Contemporary Arts in Rural Development: Lessons from Japan and the UK

该提案旨在将对农村发展感兴趣的学者、艺术家、艺术专业人士和对农村和地区环境感兴趣的政策制定者聚集在一起，探讨当代艺术对农村地区社会和经济发展的贡献。该提案建立在纽卡斯尔大学和东京大学之间现有的合作伙伴关系的基础上（Gkartzios和Yagi在彼此学术单位的休假交流以及两个研究所之间的谅解备忘录），旨在加强这种关系，共同研究农村发展中的当代艺术。这两个机构都有与创意利益相关者接触的经验。例如，东京大学的Yagi和Toishi指导了学生的研究项目，研究艺术节对农村地区发展的影响。Gkartzios和Yagi （Gkartzios是东京大学的客座副教授）在日本一个人口稀少的偏远农村地区对艺术节（即Oku-Noto Trienalle）的管理和影响进行了实地调查。Gkartzios和Pollock与诺森伯兰郡和苏格兰的文化利益相关者建立了联系和研究项目（包括由AHRC资助的项目），两人都发表了关于艺术在农村发展中的作用的文章（例如在《农村研究杂志》上）。该研究计划首次将先锋艺术专业人士和农村发展专家聚集在一起，从国际角度审视当代艺术在农村发展背景下的潜力。其中包括来自日本Art Front Gallery（通过导演Fram Kitagawa组织的乡村艺术节，如Echigo-Tsumari和Setouchi，以其对农村发展的贡献而闻名于世）、英格兰的Berwick视觉艺术和苏格兰的Stove Network的重要贡献。所有这些利益相关者都通过艺术驻留计划、组织农村艺术节在农村环境中进行艺术干预，并与农村地区的社区团体建立了网络。该提案将为这些利益相关者创建一个动态的网络，他们将通过在英国和日本安排的两个“住宿周”交流知识并计划一个共同的研究议程。住宿周的计划将由学术调查人员与文化利益相关者合作起草。艺术家、早期职业研究人员和政策利益相关者将参与这些研讨会。工作坊期间的演讲、讨论和艺术干预将被记录并上传到项目网页，并将通过合作伙伴的社交媒体页面进一步传播。该项目的最终结果将是一份合作和比较研究提案，该提案将提交给适当的研究委员会，以获得后续资金，并为在英国和日本开展令人兴奋的跨学科对称研究项目奠定基础。

The proposal aims to bring together groups of academics interested in rural development, artists, art professionals and policy makers interested in rural and regional contexts in order to explore the contribution of contemporary arts in the social and economic development of rural places. The proposal builds on an existing partnership between Newcastle University and Tokyo Universities (evidenced with sabbatical exchanges of Gkartzios and Yagi across each other's academic units and a memorandum of understanding between the two institutes) and aims to strengthen this relationship with a common research agenda on contemporary arts in rural development. Both institutes have experience engaging with creative stakeholders. For example, Yagi and Toishi at the University of Tokyo have supervised student research projects the impact of art festivals in the development of rural places. Gkartzios and Yagi conducted fieldwork (while Gkartzios was Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo) on the governance and impact of an art festival (i.e. the Oku-Noto Trienalle) in a remote and depopulated rural area in Japan. Gkartzios and Pollock have established links and research projects (including projects funded from AHRC) with cultural stakeholders in Northumberland and Scotland and both have published on the role of art in rural development (e.g. in the Journal of Rural Studies). The research proposal bring together for the first time pioneering art professionals and rural development experts to look internationally the potential of contemporary art in rural development contexts. It includes critical contributions from Japan's Art Front Gallery (world famous for its contributions in rural development through the vision of Director Fram Kitagawa organising rural art festivals such as Echigo-Tsumari and Setouchi), England's Berwick Visual Arts, and Scotland's Stove Network. All these stakeholders have significant experience of art interventions in rural contexts through art residency programmes, organisation of rural art festivals, and have established networks with community groups in rural locales. The proposal will create a dynamic network of those stakeholders who will exchange knowledge and plan a common research agenda through two 'residential weeks' scheduled in the UK and in Japan. The programme of the residential weeks will be drafted by the academic investigators in partnership with the cultural stakeholders. Artists, early career researchers and policy stakeholders will be involved in these workshops. Presentation, discussions and artistic interventions during the workshops will be documented and uploaded on the project web pages and will be further disseminated through the partners' social media pages. The final outcome of the project will be a collaborative and comparative research proposal which will be submitted for subsequent funding to an appropriate research council and lay the foundations for an exciting, transdisciplinary and symmetric research project across the UK and Japan.