Create a participatory neighbourhood flag or coat of arms

Cultural Assets

Author: COP

Woman painting (Photo by RF._.studio via Pexels)

Cultural assets are places, people, artists, groups or institutions and other elements, such as tales, stories, symbols and perceived strengths of a given location (neighbourhood, village, town, city), which shape community’s identity. Identity is what define us, how we express ourselves, gives meaning to our lives and interactions and which (may) pass over generations.

Cultural assets, when identified, especially collaboratively or participatorily by residents have the power to creatively inspire people, create significant experiences, help finding shared connections, feelings, spur outreach work or even revitalise voids and forgotten urban areas.

What’s the activity?

Arts materials (Photo by Artem Podrez via Pexels)

“Participatory” is a term used to express not only participation, collaboration and engagement of a given audience or target group. It also entitles the target group with co-author rights, giving it room to express itself or give itself a voice, so it can point their view. Is a democratic approach that fosters inclusion, pride, collective stewardship and helps building a sense of community. Using arts, on the other hand, nourishes creativity and, as outcome, may turn a place more attractive and beautiful.

In this quest, you’ll use participatory illustration as a means to express and creatively celebrate the local culture of your neighbourhood.

What am I going to do?

This quest might take several gatherings. Schedule them over time beforehand.

Invite one illustrator, designer or someone keen on fine arts to support you in this activity (it’s not mandatory, though).
Define the topic(s) of your illustration. E.g., “Neighbourhood Identity”. The broader it is, the more you’ll need to discuss it with your neighbours. Alternatively, you may suggest a narrower topic, such as, “neighbourhood stories and tales”.
Invite family, co-workers or friends so you have a group of participants that will safeguard that you can kick-off with the activity. Publicise the activity you have in mind in central spots of your community. Remember to extend the invitations to people from different backgrounds and ages, so that you can ensure equity and that the masterpiece resulting from this will be community representative.
Make sure you have a list of materials required for this task (tables, chairs, pencils, pieces of paper, markers, …).
Host the gatherings in a public space and over Summer, preferably (in a park, a square, the entrance of a place where community members usually meet. The only caveat is if it’s a private place, ask the owner’s permission to deliver the activities there).
Explain the goals to your fellows and the process.
Ask and discuss with them what they feel more drawn to work on: a community flag or a coat of arms (or maybe a wall mural, but it will require more resources).
As most people tend to judge harshly on their visual and drawing skills. Unwind the participants to openly express themselves, by playing the game “Exquisite Corpse”. Watch the video and get acquainted with the steps and instructions.
Explain it to the participants and expect hilarious outcomes! After this experience, they may feel more confident and relaxed.
Map out with neighbours what represents the neighbourhood identity through a brainstorming. Some examples might be stories, activities, tales, symbols, traditions, music, food, buildings, specific goods, public and private spaces.
All together, rank them, by sorting them by relevance and, then, choose the narrative(s)’ elements to represent.
Represent the visual elements and don’t go detail crazy! The simpler, the better. Search online for icons that represent the visual elements that you/group wants to convey and try to replicate them. Check the two videos about “500 hand drawing symbols” for inspiration, which are in the “What do I need?” heading.
Make a sketch of the coat of arms or flag and start designing elements for the narrative embedded in the coat of arms or flag.
Handcraft, sew or paint together the flag or the coat of arms in a communal space with residents. If you choose to paint it and the group of residents is large, to be true to the original colour scheme, you may want to use the paint by numbers technique. Paint-by-numbers resembles a colouring book. Is based on an outline drawing with colour-coded numbers in each section of the outline. It’s very intuitive, avoids substantial errors and blunders and it’s an easy technique to keep everyone synchronised when team working.
Publicise the coat of arms or the flag in the neighbourhood. Challenge the community to wear/use it in special occasions, celebrations or local events.

What will I learn?

Knowledge Acquired:

Participatory illustration;
Cultural assets;

Skills Acquired:

Facilitate communal events;
Organise participatory public art event(s);
Informally map cultural assets that represent the neighbourhood;
Creatively convey and express collective local narratives and identity;
Verbal & Non-verbal communication;
Know how to give positive reinforcement;
Creativity;
Leadership.

Attitude Acquired:

Being an initiator and facilitator of community cultural events;
Openness;
Culture-driven.

What will I take home?

As cultural mediator, it is crucial that you become a facilitator par excellence. May it be a facilitator in terms of communication, events, cultural expression, community organising, etc.. By bringing residents together and giving them a voice to express what is an asset for them in terms of identity and creating artwork, you’ll strengthen relationships, civic stewardship, individual and collective self-esteem and imagination.

Convey local values and history through the illustration and its narratives expressed in the finished piece. This is a way to pass on knowledge through a chain of generations, locals and outsiders.

After the gatherings, reflect on what could be improved and tweaked next time you organise anything similar or to give pieces of advice to someone who is preparing oneself to set up an activity using participatory illustration.

Resources
Click each section below to see all resources available.

Videos

Exquisite Corpse Drawing Game

Brainstorming Techniques: How to Innovate in Groups

500 Hand Drawing Symbols | After Effects Project

500 Hand Drawing Symbols - After Effects Project Files After Effects Template

PAINT BY NUMBER MURAL (epic DIY vlog)

Frontline Worker Toolkit

Aims and Objectives:

Understand participatory illustration as a means for community building, social and urban change;
Teach individuals a participatory and artistic activity to convey local assets and identity;
Teach individuals accessible techniques to be used in participatory illustration and community building;

Top tips:

As Frontline Worker, you may find here some hints to support you in the exploration of participatory illustration topic and with the interaction of your audience.

In case you would like to delve about the real importance, purposes and impact of participatory illustration applied to murals, please watch the video “Participatory art: inspirations for advocacy and activism”. You may want to present it to your audiences as well and do some reflections about it.
Exquisite corpse technique is a technique that fits in several contexts. Either more structured or more informal settings, either with mature adults or children or either with drawing beginners or drawing experts. You may use it as a standalone activity or as an ice-breaker to get all members of your audience more comfortable with each other and with the task assigned to them.
A way to reframe and break down complex concepts, such as “collective identity” or “cultural identity” is using some inquiry questions. Before the initial brainstorming, you may want to start with questions that will better guide all the participants throughout the brainstorming process. Some inquiry questions are:

“What do you understand about the term “cultural identity”?”

“Who are we?”

“What’s our collective history?”

“What are the symbols, buildings, traditions, stories, arts, language, expressions that make up our community’s character and customs?”

4. Afterwards, you might divide the group into several themes for brainstorming, depending on the group size and the content which emerged in this initial reframing period. Please watch the video on Brainstorming.

5. When reaching the 15 step “Publicise the coat of arms or the flag in the neighbourhood", challenge the community to wear/use it in special occasions, celebrations or local events. Storytelling might be an interesting tool to be used to mainstream the product/symbol created by the community. You may want to know more about storytelling. If so, please see this Facebook post.

Facebook post on storytelling
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=136648308811906&id=106845348458869

Frontline worker/Educator Videos

Participatory Art: Inspirations for advocacy and activism

Exquisite Corpse Drawing Game

Brainstorming Techniques: How to Innovate in Groups