Community Cultural Development
DADAA promotes community cultural development by encouraging the cultural participation of people with disabilities or a mental illness through studio practice, educational programs, exhibitions and employment opportunities.
Across the world, people with disabilities and people with mental health diagnoses are experiencing enhanced wellbeing through new relationships within and beyond their local communities. They are developing new skills and producing beautiful and thought-provoking art works through participation in creative arts programs. Engagement in the arts provides opportunities for creative expression, self-realisation, engaged relationships and community connection.
There is no single definition of community cultural practice. However, American researchers Adams and Goldberg suggest that a defining tenet of the practice (and practitioners) has been “to demand public space, support and recognition for the right of excluded communities to assert their place in cultural life to give expression to their own cultural values and histories.”
In Australia, we are not accustomed to demanding; indeed, demanding space, support and recognition has perhaps been less necessary as government support for community arts and cultural development has been available since the 1970s. The 1999 Australia Council for the Arts Handbook states that:
"The key aim of community cultural development is to enable communities to advance their artistic and social aspirations by working closely with professional artists. Through these collaborations, communities are assisted to maintain or reclaim their culture, to address issues of concern to them, and create contemporary artistic works which reflect the diversity of Australian communities and their cultural life. Community cultural development projects are meant to ensure that community members are actively engaged in the creation, direction and management of projects; and that projects will achieve an increase in locally determined arts and cultural development and encourage outstanding achievement ..."