Public Culture and Creative Spaces

The Public Culture and Creative Spaces project is a nine-month project that seeks to explore and capture some of the new thinking and practice around public culture, community construction and shared spaces.   It aims to draw together the new knowledge and practice generated by funded research projects across Connected Communities with work across a number of academic disciplines as well as the creative sector. The Principal Investigator is Professor George McKay, AHRC Leadership Fellow for the Connected Communities Programme, and Professor of Media Studies at the UEA. The Research Associate is Dr Elizabeth Bennett, a postdoctoral researcher who specialises in folk music.

Of particular focus within this project are street music and community arts spaces. The outputs of the project will include:

* A conference on street music organised by the University of East Anglia on May 14-15, 2019.

* A report co-authored by Dr Elizabeth Bennett and Professor George McKay that charts and critically examines the cultural impact of street music, drawing on both academic and ‘grey’/cultural policy literature in the field. This report will be launched at the conference in May 2019.

* An annotated bibliography supporting the report

It is our aim that these events and resources are places of discussion between and amidst disciplines, ranging from music, media and cultural studies, to geography, history and urban planning. We also hope that these events function as a place for dialogue between academics, independent researchers, musicians, performers, and the arts and cultural policy sectors.

See here for a recent blog by Dr Elizabeth Bennett on Whittlesea Straw Bear festival