cdcArts:
the manifesto
New Education, Research and Project Organisation
Today, as never before in the history of human development, a small group of wealthy and powerful people emanating from one nation are placed in a position where they can control, not only the material quality of life of all other peoples, but also the information they receive, the ways in which they think and the aspirations which become the fuel of their imaginations and their driving forces as they pursue the daily fight for survival and self-determination.
"art is a hammer"
Cultural diversity as much as bio-diversity is under threat of extinction from the neoliberal monoculture. Control of access to the ever more technologically sophisticated channels of mass communication means that this small oligarchy of transnational corporations intervenes many times every day in the lives of people, not only in an attempt to transform them from citizens into consumers but also to lie to them about how the world is organised and for whose benefit. Therefore the need for counter-interventions based on the lived experiences of ordinary people is urgent as antidotes to the Plan for the American Century . Another world is possible. But for how much longer will this possibility remain open?
This Centre exists to harness the creativity, imagination and energy of those who believe that it is not yet too late to remake the world and that the arts can play a key role in this process of remaking. Compared to the resources available to the oligarchs of the developed world, the poor and marginalised have very few means with which to assert their identities and to articulate their rights to free expression, education and culture. But, in common with all other members of the species, they have imagination, language and their bodies and with these tools they hold the potential to remake the world according to their own formations rather than those which currently dominate.
By the transference and generation of skills in cultural action and communication the Centre supports and builds the capacities of grassroots and community organisations throughout the world in their struggles to develop dialogues with the macro-organisations which affect their lives. By working with communities the Centre aims to assist in the process of creating practical, participatory analyses that enable them to enter into dialectical relationships with the external forces which would otherwise seek to govern and control them. Whether the context is local, regional, national or international, the Centre facilitates the process whereby communities transform themselves from the objects into the subjects of their own development.
The Centre is a focus for communities, professionals, academics and researchers who believe in the capacity of the arts to effect social transformation and who wish to work through both practice and theory for that end. It provides support, encouragement and resources to those who are seeking to use an art form or combination of forms to develop narratives that counter the prevailing narrative of neoliberal globalisation and, further, to assist in the dissemination of these narratives into the public sphere. A diverse set of practices fall within this conceptual framework contained by the shared belief not only that another world is possible but also that this world denies the opportunity to the vast majority of its citizens to realise their humanity.
