Breaking the frame : art in international development : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University, Turitea, New Zealand
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Date
2011
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Massey University
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Abstract
In the last 15 years, development donors have begun to fund the arts in the South in
response to development’s ‘cultural turn’ that urged a more holistic approach to
development practice. However, conceptions of art’s agency in the context of
development remain highly varied. Donors with an instrumental approach claim that the
arts contribute to such extra-artistic outcomes as post-conflict peace-building, effective
communication of educational messages, and economic growth through cultural tourism
and through the creative industries. Other donors argue that the cultural sector provides
a critical public space important to the development of more just and democratic
societies. Some postcolonial critics go further, arguing that the critical agency of art in
the South lies in its ability to stand as an alternative imaginative space to development,
one not reduced to development’s crises and deficiencies, and one from which
alternative cultural imaginings can be constructed by those usually framed as the
‘subjects of development’. This thesis responds to this latter claim by exploring the
possibilities of this somewhat paradoxical question: to what extent can development
funding support artistic processes that construct an alternative imaginative space to
development itself?
This question is explored through a grounded case study of one highly dynamic
contemporary artist-led initiative based in Managua, Nicaragua, but operating
throughout Central America. The organisation, called EspIRA/La ESPORA, was
founded in 2005 and has received almost all of its funding from development donors to
date. In all of the claims for art’s agency listed above, the voices of artists themselves are
missing. The close examination of EspIRA/La ESPORA reveals the range and
complexity of the agency that these artists claim for their own practices, in relationship
to context(s) that they conceive as multi-scalar. It also reveals the practices through
which donors appear able to support the resistant and constructive forms of agency
suggested by postcolonial critics, as well as the practices and policies through which
donors reinscribe development’s dominance as a signifying framework. Finally, the
thesis draws out particularly productive tensions in the relationship between art and
development that emerge from this analysis, and that offer opportunities to deepen the
donor community’s critical engagement with art and with artists in the South.
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Keywords
Economic assitance, Central America, Art and development, Arts, Central America, Creative industries, Central America, International development, Central America, Nicaragua, Arts initiative, Nicaragua, EspIRA/La ESPORA