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.