CEM210 - Nowhereisland

When I first heard about Nowhereisland, I thought it was the worst idea I had heard in a long time. After much discussion and scrutiny in my Cultural Management module at UCF, we all had a lot of questions and didn’t quite understand why anyone would want to tow an island from one place to another? 

I thought there were some very good candidates for the south west Cultural Olyimpiad like Dance South West and Inside Out, so i was slightly miffed when they announced Nowherisland as once of the 12 projects for the Cultural Olympiad.

I now realise that this project is probably the best out of the 12, I understand now that they are not just trying to see if they can create a new nation, but create new policies and ideas about society as if we were starting again.


Alex Hartley is a british Artist who 'focuses on the contradictory relationship between built and natural environments' he is the founder of the project.

There are 'Resident Thinkers' of the project which are people from professors to farmers who have opinions about  society and if Nowhereisland was going to be the start of a real nation how would they learn from our current and past nations to make Nowhereisland a better and sustainable place to live.

Although I realise now what they are trying to achieve my this project my scepticism at the beginning are still apparent, Alex Hartley originally talked about how the project would 'highlight issues such as climate change' but for me this seems ridiculous when they are going to be towing the island all the way from the Arctic using a barge which will use a huge amount of fuel. The project came about around the time of the Art Council England funding cuts, while they cut 30% of the funding they spent 500k on the Nowhereisland project, this seems ridiculous a ridiculous amount compared to how much money south west arts organisations get in funding.

I am genuinely exited about this project and cannot wait to visit the embassy when it is in Weymouth or Mevagissey, it will be interesting to see how it will be received in places in the southwest.

http://nowhereisland.org/#!/about/

http://www.alexhartley.net/

CEM210 - Cultural Toursim

For me tourism is going to visit somewhere you may not have been to before, so you can gain knowledge about a different environment and culture.

Sadly tourism is such a huge industry that a lot of the time you’re not seeing the real cultural heritage but one that has been adapted for the tourist so the local economy gains more money, this could be seen as exploiting their own heritage for profit. e.g. tourists visiting an island in Fiji and upon arrival there are woman dancing with coconut shell bras on, this would not happen when every guest arrives on the island only when the paying tourist arrives.   

In a way I disapprove of this because its just a representation of what happens and the tourists are not seeing the true culture, but on the other hand they may have had the tradition of dancing to guests for decades and it is the only way the tradition is keep alive.

I think heritage is part of our nationality,  tourists visit heritage sites to find the identity of the nation where they are visiting.

UNESCO is a constitution, their cultural goals are ‘to preserve World Heritage sites, which may be of historic or scenic value, for future generations to enjoy’ I believe this is a very important organisation because there has been a lot of destruction and arguments over world heritage sites especially one of religious importance. 
It is vital that there is a body who is unbiased and just wants to protect the sites who ever they ‘belong’ to or wherever they are, because if not there is not a constitution like UNESCO people will decided things about significant heritage sites that may not be best for them. 

For me I think some places should not have tourist visit them, for example the indigenous tribes that still don’t associate with the modern world should be left alone because otherwise people come in from the outside world and bring modern items in, this starts to make them materialistic and they start depending on trading with the outside and therefore are not an independent tribe anymore and the next generations of the tribe will have different values and priorities. 

In conclusion I think cultural tourism is a very valuable industry and I think strongly that people should visit different places but tourism can change a place which is not always for the better. 

Reference

• Catherine Palmer. (1998). Tourism and the symbols of identity . Tourism Management. 20
• Cheryl Teal. (2011). Aims & Objectives of UNESCO . Available: http://www.ehow.com/info_8044081_aims-objectives-unesco.html#ixzz1eGO2GI2n. Last accessed 19th Nov 2011.
• Barbara T. Hoffman (2006). Art and Cultural Heritage: Law, Policy and Practice. USA: Cambridge University Press.

CEM210 - Our Culture and the Technology Generation

Culture has changed and developed so much over the years, it can now mean so many things to so many people. If you look back at the last few centuries the split between high and low culture has merged, this is linked to social classes being less divided and popular culture becoming for the masses not just the lower classes.

Years ago opera was a very high cultural entertainment but now there are all sorts of cultural crossovers for example the television programme ‘Popstar to Opera Star’ is a combination of ‘The X factor’ type reality show (which is a one of the most popular programmes on TV currently so is aimed at the masses) and classical Opera, this is just one example of many to show how culture is still dived into high and low culture but they are increasingly crossing over.

In the seminar this week we discussed culturally significant events/things in our life, we all had personal things but we decided on certain books (Harry Pottter, Malerie Blackman, 1984), major world events (Iraq war, 9/11, tube bombings), and a huge significant thing was technology, we are the generation who started to grow up with computers and mobile phones, so things like internet and Facebook came up a lot in our discussion. 

Many people believe technological development is one of the key factors of cultural change, I think that this is true, especially for my generation and generations onwards, technology is going to develop even more on a huge scale, which means culture is going to grow. 

The internet has changed social exchanges, people can communicate instantly and in a very informal way, i’m not sure that this is a good thing because young people are learning to be lazy as its effortless to communicate with their piers. People are also starting to depend on technology, I find this slightly scary because its not a natural commodity and you see all these films set in the future where technology does everything for us, I feel like we will forget what is like to live without technology.

“Technology giveth and technology taketh away, and not always in equal measure. A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided.” - Neil Postman (1990)

References:

Measuring the value of culture: a report to the Department for Culture Media and Sport 2010

Dr. Dave O’Brien

‘Managing Britannia: Culture and Management in Modern Britain’ Protherough, R & Pick, J. (2003) Imprint Academic

CEM210 - Critical and Cultural Appreciation

After the Cultural Management unit in level 1, I found that culture has no single definition, everybody seems to have different ideas about ‘what culture is’. Starting this new module, i’ve realised that culture is even more complex than I first thought. 

When i’m thinking of culture in a broad sense, nationality is the first thing that comes to mind, where you’re from and how you are brought up plays a big part of your culture. 

The second thing that comes to my mind is literacy, film, art and music, this is because I see the word ‘culture’ mostly when reading the culture section in the newspapers. This sort of culture is subjective, this means we’re independent because we choose what we like and what we don’t like, its not just about what your brought up listen to, reading and watching.

Talking to the students in the seminars made me see that I have a typical British culture but like so many other young people I try to become more individual by diversifying my culture. I do this by seeing different cultures and going abroad, I also listen to music that I didn’t listen to growing up. 

In this country we are fortunate because there is a diverse range of cultures and we are allowed and even encouraged to learn about other cultures to broaden our knowledge of the world and make us less narrow minded.