The Process
Facilitation
The project was facilitated by London based artists Darren Murphy and Caitriona McLaughlin, Darren a film and documentary maker and Catriona an actress and director worked with the local Residents' Association and schools, to include youth groups, women, older residents and the local history group. The arts activity was aimed at encouraging people living and working in the area to create a vision of how they would like to see local spaces developed.
Workshops
As part of the process, the artists worked with each group gathering and developing ideas and stories from the community. It was evident that there were a number of common themes arising from each age group, these were: the need for a community facility most commonly in the form of a purpose built community centre and the regeneration of the local park and facilities for local youth. The information gathered showed a great unity of thought around the needs for the local area. Another aspect impacting on the local vision was the imminent development plans of other organisations launched in the middle of the visioning process.
Other Visions
The Department of Social Development, Derry City Council, and ILEX had a huge impact on the direction of the Clooney project. As the plans released triggered the fears of the local community two aspects became apparent, firstly, the participants were responding to their own vision as a reaction to visions launched by other groups rather than specifically focusing on their own ideas. Secondly, the topics discussed were directly linked to the perceived negative aspects of other plans for the area so that one element, the potential loss of a local resource,’The Field’, was a focus and recurrent theme for many of those interviewed.
The Editing
This part of the process was the most contentious, while all the film gathered reflected specific places in Clooney and the interviews were all recorded in Clooney, when edited together the community believed they were not a true representation of the area, its residents, history or current successes. A lengthy and sometimes heated debate developed around the image presented as representative of the area. The response after the first feedback presentation of the DVD was overwhelming and served as a catalyst for more active participation by many local residents.
The debate covered many possible interpretations of the vision initially presented by the artists and covered topics such as: the artists' possible preconceptions of the community, the community’s lack of awareness of the collective disengagement from their own problem areas, the possibility that familiarity made residents almost blind to problems in the area and the possibility that there was a sense that only negative imagery would attract potential funding. Ultimately there were three versions of the DVD with the final approved cut being edited by the local community representatives.
