Community Engagement and Music Production: Infrastructure, Contextualisation, and Investment
Written by Shams Hanieh
Suhail Khoury at PMC
The third session of the 2023 Palestine Music Conference discussed music production in relation to its wider society, under the title of “Community and Audience Engagement”. The panel brought together Sally Abu Bakr, Director of Cultural Development Department at Ramallah Municipality, Ragheda Andoni, cultural activist and former National Programme Officer at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and Dr. Issa Bolous, composer, lyricist, and ethnomusicologist. The session was moderated by Emile Ashrawi, musician, photographer, and dramatist.
The session aimed to discuss the role audiences play in the production process of music, as well as how to increase accessibility of music within public contexts, and engage local communities. Sally Abu Bakr began by sharing her experiences in cultural programming through Ramallah Municipality. The Municipality has long provided successful musical and cultural initiatives, always with the aim of being public facing and accessible to the community. These have included artist residencies, music festivals, children’s activities, and artisan markets.
Abu Bakr spoke of the Municipality’s work to bring music and art to the public domain, “Music is something collective that brings people together, so one of our foundations is providing infrastructure and platforms to enable artists to engage with audiences.” She named a number of tools aiding public engagement, one being hosting initiatives outside of conventional frameworks. One such example is the artist residencies run by the Municipality within renovated old homes in Ramallah. These residencies, launched in 2021, host a number of artists to produce and exhibit their work squarely in the heart of Ramallah’s Old City. Hosting artist residencies within such a central and historical location allows local communities to engage with current art production, and entrenches art as part of the public space.
Abu Bakr also noted the importance of education in increasing community engagement with music, saying “The Municipality runs a number of art projects within local public schools, as well as an annual scholarship in cooperation with the National Conservatory. Providing music and arts education to youth creates the foundations of artistic awareness, and serves as an investment in future audience engagement”.
Ragheda Andoni at PMC
Ragheda Andoni went on to share her experience of community engagement, highlighting that at the outset of the SDC’s work, they faced virtually no audience presence for their cultural programming, making them focus less on how to make audiences come to the art, and more on how to bring the art to the people. She stressed the necessity of tailoring programming to the context of the community, “You can’t impose art on people. You have to listen to them, carry out research, and understand their issues, then you can consolidate an artistic presence based on audience opinion.”
Andoni also stressed that audiences are more likely to engage with artistic output if they can participate in its creation. She referenced the success of the “Culture, Art, and Social Engagement” (CASE) project, launched by SDC and A.M. Qattan Foundation in 2016. The programme carried out art projects in over 20 villages in the West Bank and Gaza, in which issues and priorities of concern to the community were identified, and then expressed through artistic mediums to officials and decision-makers. “To make an audience appreciate and respect art, and be willing to attend performances and financially contribute, you have to involve them in the art production itself”, Andoni stated.
Issa Bolous then mused further on the subject of community engagement, stressing the importance of defining an audience to know whom to engage. He noted that society is not uniform, and consists of many different audiences with varying tastes and readiness to engage with music production. He stated that some music can be divisive, rather than unifying, and an artist can aim to find their specific audience with whom their work resonates.
Bolous then considered how capitalist modes of production have impacted community engagement with art, saying “When I was working with bands in the 1970s and 80s, our musical practice relied on a musical philosophy of political and sociocultural meaning, independent from the commercial conceptions currently present [...] In that time, music was to some extent still present within the public ''. Bolous has previously spoken about this era of Palestinian music production, citing how it utilized traditional instruments and rhythms as a means of affirming Palestinian identity. Referencing the Marxist theory of alienation, Bolous detailed that when music becomes a commodity, the musician becomes distanced from their creation, making music a privately-controlled product, rather than a communal and collective experience.
The panel then opened to the audience for commentary, where Yousef al-Shayeb, cultural correspondent for Al-Ayyam newspaper, contested the impact of capitalist production on Palestinian music. He stated that the pressures of commercialisation do not apply to the Palestinian context, which lacks essential music industry frameworks such as production companies or artist management.
Executive Director of Jafra Samer Jaradat affirmed this need for investment in the music industry. He described that when music is not a sustainable source of income, musicians will struggle to feel respect or appreciation from their audience, consequently limiting creation and public engagement. He also mentioned the role of governments in investing and supporting cultural production.
Indeed, increased public spending on culture greatly enhances the capacity of local artists and musicians. The success of Ramallah Municipality’s cultural activities could owe to the fact that nearly 6% of its budget is dedicated to cultural and social programming, one of the highest allocations for culture in Palestinian semi-public institutions. Meanwhile, funding for the Ministry of Culture does not exceed 0.003% of total government public spending.
Overall, the panel’s discussion displayed the symbiotic relationship between audiences and musicians, and the ways in which they can bolster one another. This interdependence can be deepened and supported through providing infrastructure for public interaction with music, contextualizing cultural programming, as well as effectively investing in both music production and enhancing public engagement.
Bibliography:
Al-’Assa, F. (2021) ‘في حضرة التاريخ.. فنانون يبدعون في بيوت تاريخية مرممة برام الله’, Al Jazeera, 4 September. Available at: https://shorturl.at/otMU0.
Wattan (2023) ‘بلدية رام الله تطلق مهرجان “وين ع رام الله” بنسخته الرابعة عشر’, 11 August. Available at: https://www.wattan.net/ar/video/410233.html.
مهرجان الأطفال ‘نوار نيسان’. Available at: https://www.ramallah.ps/ar_page.aspx?id=rQofgTa2993263185arQofgT (Accessed: 29 September 2023).
Zeidan, B. (2023) ‘سوق الحرجة... بين أكشاك البلدة القديمة في رام الله’, The New Arab, 25 July. Available at: https://shorturl.at/jlQ34 (Accessed: 29 September 2023).
Culture, Art and Social Engagement (CASE) Qattan Foundation. Available at: http://qattanfoundation.org/en/cap/projects/culture-art-and-social-engagement-case (Accessed: 29 September 2023).
Dabbah, A. (2021) ‘هذه النقائض ضرورية | مقابلة مع عيسى بولص’, Ma3azef, 12 March. Available at: https://shorturl.at/pwxP0 (Accessed: 29 September 2023).
Horowitz, A. (2011) Marx’s Theory of Alienation, University of York: Department of Political Science. Available at: https://www.yorku.ca/horowitz/courses/lectures/35_marx_alienation.html (Accessed: 29 September 2023).
OECD (2022), "Public and private funding for cultural and creative sectors", in The Culture Fix: Creative People, Places and Industries, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/29f05369-en.
Ramallah Municipality, 2022 Budget . [online] Available at: https://www.ramallah.ps/userfiles/server/AnnualR/budget2022.pdf [Accessed 23 Sep. 2023].
Farhat, F. (2014). The decentralization of cultural policy – Ramallah model. [online] Good Practices. Available at: https://obs.agenda21culture.net/en/good-practices/decentralization-cultural-policy-ramallah-model [Accessed 29 Sep. 2023].
Abdulrahman, S. (2015). Summary Updates to the Compendium Profile On Cultural Policy in Palestine 2015. [online] Cultural Policies. Available at: https://www.culturalpolicies.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/palestine_profile_summary_2014.pdf [Accessed 29 Sep. 2023].
