Former Director of Community Music Victoria shares international award for his contribution to demonstrating the connection between culture and sustainable development
On Friday May 27, 2016, The Global Network of Cities, Local and Regional Governments (UCLG) announced this year’s recipients of its Individual International Culture 21 Award.
The Individual Award recognises an internationally renowned individual who has made a fundamental contribution to the relationship between culture and sustainable development.
The 2015-2016 International Award UCLG – MEXICO CITY – Culture 21 is shared by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (Bolivian anarcho-feminist sociologist and activist, particularly with indigenous communities; author of ‘Oppressed But Not Defeated: Peasant Struggles Among the Aymara and Quechua in Bolivia, 1900–1980’) and Jon Hawkes (author of ‘The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability: culture's essential role in public planning’).
The inaugural recipients (2013-2014) were Manuel Castells (Spanish sociologist focusing on the information society, communication and globalisation, Emeritus Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California Berkeley and author of ‘The Information Age’ trilogy) and Farida Shaheed (Pakistani sociologist, feminist human rights activist and Special Cultural Rights Rapporteur for the United Nations).
In response to the announcement, Hawkes said that any initiative that highlighted the importance of community-based cultural action was welcome: ‘Whatever contribution I have made to developing a language that validates the efforts of grassroots culture-making has itself been the result of co-operative effort.
‘First I must thank Judy Spokes and Sue Beal of the Cultural Development Network (Victoria) for giving me the opportunity to write the book in the first place. And then Jordi Pascual, the Co-ordinator of the UCLG’s Committee on Culture, who discovered the book shortly after it was published and energetically promoted its ideas, which culminated in the UCLG issuing a Policy Statement on ‘Culture as the Fourth Pillar of Sustainable Development’ in November 2010.’
Hawkes, who was Director of Community Music Victoria between 2001 and 2008, went on to say, ‘it was during my time there that the theory and practice of sustainable cultural development came together in the most meaningful way that I have ever experienced. We helped to build a network of community music makers and making that has blossomed into an independent and creative movement that continues to flourish.’
Announcement: http://agenda21culture.net/award/index.php/the-winners/2nd-edition-2015-2016/jonhawkes-eng
Hawkes Library: http://www.culturaldevelopment.net.au/community/index.html