ABSTRACT
The position of community arts in reference to conventionally established “high” art is an ambiguous one. Such an ambiguity stems partly from the complexity in defining both the “arts” and the “community”. Traditional Western conceptions of the “arts” have been particularly challenged in the second half of the twentieth century, with the emergence of new types of art forms (such as “relational art” or “participatory art”) as a response to socio-political conditions of that time. Community arts took various forms and manifestations in terms of artistic process, output and relationship with the state in different contexts world-wide. This chapter provides a context for both theoretical underpinnings of community arts and its historical development. While community arts development in the West (UK, US, Canada, Australia, Ireland, the Netherlands) started in the late 1960s, in South East and East Asia (e.g., Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea), more visible community and socially engaged arts development occurred towards the turn of the twenty-first century. Finally, this sets the context for a better understanding of community arts and culture development in Singapore and introduces the “Arts and Culture Nodes” initiative, which is the focus of this book.
