Listening to the Community: How co-creative listening approaches can help to develop strategic, eco-social regeneration

What agency is there in listening? In a durational and emplaced practice, the intervention of a ‘listening attitude’ can influence feelings of connection and motivation, and become a means to draw others into discourse and activities that benefit communities. Listening may also influence development of new co-creative artistic practices that can assist society to transition towards a culture of interconnectedness across human-non-human realms. Listening paradigms support participants to act in the unfolding process of creating and gathering evidence that discloses autonomous knowledges and communal wisdom. When combined with an artistic approach, these methods act in spaces of the everyday to reengage human-non-human connections; develop understanding of mutuality, like-mindedness, and kinship; and, negotiate the personal, social and political realm of the individual and the collective — in place. Artists can help communities to revitalise themselves through art and cultural activities, and do this best when involving local individuals and groups in collaborative environmentally engaging activities to grow mutual understanding about the locality. When supported by regional organisations and national bodies these kinds of engagements provide critical space to develop more beneficial community projects that introduce more meaningful discourses that are inclusive of less vocal, less confident members of society, particularly where historically, communities’ experiential, intergenerational and inherited knowledges may have been disregarded or devalued. Adopting a co-creative listening approach enables the development of interpretive and participatory responsibilities to emanate from within the community, contributing to eco-social actions, and creating spaces for engagement that bring environmental projects directly in touch with the public.