STATUS: Unsolicited and speculative for the consideration of STURT's layered Community of Ownership & Interest (COI)
STURTunlimited (Su) as an entity is, if anything at all, is in gestation and its destiny may well be that it might never come about as any kind of entity. In itself it is unlikely to be in anyway miracle like but it may well be a circumstance within which some miraculous outcomes might come to be if fostered and harboured – albeit in some subliminal cum subconscious way within daily living.
STURTunlimited (Su) as a standalone renewed entity and STURT GALLAERY AND STUDIOS Ltd (SGS) as a corporate entity should in no way be in competition with each other as there is a need for both and a need for both entities to be working collaboratively and cooperatively purposefully towards enabling makers and making. For context, one could be imagined as existing within the framework of LAW and the other to do with the cultural sensibilities understandable in the context of LORE in a cultura landsape.
If Su were to be say a 'Cooperative' / 'Trust ' / 'Institute' / 'Gild' somewhat in the archaic sense – a commentary, treatise, or summary of principles – it should / could/ might be one of the 21st C – a CYBERplace / entity with its place of gestation coordinates being 34°27'21"S 150°27'03"E ... a MAKERSplace of 5 generations, plus other generations unknown.
Whatever, Su should / could be structured 'RHIZOMATICALLY' [ 1 ] and by contrast SGS is being structured 'PYRAMIDiCALLY' to fit within legal MINDsets.
In a cultural context people, and by extension 'entities', belong to and in places. Branding places with people's names implies something else – another cultural sensibility. On the other hand numbers are at once precise and enigmatic, puzzling and explicit, nonetheless here here numbers might serve a purpose in denoting a BEGININGplace known to a network of makers who are commited to making, making, matter more, making work work. Here, Su2575 would locate the BEGININGplace for Su and Su4665 ... Su5000 ... Su2575 etc. for those places the SuNETWORK finds itself doing somethng somewhere to do with MAKING MAKING WORK WORK and drawing upon THEnetwork in order to do so.
THE NETWOK
In a 21st C context CYBERspace might well provide the 'REALestate' that might be occupied by Su a rhizomatic network [LINK] of networked communities with shared aspirations to promote and sustain making, scholarship and pedagogy in the context of place, placemaking and placemarking, and by extesion, develop new and evolving understandings to do with materiality and place. [ SEE NUDGELBAH – 2 ]
Thus it is most likely to be a somewhat 'fungus like' [link] and rhizomatic network of cultural musers researchers and research networks – individuals, institutions, museums, organisations, groups, cultural producers, galleries, publishers, collectors, et al – and one devised to be:
• A vehicle via which place oriented cultural landscaping, scholarship and endeavour can be acknowledged, interrogated, honoured and shared;
• An entity that celebrates and interrogates cultural sensibilities and sensitivities and cultural production in all its diversity and machinations;
• An agency through which research capital, data and understandings can be built upon and invested in;
• A rhizomatic network of networks via which the network's cultural and scholastic collateral related to new and broader understandings of 'culture and placedness' can be exploited, built upon and published to rhizomaticly netwoked communities;
• A entity through which new and inclusive understandings of cultural and social realities can be advanced;
• A rrhizomatic research collective that facilitates and promotes scholarship and the publication of research outcomes, including cultural production, that belong to, and in, diverse cultural realities – monographs, novels, anthologies, essays, pamphlets, performances, video, exhibitions, websites, podcasts, etc.
PURPOSE, GOALS & OBJECTIVES
PURPOSE FOR BEING
STURTunlimited's purpose is to facilitate cultural production, research, expansive critical discourses and publication outcomes relevant to the development of more inclusive understandings of making, materiaqlity and imaginings to do with current ‘cultural realities’ – and in many voices both harmonious and discordant. ... In summary : Make Making Matter
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
Within current cultural contexts there are evolving paradigms and confluences that are bringing together desiloed scientific, social and cultural discourses. Variously al this can be seen as being at interfaces between social innovation, cultural production and social aspirations – the sciences, technology and industry in other contexts - change needs to be facilitated and embraced.
The emerging discourses related to 'cultural realities and placedness' often find themselves at the cutting edge of social development, cultural change and shifting social imperatives. Against this background, and given Su's relative ‘newness’, and likewise the acknowledgement of evolutionary change, there are needs for more cohesive networks of researchers, to projected goals and objectives and thus Su's might well be:
• To engage a network of researchers and cultural producers in multifaceted and multidimensional critical discourses that explore the possibilities and parameters of the interfacing concepts that define and determine cultural realities, a sense of place (placedness), in a real world 21st C context;
• To initiate and advocate innovative, sustainable inclusive understandings of ‘cultural realities’ within interdisciplinary discourses and especially so in relation to current and evolving communication technologies, social structures and cultural practice;
• To operate in collaboration and cooperation alliances with like-minded individuals, institutions and groups and where appropriate, oprate under the auspices of one or more established groups that have symbiotic sets of goals and objectives;
• To investigate the ways in which social and cultural realities in regional contexts interface with current technologies, social structures and cultural production – local and international – can;
1. Relate to changing, emerging and new understandings of place;
2. Shape and/or reshape cultural and social realities in a 21st Century context; and
3. Speak in in many voices – harmonious and discordant.
• To be proactive in the initiation of projects that engage researchers, innovators and cultural producers – writers, design practitioners et al – with the wider community towards developing new understandings of ‘cultural placedness’ and the interfaces evolving in diverse cultural realities;
• To facilitate the development of new interactive rhizoatic networks towards the promotion of pioneer technologies, innovative social structures, cultural outcomes and/or community cultural enterprises informed by current circumstances that define cultural realities and innovative understanding of materiality;
• To be proactive in the publication and dissemination of the outcomes of individual, cooperative and collaborative research and cooperative community enterprises relevant to the institute’s raison d’être;
• To seek funding and in-kind support for scholarship in a broad context plus projects, conferences, symposiums, seminars and education programs that advance the Su's vision and that promotes more inclusive understandings of the layered ownerships relative to place.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Against the background of a world that is in the throes of dynamic socio-political change driven by the evolution of innovative technologies and the spectre of global pandemics and environmental degradation, an entity such as Su should focus upon and be mindful of:
• A need to proactively embrace change while being engaged with researchers and cultural producers of all kinds, and the wider community, in critical discourses that explore the possibilities and parameters of shifting sensitivities, sensibilities and belief systems in the context of new technologies and changing ecologies in a real world 21st C context.
• Albeit that many communities and cultural entities are not at a point that might be described as a post-consumerist paradigm, plausibly many are on the cusp of it and thus there is a need to advocate for innovative and sustainable solutions, and more inclusive understandings/imaginings of 'placed cultural realities', that would fit such circumstances.
• Given the nature of, and the complexity of, the issues that are encompassed by the linked concepts of ‘place, cultural landscaping and socio-political change’, the most likely path to more inclusive outcomes are likely to be collaborative and cooperative.
Furthermore, there are many 'corporatised' institutions – universities and museums et al – in place that are able make a contribution to the ‘discourse’ relative to emerging cultural realities albeit in new ways – and with the capacity to engage with groups and the wider community albeit in new ways.
Rather than add yet another entity it would seem to be more productive to work collaboratively rather than cooperatively. Given this, it is arguably counterproductive to attempt to create yet another formal organisation with its ‘own’ infrastructure in competition other kindred entities.
• Many mainstream institutions/organisations have been established within a different paradigm to the one of dynamic change that is currently unfolding and doing so globally. Consequently, these 'bodies' may well have a great deal more invested in holding their position – maintaining the status quo – than they may in adapting to, and participating in, 'change' let alone not being predisposed to being ‘change agents’.
Speculatively at least, and in a 21st C context, there is a need to be proactive and innovative in developing new understandings and imaginings of place, cultural diversity and sustainable cultural landscaping anf by extension, cultural production.
What is understood to constitute relevant research, viable social networks and relevant cultural production in the context of current, and emerging, cultural and social realities is likely to be best determined collaboratively and cooperatively via rhizomatic networking.
• In a 21st C context it is clear that what has been understood as the status quo is no longer an ongoing and sustainable option. As was the case in the context of the Industrial Revolution where the concept of the ‘division of labour’ came to the fore and that later evolved into business concepts such as ‘vertical integration’ . These things delivered outcomes that otherwise would not have been realisable.
Against this background 'corporate cum bureaucratic ownerships' evolved and in ways that typically, and increasingly, excluded many 'cognitive owners of place' from having a say in the ways 'their places' – places with shared and layered ownerships attached to them – are understood and managed. This is so despite the protagonists of this 'status quo ownership paradigm' is operating under the guise of 'democracy'.
Furthermore, as time passes new information technologies deliver new networking opportunities – social networks, cultural networking, financial networks etc. – towards realising sustainable and inclusive outcomes within a ‘global’ context.
Arguably, there is now a changed paradigm within which place and cultural realities can be reimagined.
• The key element in the effective dissemination of ideas is their publication. Until relatively recently ‘publishers’ – typically museums and museums – were the gatekeepers (power brokers?), the keepers and self assessed curators of ‘knowledge and knowledge systems’ that helped keep the control that was exercised over the flow of information and its distribution – and at times the propagation of ideas.
That ceased to be a viable imagining from the late 20thC. The interfaces between the information economy and the digital economy allow individuals, groups and institutions to be more autonomous and proactive in the publication of ideas – thus circumventing the gatekeepers. Importantly, publication can take a greater range of interfacing formats ... print media, electronic media, digital media, exhibitions and dynamic interfaces between them – that can be initiated autonomously in ways that are not constrained by external gatekeeping and curatorship.
This is important in regard to generating critical discourses around contested and contentious ideas.
In the 21st Century the old saying ”publish or perish” has a new resonance albeit somewhat removed from exclusivity of academe’s cloisters. Indeed, all this is an indicator that at least at a subliminal level new understandings of 'ownership' are being embraced and tested – sometimes asserted.
• Notwithstanding the notion that an institute/entity of the kind speculated upon here seeks to collaborate with kindred and networked individuals, groups, organisations and institutions, it needs to be acknowledged that it will be making demands, many times unplanned for demands, on their budgets, infrastructure and other resources. Consequently, there will be a need to seek funding and sponsorship support for the projects initiated as a part of these collaborations. Given that there are mutual benefits to the collaborators, and very often the sponsors as well, it can be assumed, and with some safety, that funding agencies and sponsors who see advantages in supporting one collaborator will also see enhanced opportunities in supporting collaborative projects. Interestingly here, Wikipedea and The Guardian serve as a workable model for 'new paradigm thinking'.
STRATEGIES
Given the background and guiding principles against which STURTunlimited's has been framed, it is anticipated that its goals and objectives may be realised:
• By capitalising upon the established networks’ memberships and other relationships relevant to key participating collaborators. And in doing so:
- Devise projects and programs – research, advocacy and other – that engage with a diversity of community social networks;
• Proactively establish an ‘entity cum identity’ that will enable
STURTunlimited's to pursue collaborative and action research exploration of past and current understandings relevant to social cum cultural realities linked to cultural PLACEscapes, and while doing these things – and in a real world 21st Century context – play an advocacy role for a broad spectrum of research networks and cultural producers engaged with the interrogation of:
- Emerging cultural realities;
- Cultural production and cultural landscaping;
- Placedness and placemaking.
• Establish an alliance of collaborative researchers – individuals, teams and networks – under the auspices of one or more established groups, organisations or institutions that have symbiotic sets of goals and objectives to those of the institute. By doing so, the coalition – and the teams/networks collectively – will be better placed to investigate the ways in which research, cultural production and emerging technologies can contribute to changing imperatives and shifting understandings within 21st Century cultural, social and economic realities.
• Using the Su network linkages, it is anticipated that it will be possible to initiate various projects devised to engage with a diverse network of researchers and cultural producers. Consistent with this, and using the networked resources of community and institution based researchers, the diversity and cultural producers as well as the network’s infrastructure – display spaces, meeting places, publication platforms and infrastructures, social media, etc. – new, and dynamically interactive, projects and programs will be more feasible than otherwise may be possible.
• Fund and/or seek funding in collaboration with network members for infrastructure and facilities within the Su network that enhances or complements existing infrastructures and that enables the development of projects and programs in support of the institute’s raison d’être. Likewise, where appropriate, seek funding and sponsorships – cash and in-kind – for new infrastructure initiatives in collabration with network members et al.
• Establish a ‘publication network’ – hardcopy and digital – for the publication of the outcomes of individual, cooperative and collaborative research relevant to Su's raison d’être. Primarily for publications directed towards disseminating information about, and the outcomes of, projects, conferences, symposiums and seminars that advance the Su cause.
• Establish a curated virtual research collection and library network facilitated by websites et al that identifies 'place oriented' cultural production in public and private collections, and/or in daily use in public and private situations, that demonstrate the cultural and social realities and histories linked to placescapes, placemaking and cultural landscapes.
• Facilitate the awarding of scholarships, residencies and fellowships that advance the study of regionally relevant issues and/or research focused upon the layered ownerships to be found in, and defined by 'place'. These opportunities will be facilitated via the institute's network and ideally complemented by funding opportunities from other sources – private, corporate, institutional, national, international.
ENDNOTES ...
• “… I do not know what it will turn into. That will depend upon the people who come and on changing conditions. I can foresee many possible developments. It might become a training school for teachers of arts and crafts. It might become an industrial concern. It might become a colony of artists and craftsmen, potters and printers… or of course, it may just go phut!” ... Winifred West, 1941
• ... "We cannot create miracles, none of us, but we can created the circumstances where they might happen !” ... Winifred West, circa 1970
• “Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” St. Francis Of Assisi
• "Out of difficulties grow miracles". ... Jean de la Bruye
• Hope... is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles. ... Samuel Smiles
• Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature. Saint Augustine
• “Whatever you do may be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. .... Be the change you want to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi
• 'He had no bank balance, hard dirt was his floor ... from little things big things grow .. Yes, from little things big things grow' Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly ... LINK
• 'Ring the bells that still can ring ... Forget your perfect offering ... There is a crack, a crack in everything ...That's how the light gets in' Leonard Cohen ‧ 1992 ... LINK
Respect what remains, care for it and take care of it, and to give it your unconditional positive regard in our efforts to renew, as there rests our only legitimate hope for survival and sustenance ... zenZING proverb
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