of the Mapping Project, the exhibition was commended in the Assembly and written into Hansard in the same week. ‘The Eastbend exhibition … celebrates a movement towards reconciliation in the community of Maroota, one of the richest areas of Aboriginal culture, Aboriginal art and Aboriginal sacred sites in the Sydney Basin. We have celebrated this movement by recapturing the original Aboriginal expression for the area, “Muru Durabin”, which means literally path to the Hawkesbury. … If we do not learn to live with the land and appreciate both its capacities and limitations we do so at our great peril. This will be the cement that binds reconciliation together and leads us to a broader and much better community.’ (Kevin Rozzoli, Member for Hawkesbury. After viewing the exhibition we can imagine a series of festive events that bring the community stories together, past, present and future, and stimulate further festive gatherings leading to the Muru Durabin Festival in September 2000. The exhibition closed on Friday with a Press Conference facilitated by Culture Lab International Inc. (cultural research/theatre laboratory). Those interviewed were Kevin Rozzoli, Colin Gale, Lyndsay Mell (The Community Project (to be endorsed by the UN Association)), Leigh Farrer (independent geophysicist) and Geoff Buchan (Eastbend). Tapes of these interviews, which capture the points of view of and future visions for the Maroota Forest from these cultural/community representatives can be viewed at EASTBEND RURAL RESOURCE CENTRE, located at Maroota Public School. COMMUNITY MAPPING SUPPORTING QUOTATIONS, TO THE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL ECOLOGY UWS HAWKESBURY g.bird, g.buchan, 21/11/96 Social Ecology is a comprehensive holistic conception of the self, society, and nature. ... It sets out from the basic ecological principle of organic unity in diversity, affirming that the good of the whole can be realized only through the rich individuality and complex interrelationship of the parts. And it applies this fundamental insight to all realms of experience.( Clark, 1990,p.5) The late James J. Gibson (1966) coined the term 'ecological psychology' to emphasize his belief that more traditional psychologies of the "mind" or of "behavior" were too narrowly conceived: Mentalism, by its belief in the subjective origins of concepts, tends to divorce the "thinking" animal from environmental sources of constraint. Similarly, behaviorism, with its over-reliance on habits to explain behavior, tends to trivialize the relation of the acting animal to its perceptual world. Ecological psychology, on the other hand, recognizes the coevolution of animals and their environments, and pursues a doctorine of animal-environment reciprocity as its guiding principle. “Contemporary research, however, has uncovered Aboriginal cognitive skills which appear to be superior, in some respects, to that of Australian “white” controls. Studies suggest that Aborigines have a “visuospatial,” as opposed to a temporal, orientation in their thinking, and a proficiency in a wide variety of visuoconstructive tasks (Davidson & Klich, 1981). Western desert Aboriginal children, whether living traditionally or not, were found to have visual memory skills superior to white controls (Kearins, 1978). Other studies point to the extraordinary skills of desert-living Aborigines in tracking and route-finding, which Lewis (1976) attributes to a constant cognitive synthesis of spatial and perceptual information—a mental map. Grey (1975, p. 30) also emphasizes the gestalt summarization character and “globalness” of Aboriginal thought: “each fresh experience is observed and perceived and whether taken into the previous gestalt or rejected, a fresh gestalt is built up. The effect on their thinking is to create a piecemeal summation of events”.” “Based on Grey’s description, the modes of thought of the Aboriginal and Australian-born white groups of children can be hypothesized to emphasize gestalt-synthetic and logical-analytic thought, respectively. These two modes of thought roughly correspond to the modes of information processing usually lateralized to the right and left hemispheres of the human brain, respectively. Thus, by contrasting the Aboriginal and white groups as gestalt-synthetic and logical-analytic, Aboriginal thought can be inferred to make relatively greater use of the right hemisphere (RH) and its distinctive mode of information processing. This hypothesis is consistent with evidence linking the RH with visuoconstructive tasks, visual memory, spatial exploration and maze learning, spatial orientation, synthetic perceptual functions, and gestalt-completion.” “Individual hemisphericity, a tendency to rely more often on the resources of one hemisphere or the other (Bogen et al., 1972), is hypothesized to be, in part, structured by social factors such as social class, social solidarity, racial and ethnic membership and identity, and social dominance position (TenHouten, 1985a). Membership in a nonmodern, archaic, aboriginal culture—emphasizing spatial skills such as gathering, hunting, and route finding—could contribute to reliance on, and relatively high performance in, the gestalt-synthetic mode of thought of the RH. A position of social subdominance—in this case involving economic and cultural dispossession, oppression, and proletarianization,—also favors cognition that is perceptually vigilant in a hostile environment and is hypothesized to be RH dependent. Participation in a modern, industrial, and technological society—in which elaborated linguistic skills are inculcated by means of a mass educational system—could contribute to reliance on, and relatively high performance in, the logical-analytic mode of thought of the LH.” “We first tested children in two areas of greater Sydney having substantial Aboriginal settlements. As hypothesized, 45 Aboriginal children did significantly better than 82 white controls on a RH dependent gestalt-completion test (Figure 1. “B”), in which each item is an incomplete silhouette that can be suddenly recognized as a meaningful form (Figure 1, “A”); and they did significantly worse on a LH dependent word-pairs test of abstract, categorical reasoning, WISC-R Similarities (Figure 2, “A”). We found that, in response to questions, Aboriginal children were significantly more apt to manifest leftward conjugate lateral eye movements (LEMs), indicating relative RH activation (TenHouten, 1986).” “Ten thousand years, before what ethnocentric Europeans often call the ‘birth of civilisation’ in the Mediterranean basin, people from South-east Asia were systematically colonising and transforming the islands of the south-west Pacific Ocean. These bold and highly skilled navigators were not only able to seek out new lands across vast expanses of open ocean. They were also able to establish enduring cultures throughout the Pacific, and to render the islands habitable through the introduction of new plants, animals such as pigs and dogs and even, in the case of the Solomon Islanders, ‘terra-forming’ by building islands on submerged reefs.” (Turnbull, 1991, p.3) “The kind of knowledge commanded by the people of the Pacific islands seems to stand in marked contrast to the knowledge system that is taken for granted in Western culture. For example, Pacific natural knowledge involves the use of neither writing nor mathematics, two features which the Western world deems essential in so many ways to science and technology. Although Pacific natural knowledge did provide a profound and effective understanding of the world which has been sustained, transmitted and developed over thousands of years, it is now what Foucault has called subjugated knowledge; that is, a knowledge system that has been eliminated or suppressed under pressure from another knowledge system.”(Foucault, 1980, pp. 81-3) “Goodenough & Thomas have also recognised this and make the general claim that: ‘As Micronesian navigation exemplifies, people can deal purposefully with their world only insofar as they can organise their experience of it. To do this, they abstract from their experience patterns of relationship among things. Some of these patterns are inherent in what they have experienced, but people also impose pattern on experience. Insofar as such impositions do not produce undesired consequences, they have practical utility. Science requires that we subject such abstractions and impositions to critical examination and evaluation through procedures that are likewise subject to critical examination. But the scientist’s search for pattern as the key to understanding is only a self-conscious application of the process by which humans generally achieve effective understanding.’” (Goodenough & Thomas n.d. p.15) “Searching analyses of literacy abound, and the important findings of economic, social literary, and science historians are acknowledged throughout the following pages. Yet the mind shaping powers of ocular, tactile, kinesthetic, and auditory skills remain scarcely articulated in the tale of Western civilisation’s turn to the cultivation of the interior. The fast growing field of book history continues to focus primarily on reading habits and textual interpretation. When images are introduced into such studies they tend to serve as illustrations of changes in the meaning of writing, not as vibrant shapers of knowledge. Uncovering this lost epistemological dimension of the informed and performative gaze, and with it the complex interface of early modern nature and artifice revealed in moments of enlightening recreation, seems all the more important in our computer era. Now old intellectual traditions based on crayons, loose-leaf paper, and paste are also being replaced by playful high-tech tools and visually appealing programs: Windows, mouse, PC Paintbrush, Excel, and PowerPoint. The rise of electronic media casts print culture, as well as three histories of art and science on which these disciplines are grounded, in sharp relief.” (Stafford, B 1995, p. xxii ) “No one who has watched the computer graphics and interactive techniques revolution can doubt that we are returning to an oral-visual culture. Animation, virtual reality, fiber-optic video, laser disks, computer modeling, even e-mail, are part of a new vision and visionary art-science. What is lacking today, however, is a concomitant high-level visual education to accompany the advances in visualization. Broadly trained experts in all facets of the history, theory, and practice of graphic design must join with imaging scientists to teach the abiding and changing tactics for the creation and perception of simulations, including those appearing on screen.” (Stafford, B 1995, p. xxv ) Bibliography Chaplin, E, 1994.Sociology and Visual Representation , London ; New York : Routledge Gibson, J. J. (1983, c1966) The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems Westport, Conn : Greenwood Press 152.1/5 Mitchell, W. J. T, 1994 Picture theory : essays on verbal and visual representation, Chicago, Ill. : The University of Chicago Press, 700.1/12 Stafford, B.M., 1995, Artful Science: Enlightenment Entertainment & the Eclipse of Visual Education, London: The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts TenHouten, W. D. 1991 “Into the Wild Blue Yonder: On the Emergence of the Ethnoneurologies-the Social Science-Based Neurologies and the Philosophy-Based Neurologies.” Journal of Social and Biological Structures 14(4):371-408 Turnbull, D., 1991, Mapping the World in the Mind: An Investigation of the Unwritten Knowledge of the Micronesian Navigators, Deakin University. p. 3,19. Weber, E. 1992 " Curriculum for Success” On the Beam Vol. XII No. 3 Spring, p.4-5 :339-40 Unit Outline Extract:Tourism and Community Studies UWS The Eastbend session provides an opportunity for students to see Cultural mapping in practice. The specific techniques used in the Project highlight the potential of alternative methods in mapping community experience of issues. Aims/Objectives: To assist students in developing the skills needed to understand and work with communities, and specifically: • The people who form them; their identification with place and the social and cultural ties that bind them; • Residents’ perceptions, attitudes and reactions to the presence of tourists; • Ways of knowing about issues and planning for futures in tourism communities; • Have students explore their own world views around communities and tourism. Relationship to other Units: This first year Tourism Studies unit draws on learning experiences from the previous semester. It seeks to build upon the learning skills developed by students to date, to consolidate knowledge and add additional dimensions of complexity to understandings of tourism in host communities Content: Students will be challenged to identify and understand different kinds of communities; to examine those communities and their relationship with the tourist and to tourism; to observe and research issues arising from those relationships; and to suggest ways of approaching and perhaps resolving some of those issues. In summary the unit explores: • Defining community • Relationships between tourists, tourism and communities • Understanding issues raised by tourism in communities • Problem-solving for issues in tourism • Concepts of sustainability for tourism communities The Eastbend session will be the third of the study programme and provides students with an opportunity to learn about cultural mapping techniques, and specifically the ECCM Project. It is intended that the CM process applied at Eastbend will provide students with a focused example of ‘mapping’ communities, where the concepts and approaches vary from the framework that we have provided for them to use in this subject, the Community Compass, which is a derived model based on community health theory. (see diagram below). In summary, the 2 hour session should: • Introduce the concept and philosophy of CM as used in the ECCM Project • Explore the techniques used • Demonstrate how the process informed community decision-making about issues of concern MAROOTA – ‘SYDNEY’S KAKADU’ - CELEBRATED AT PARLIAMENT HOUSE During the week of November 8 – 12, an exhibition in the foyer of Parliament House celebrated the work of Eastbend’s Community Cultural Mapping Project. The exhibits included the Darug story, paintings and photographs of the Maroota Forest, the Biosphere Reserve Concept Map, various sign odyssey community cultural maps and the tactile and magical 3-D map of the Maroota plateau made by Lorien Novalis school. The exhibition attracted many visitors from both Parliament and the general public. The exhibition was opened by Lee Rhiannon (NSW Greens) and Colin Gale (Darug Tribal Aboriginal Corporation). A concise and comprehensive presentation by Ruth Hassall (Eastbend Rural Communications Inc.) was a brilliant inclusion for all newcomers to this exhibit. She showed how a Biosphere Reserve concept for the Maroota Forest region could give a voice to all parties, in a spirit of cooperation, rather than competition. The Biosphere Reserve concept is about learning new ways for reconciliation through processes which value community stories and which elevate the importance of festivity in societal change. The Biosphere Reserve concept represents a real alternative for Maroota Forest, as management by large bureaucracies usually limits community access and use of areas of natural beauty. Dr Bronwyn Eather (Culture Lab) spoke about the exquisite irony of sand from ancient Darug festival grounds being extracted to construct the modern festival grounds at Olympic Park. She supported Eastbend’s call for a festive approach to the work being done in the Maroota area and called for all voices to come together to support and organise an annual festival on the ancient Darug festival ground, the Muru Durabin Festival. On Wednesday of that week, the Legislative Assembly made contributions to the Aboriginal Reconciliation debate. To the delight of Eastbend organisers of the Mapping Project, the exhibition was commended in the Assembly and written into Hansard in the same week. ‘The Eastbend exhibition … celebrates a movement towards reconciliation in the community of Maroota, one of the richest areas of Aboriginal culture, Aboriginal art and Aboriginal sacred sites in the Sydney Basin. We have celebrated this movement by recapturing the original Aboriginal expression for the area, “Muru Durabin”, which means literally path to the Hawkesbury. … If we do not learn to live with the land and appreciate both its capacities and limitations we do so at our great peril. This will be the cement that binds reconciliation together and leads us to a broader and much better community.’ (Kevin Rozzoli, Member for Hawkesbury. After viewing the exhibition we can imagine a series of festive events that bring the community stories together, past, present and future, and stimulate further festive gatherings leading to the Muru Durabin Festival in September 2000. The exhibition closed on Friday with a Press Conference facilitated by Culture Lab International Inc. (cultural research/theatre laboratory). Those interviewed were Kevin Rozzoli, Colin Gale, Lyndsay Mell (The Community Project (to be endorsed by the UN Association)), Leigh Farrer (independent geophysicist) and Geoff Buchan (Eastbend). Tapes of these interviews, which capture the points of view of and future visions for the Maroota Forest from these cultural/community representatives can be viewed at EASTBEND RURAL RESOURCE CENTRE, located at Maroota Public School.

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