Dates of Event
20th June 2014 – 21st June 2014
Location
Utrecht, Netherlands
Venue Details
Friday: Ottone, Kromme Nieuwegracht 62, Utrecht
Saturday: Department of Media and Cultural Studies, University of Utrecht, Drift 21, Utrecht
Last Booking Date for this Event
15th June 2014
Description
-Networking between academics, policy makers and arts practitioners
-Transfer of best practices in participatory arts and participatory decision-making in cultural policy
-Policy transfer between different countries, municipalities and public service sectors-International speakers for comparative analysis
Since the 1980s there has been a growing international focus on participation in public policy, whether as a means to compensate for diminishing state investment or to give voice to grassroots activism. This has led to an increasing discourse about models of participatory practice, the values that underpin these, and their social and political impact, in the worlds of the arts and cultural activities no less than in other sectors.
For the last two years Leeds Metropolitan University, with the support of Arts Council England and the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), have been coordinating a knowledge exchange network, bringing together academics, policy makers and practitioners to share research and debate issues, on participation and engagement in the arts. In the Netherlands similar activities have been carried out since 2009 by the national expertise centres for arts education and amateur arts, recently merged into the National Centre of Expertise for Cultural Education and Amateur Arts (LKCA), and by the Cultural Participation Fund (FCP).
This conference is the culmination of this work, and aims to draw together current research and practice internationally to assess:
• The relevance of the participation and engagement agenda for professional arts and cultural heritage organisations, voluntary arts organisations, and policy makers at local and national level;
• Which theoretical and political assumptions underpin this agenda and its implementation;
• Which models of participatory arts practices have been developed and have proved to be successful.
This conference is in collaboration with the National Centre of Expertise for Cultural Education and Amateur Arts (LKCA), the Cultural Participation Fund (FCP) and The Department of Media and Culture Studies of the University of Utrecht.
For further info, visit: www.participationandengagement-arts.co.uk
Monday 31 March 2014
Saturday 22 March 2014
Workshop Preparations
Good news! Participants have now been selected for the 7 April workshop and the final preparations are coming together (finalised programme to follow shortly). We're also excited to announce that Helen Featherstone (Senior Officer, Engagement & Audience, Arts Council England) has been added to the programme as part of the panel discussion in the morning.
Friday 14 March 2014
Cultural Policy in the Public Eye - A Talk by Leila Jancovich
Cultural Policy Issues: New Research at Leeds
The next seminar in the series will be presented on 18 March by Leila Jancovich (Senior Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University), 5:15pm, ICS Lecture Theatre, Clothworkers North (room G.12).
Title: Cultural Policy in the Public Eye
Abstract: A central debate within arts policy in the UK since the formation of the Arts Council in 1946 has revolved around whether policy and funding should respond to the supplier (the artist) or the demand side (the audience) with the balance until recently clearly falling in favour of the artist. But there have been increasing calls for artists and arts organisations to be more publicly accountable and for cultural policy to shift the debate in favour of the audience.
Yet despite a policy discourse and rhetoric including directives and targets to increase levels of participation in the UK, the government's own statistics suggest that there has been little change in the arts institutions who receive regular funding and in the social composition of the audiences who participate in the arts in Britain today, who remain predominantly white and middle class.
Arts funding continues to prioritise physical infrastructure over grassroots activity, professional artists over amateur participation, and high art over popular. Internationally, trends in the public sector have seen the public viewed not just as users or customers, but as co-producers and decision makers, which is beginning to impact on the arts.
This paper considers the implications of participatory decision making in the arts, through interviews with policy makers, artists and audiences and seeks to consider to what extent such initiatives are able to democratise the arts and what impact this has on art form development.
The next seminar in the series will be presented on 18 March by Leila Jancovich (Senior Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University), 5:15pm, ICS Lecture Theatre, Clothworkers North (room G.12).
Title: Cultural Policy in the Public Eye
Abstract: A central debate within arts policy in the UK since the formation of the Arts Council in 1946 has revolved around whether policy and funding should respond to the supplier (the artist) or the demand side (the audience) with the balance until recently clearly falling in favour of the artist. But there have been increasing calls for artists and arts organisations to be more publicly accountable and for cultural policy to shift the debate in favour of the audience.
Yet despite a policy discourse and rhetoric including directives and targets to increase levels of participation in the UK, the government's own statistics suggest that there has been little change in the arts institutions who receive regular funding and in the social composition of the audiences who participate in the arts in Britain today, who remain predominantly white and middle class.
Arts funding continues to prioritise physical infrastructure over grassroots activity, professional artists over amateur participation, and high art over popular. Internationally, trends in the public sector have seen the public viewed not just as users or customers, but as co-producers and decision makers, which is beginning to impact on the arts.
This paper considers the implications of participatory decision making in the arts, through interviews with policy makers, artists and audiences and seeks to consider to what extent such initiatives are able to democratise the arts and what impact this has on art form development.
Saturday 1 March 2014
Applications Closed for 7 April Workshop
Applications for the first workshop in the 'Co-producing Cultural Policy' project (7 April 2014) are now closed. Updates and registration for the second workshop at the University of Warwick will be announced soon.
About the Organisers
Liz Stainforth
Policy plays a central role in my PhD research. Over the past 15 years cultural heritage and digitisation has been shaped by a number of key policy statements, frameworks and funding calls. As well as enabling major projects such as Europeana, these have informed shifting understandings of the relationship between ‘heritage’ and ‘the digital’. My work is specifically concerned with the ideological significance attributed to memory, understood as a form of national or transnational inheritance, in relation to debates about digitisation and the preservation of cultural heritage. My research explores the politics of this relationship further through analysis of the projects, press and policies that have the digitisation of cultural heritage as their goal, spanning the period 1994-present, within major organisational and cultural settings.
Leila Jancovich
The rhetoric of cultural policy has placed increasing emphasis on the participation agenda over the last 15 years. But despite this, a study of grey literature demonstrates that there has been little change in the basis upon which arts institutions receive regular funding, or the social composition of those who participate in the arts in Britain today - who remain predominantly white and middle class. Government surveys further provide evidence that the arts are perceived as elitist, and policy too insular and self-reflective. Through interviews with policymakers, practitioners and the public, my PhD examines participatory decision-making in the arts. It examines case studies of practice as well as the levers and barriers to policy implementation in general.
Alice Borchi
My PhD is a contribution to the debate on cultural value, which is an important research area of Centre for Cultural Policy Studies at Warwick University and also the core of the #Culturalvalue Initiative, an international platform of discussion led by Dr. Elenora Belfiore. My research focuses on the relationship between historical context, governmental policies and the perception of culture in the contemporary Italian society, exploring the change in cultural value in Italy from 2008 to the present day, a period when the economic crisis has strongly influenced the everyday behaviour of the Italian people. This project, that includes theoretical and historical research, normative analysis, interviews and case studies, has the purpose to understand the change in perceptions of cultural value in Italy, a country with a rich cultural tradition, analyzing different sectors and different aspects of the national and local cultural life.
Policy plays a central role in my PhD research. Over the past 15 years cultural heritage and digitisation has been shaped by a number of key policy statements, frameworks and funding calls. As well as enabling major projects such as Europeana, these have informed shifting understandings of the relationship between ‘heritage’ and ‘the digital’. My work is specifically concerned with the ideological significance attributed to memory, understood as a form of national or transnational inheritance, in relation to debates about digitisation and the preservation of cultural heritage. My research explores the politics of this relationship further through analysis of the projects, press and policies that have the digitisation of cultural heritage as their goal, spanning the period 1994-present, within major organisational and cultural settings.
Leila Jancovich
The rhetoric of cultural policy has placed increasing emphasis on the participation agenda over the last 15 years. But despite this, a study of grey literature demonstrates that there has been little change in the basis upon which arts institutions receive regular funding, or the social composition of those who participate in the arts in Britain today - who remain predominantly white and middle class. Government surveys further provide evidence that the arts are perceived as elitist, and policy too insular and self-reflective. Through interviews with policymakers, practitioners and the public, my PhD examines participatory decision-making in the arts. It examines case studies of practice as well as the levers and barriers to policy implementation in general.
Alice Borchi
My PhD is a contribution to the debate on cultural value, which is an important research area of Centre for Cultural Policy Studies at Warwick University and also the core of the #Culturalvalue Initiative, an international platform of discussion led by Dr. Elenora Belfiore. My research focuses on the relationship between historical context, governmental policies and the perception of culture in the contemporary Italian society, exploring the change in cultural value in Italy from 2008 to the present day, a period when the economic crisis has strongly influenced the everyday behaviour of the Italian people. This project, that includes theoretical and historical research, normative analysis, interviews and case studies, has the purpose to understand the change in perceptions of cultural value in Italy, a country with a rich cultural tradition, analyzing different sectors and different aspects of the national and local cultural life.
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