Art and Culture issues in oxford cowley road Essay

Art and Culture issues in oxford cowley road - Essay Example The tradition of celebrating the Cowley Road Carnival started in 2001. It was a regeneration project. Before the Carnival project, the Cowley Road had a notorious image of crime. It was the local communities demand to cleanse the Cowley Road from the negative impact through East Oxford Action’s regeneration programme. Since then, the Carnival has become a regular practice for the regeneration of the area (seco). The Cowley Road has become a place for art and culture exhibition openly. According to Marcusen (2006), artists are not evenly scattered in cities, their distribution depends on their choices to live, employment opportunities in industries like media, advertising and publishing and keen interest taken by local authorities to support art work for its development. Artists add to the regional economic growth by exporting their art work and creating opportunities for import functions from other cities and areas to their city. Smaller performing art spaces also play a significant part in expansion of art work to other areas. A group of artists get formed in such urban spaces where local art flourishes and gets a place in economy of the region (p.1). It seems so true of the experience the Cowley Road Carnival of cultural show is giving to the ethnic communities there. The Cowley Road Carnival attends to local communities’ aspirations by contributing to specific themes and resolving of certain issues, which have become a priority. Issues and themes include: The carnival has become a symbol of local peoples’ tolerance of each other communities with the celebration of their feelings through the multicultural show. The carnival has become a raging success because of the collaborative support from the people, groups, schools and local organisations, representing art and culture but where from these artists come? (seco, 2010) In this context, it is argued by social theorists that artists are the soul of society, attacking aggressively