 Following in Lance's footsteps (and oddly dressed in his team kit) I celebrate my moment on the king of the cols We had some great messy fun on a wet Saturday afternoon in our house – Elsa and I made a papier mâché sculpture. It’s not quite finished yet – hence no picture – but we spent a happy hour covered in paper paste creating our masterpiece together. Being only three, Elsa got bored before I did and wandered off leaving me to finish the sculpture alone. I could pretend I was doing it for her but actually I was having a lot of fun – just as I do when we do painting, or make play doh sculptures or make collages. I loved art at school and yet until having the kids I’ve not put pencil to paper or made anything in twenty years. I have a PhD in History of Art and work in art galleries for a living – but I have long since stopped making picture or things because I’m not a proper artist.
Roll forward to next weekend and I’ll be avidly watching professional cycling as the Tour de France launches its annual three-week spectacular. I’m not a proper cyclist either, but watching the boys on the bikes will have me yearning to be back in the saddle. I don’t ride as much as I used to before the kids, but I’ve cycled many of the climbs I’ll be watching the professionals ride over: the Alpe d’Huez, Col de Tourmalet (pictured), Col d’Aubisque, Col de Peyresourde. Seeing them climb swiftly up the hills I struggled up adds to my enjoyment of the race - I relive my own modest achievements in the saddle through watching them and knowing every centimetre of those climbs means I can understand the race better.
So why do we in the visual arts (or perhaps it’s just me) find it so embarrassing for grown-ups to join in? We’re all for encouraging creativity among children – and the ‘worthy’ deprived groups on whom we inflict outreach – but participating ourselves and other adults? I don’t think this ‘firewall’ is as pronounced in music, but as arts professionals we seem to be squeamish about amateur arts activity. Why is this?
 Ryedale Folk Museum - one of the participating organisations Whose Cake is it anyway? is the result of an in-depth study of engagement and participation in the UK museums sector, produced by Dr Bernadette Lynch on behalf of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
Working closely with 12 leading organisations in the field (including Ryedale Folk Museum pictured above), the report sought to move beyond descriptions of innovative short-term projects to look instead in greater depth at the key issues limiting this important field of museum practice. For those of us who value engagement, the findings do not make comfortable reading. Notwithstanding the many and excellent examples of good practice among the 12 participating museums, the report concludes:
… the funding invested in pubic engagement and participation in the UK’s museums and galleries has not significantly succeeded in shifting the work from the margins to the core of many of these organisations. (p.5)
The report points to five main reasons for engagement and participation not having achieved its full potential in the UK’s museums and galleries including:
- False consensus and using people to ‘rubber stamp’ plans rather than really consulting or collaborating with them).
- Policies based on ‘helping-out’ and ‘doing for’
- Communities treated as beneficiaries rather than active agents
- Project funding leading to non-mainstreaming of engagement and pretending things are better than they are
- Absence of strong, committed leadership
I suggest these first three ‘faults’ or problems are linked to poorly-implemented participation, often hampered by outdated mindsets. Whilst not doubting these are barriers that need to be overcome -there’s plenty of evidence of organisations in the UK and internationally getting this right (including the many of the organisations in this study).
Perhaps because it has been commissioned by funders, the report places too much blame for the problems on project funding – unfairly in my view. If engagement and participation are often relying on external project funding then can we conclude this is caused by funding policy? Or could it be – rather – that some organisations only undertake the activity if additional funding is there because they don’t consider it to be core activity? Certainly, when I was working as a curator and trying to make a participatory learning project happen without full institutional support (ie willingness to use core funds for it) being able to access project grants meant I could make it happen.
The report raises a wider problem with using ‘project funding’ to encourage or develop activity – unless the projects funded in some way change the capacity (or desire) of the recipients to undertake this activity in future then it is inherently unsustainable. Without digressing into a discussion about intelligent funding, I simply want to argue that participation and engagement are no less suitable for project funding than any other area of work. (And I look forward to seeing how PHF’s ongoing support for participation shapes up and responds to these challenges about how best to fund and enable this important area).
For my money the key barrier is this fifth one – leadership. When the leadership of the organisation is committed to and understands participation in the way I know it does at places featured in the report such as Ryedale and Museum of East Anglian Life* then it works. We can always improve participation and engagement – and this report is helpful in understanding how – but without strong and committed leadership it will remain a unfulfilled promise.
* disclaimer – I don’t know the others in the survey well enough to pass judgement on them!
 British Council France Innovators' Club* Does culture unite or divide us? If we want culture, and within that broader field the arts in particular, to contribute to bringing us together to explore, understand, form and share our values then what needs to happen?
This was the question posed in two workshops I was asked to lead on behalf of the British Council in France in the past couple of weeks involving young leaders based in France from a range of sectors: the arts, local government, business, higher education, law, social development. (It is also a question explored most recently explored by John Holden in a highly recommended article for the British Council’s think thank ‘Counterpoint’ entitled Culture & Class).
Below is a summary of the eight key issues raised during our first workshop, along with some suggested links to UK texts and arts organisations (and one US-one which is frankly so good I overlooked the ‘British’ remit).
In our second session we explored as couple of these questions in greater detail, coming up with some new ideas about how arts organisations, policy0makers and the private sector can progress this agenda in France -to inform an international workshop the British Council is organising on Cultural Rights in Paris in February 2011, and possibly lead to some future British Council initiatives. Of particular interest were the questions of:
- fostering creativity within the education system
- diversifying the cultural workforce – to enable expertise from different sectors to contribute to running arts organisations
- the role of enterprise and the private sector.
The aim in publishing these notes is to encourage further discussion within the group and more widely. Please let us know what you think of these questions, suggest other examples from the UK, France or elsewhere and have your say!
1. What is the role of the education system in enabling access to cultural capital?
Whilst recognising the need for our definition of culture to be enlarged to reflect a wider range of activity beyond the traditional canon, we also spoke about wanting to empower people to access our shared cultural capital – should they wish to. Unless our schools offer young people the opportunity to understand our artistic and cultural traditions it is unlikely that they will be able to enjoy this heritage. For example, the mission statement of Tate (UK’s national gallery of British and modern art) is ‘to enable the public to understand and enjoy art’: because Tate believes helping people understand unlocks their potential to enjoy.
The arts do not form part of the core curriculum for primary and secondary education in the UK, and little importance if placed on creativity and culture within teaching training courses. In response many arts organisations in the UK offer training opportunities for teachers to develop their ability to support learning about the arts. For example, Opera North works with schools in Leeds to improve the quality of music teaching in primary schools through its ‘Music Ambassadors’ programme.
If we want to enable access to our shared cultural capital then what are the best ways to enable this, and how can we work with education providers in France?
2. Whose responsibility is it to make the changes we need? What is the role of the market and other agents beyond the state (independent associations, business etc)?
We talked about the need to engage with a wide range of different players to achieve change form different sectors: business, education, policy, the arts sector. One example of working with business from the UK is National Theatre of Wales which has developed a commercial partnership with a major UK insurance company (Confused.com which is part of Admiral Group). Professional actors, writers and theatre staff work with the insurance company’s employees to create performances which are presented in the workplace. This furthers both NTW’s goal to enable participation in theatre beyond professional artists, as well as providing valuable sponsorship for the theatre company.
Beyond the state and cultural policy, who else do we need to engage with to achieve cultural participation and how might we do this? In France is the concept of ‘la democratisation culturelle participative’ helpful in thinking about how we might achieve cultural democracy?
John Holden’s Democratic Culture explores some of these issues and sets out some potential solutions.
3. How do we enable cultural participation in the fullest sense: not just in terms of accessing our heritage but also in terms of expressing ourselves? How can we ‘valorise’ creative expression by non-professionals?
Was the German artist Joseph Beuys right, is everybody really an artist? Or do you agree with Nina Simon (see below) that self-expression isn’t the only way people can join in? Some commentators (including Nina) argue, based on an analogy with how people engage with social technologies, that people want a range (or spectrum) of opportunities to participate in between the two extremes of creating and consuming. For example, only a tiny minority of people upload content to Youtube, many watch videos, many more comment on them, rate them – acting a critics or reviewers. [i] In her highly recommended book The Participatory Museum[ii] USA-based Nina Simon explores this ‘spectrum of participation’ and different models for engagement in greater detail.
So, what’s the range of participatory experiences we want to offer?
Below I’ve listed a couple of recent articles about different models of participation in the arts, which include many examples of UK-based organisations active in this field:
Michelle Knight’s paper looks at theatre sector; mine looks at art museums and galleries. Louise Govier’s paper looks at museums and performing arts, with a focus on the leadership implications.
 Part of the Innovators' Club at work
4. Access to culture means cultural institutions are available and accessible. What do we expect of our arts organisations?
As Rima Abdul-Malak’s paper outlines, French cultural policy has sought to increase access to the arts through provision of infrastructure and yet levels of attendance are not significantly changed in this period. We see a similar situation in the UK. An annual survey (Taking Part[iii]) tracks cultural attendance over time and shows disappointing levels of activity across all sectors. For example, art gallery and museum audiences in England have plateaued at around 21% of the adult population, despite a policy focus on increasing access and significantly increased public funding in the past 10 years. Currently in the UK whilst we have policies to encourage overall attendance and priorities on certain demographic groups (such as young people, people with disabilities, black and minority ethnic) there is neither systematic measuring of success nor sanction for not reaching these audiences. Also, the current focus is framed only in terms of attendance – if we want to see participation, how would this be measured and what would constitute successful engagement?
For some arts and cultural organisations participation is at the heart of what they do. Dance United work with young offenders through professional dance training in a programme known as ‘The Academy’ which culminates in a live performance in front of an audience. Within there short weeks lives are transformed by learning new skills and discipline, and challenging negative self-perception. You can see a short film about The Academy project here in which participants, and their families, speak in their own terms about the profound impact this project has had on their behaviour and outlook.
Rosetta Life is a small arts organisation which works on participatory projects with the terminally ill. Graeae is a theatre company based around those with disabilities as writers, performers etc. These are just a handful of many examples of participatory arts organisations active in the UK today – some of which receive public subsidy alongside professional arts organisations.
So who should our équipements culturels be reaching? What kinds of experience should they be offering?
5. Governance and representative arts organisations – who should be involved in making decisions about cultural policy and within arts organisations?
Most UK arts organisations are independent, non-profit legal structures – usually charities (which are governed by Charity Law). Local authorities directly manage some theatres, art centres and museums, but some of these are becoming independent as well.
To give the example of race equality and the cultural sector in the UK, in the wake of accusations of widespread ‘institutional racism’ in all aspects of UK society and in response to the Race Relations Amendment Act, the main arts funder in England (Arts Council England) requires the arts organisations it funds to set targets for and monitor the ethnicity of audiences, staff, artistic programmes and governance. (But as with audiences, see above, I’m not aware of any sanctions for those failing organisations). If you want to know more about how Race Equality has been approached in the UK arts sector the Arts Council publishes a range of reports on its progress on this issue.
So who do we want to involve in governance and how would we make this happen?
6. Who determines what is culture and what is quality? Do we still need gatekeepers? How might the role (and skills of) experts change in future?
There’s a widespread, and mis-placed, fear among cultural professionals that greater participation and enabling access means disregarding quality and the role of expertise. I don’t believe it does – but I would argue it entails separating expertise from control. Where once it was the role of the expert to decide what culture was on our behalf, today we expect a dialogue with experts that respects our own interests and knowledge.
But to what extent have professional changed how they work? How ready are we to engage in these discussions with audiences and what new ways of working might be required?
Cornerhouse is an arts centre (cinema and gallery) based in Manchester which is re-thinking the role of the curator. It published this article by Michael Connor on the theme recently A manual for the 21st Century gatekeeper.
7. Participation in culture is often very personal and subjective. How do we balance ‘the universal’ and unifying value of culture whilst recognising and making space for subjective and personal encounters.
Moving away from a single authoritative curatorial voice, some galleries and museums now invite visitors to share their views about the works on display. Tate is experimenting with this approach in several ways. At the Turner Prize exhibition (a well-known controversial annual competition for British contemporary artists) members of the public are invited to share their views with other visitors and nominate which of the four artists on display they think should win by voting or wearing a badge with the artists’ name on. A project called ‘the Bigger Picture’ at Tate Modern involves non-experts writing short captions about their favourite work on display that provides a different insight into the work on display than the standard art historical explanation – for example, a local resident tells a story of how the wood in a sculpture reminds her of the Caribbean island on which she lived as a child. By making space for the visitors’ voices in the museum, Tate dispels the notion of a single authority and encourages people to share personal responses – through which we learn about them as well as find new ways into the works.
What other ways can we balance the personal and the universal?
8. How could technology enable us to achieve greater participation?
Many commentators in the UK (see for example Charles Leadbeater[iv]) see the rise of technology, and the cultural shifts associated with the social web or Web 2.0, as provoking and enabling greater participation in cultural life.
‘the really revolutionary things about the technology is that it has allowed people to collaborate in a way that they never could before, and it has allowed them to communicate directly with each other. So instead of the arts and culture simply being provided by a set of professionalized ‘producers’ to a group of relatively passive consumers the game has changed. Now, individuals can take on positions as producers and consumers, authors and readers, performers and audiences across all three spheres [publicly-funded, commercial and homemade] of culture.’ (John Holden[v])
For example, London Bubble theatre company now operate a project called ‘fan made theatre’ using technology to harness audience involvement in creating and producing new productions. The Royal Opera House recently commissioned its first ever Twitter Opera.
Might technology offer us some approaches and tools that could transform participation with cultural life? How can we capitalise on them?
* The Innovators’ Club involved: Céline Merlaud, Jessica Miroglio, Larys Frogier, Leïla Badis, Mathilde Rimaud, Rodolphe Blavy, Mark Gore, Hakin Hallouch, Laura Lanzone Dubois, Camille Solal, Olivier Laboulle, Gabrille Kessler, Rabah Ghezali, Rima Abdul-Malak, Karim Amellal, Laetitia Adhémar, and Sandrine Mahieu, Sarah Bagshaw, Jim Hollington and Laetitia Manach from the British Council. Participants biographies are listed here.
These notes from our session capture only the headlines to guide our further discussions, and offer a handful of examples from the UK to illustrate the key points, there are many others.
Please add your own views, comments and examples – do you think these are the key issues? what are the ways forward? How are arts professionals, and wider leaders, in France addressing these questions?
[i] Forrester Research , 2008. Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies, cited in Simon (2010) p.8.
[ii] Simon, Nina, 2010. The participatory museum. Santa Cruz: Museum 2.0.) See also Nina’s excellent blog http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/
[iii] Bunting, Catherine, et al., 2007. Informing change: Taking Part in the arts: survey findings from the first 12 months. London: Arts Council England.
[iv] Leadbeater, Charles, 2009. The art of with. Manchester: Cornerhouse. Available at http://www.cornerhouse.org/media/Learn/The%20Art%20of%20With.pdf
[v] Holden, John, 2009, What are the new values that will inform arts provision in the next twenty years? [Presentation notes] London: Theatre Managers’ Association. Available at http://www.tmauk.org/Downloads/JohnHolden_TMAWinterEvent2009.pdf
 The 'real' Lance Armstrong: 7 times Tour de France winner, Paris-Nice prologue March 2005  A very happy, tired Lance Armstrong impersonator having just cycled up the Col de Tourmalet - the highest road pass in the French Pyrenees, July 2005 My Twitter profile (@claireant) reads: ‘independent arts consultant, mum-of-two-toddlers, former professional cyclist’. It’s a slight exaggeration – I was never a professional cyclist, but I used to be a very keen cyclist and cycling fan. Along with art, cycling, mountains and France are my main passion – so I’m a keen fan of the Tour de France. Lance Armstrong has dominated the Tour for the past decade, after battling cancer in his mid 20s he went on to win the race a record-breaking seven times. He’s also become a powerful symbol of hope for cancer-survivors and raised millions for his cancer charity Livestrong.
It’s traditional for spectators of the Tour join in with the party atmosphere as the Tour passes through their town – decorating their houses, creating crazy sculptures, dressing up - so as the peloton prepare to head up the Champs Elysees tomorrow on the final stage please excuse my Tour folie as I consider the lessons we might draw from the Tour, and Lance in particular, for thinking about how we can engage people with art:
1. Understanding leads to enjoyment
The more I understand about cycling, the more I enjoy watching the Tour de France. Knowing the challenge presented by the course, understanding the strengths and form of the individual riders, thinking about how today’s heroes compare with the great Eddy Merckx or Faust Coppi – the more I know about the history of the Tour or the current crop of riders the more I anticipate the race and engage with it. In 2005 I watched early season races in person (where I took the photo of Lance above warming up for Paris-Nice), followed riders’ progress in Equipe and followed debate on the cycling forum (see below). In June/July 2005 I also rode slowly up many of the same cols (a col is the high point on a mountain road – usually going over the shoulder of the mountain) that the riders would be doing later – thus giving myself firsthand knowledge of just how long, hard (and beautiful) those climbs really are. I’ve not had the time to follow cycling so much in recent years and consequently I don’t enjoy the race as much as I used to.
Lance’s lesson: learning enables greater enjoyment. For the spectator that means, the more you put into learning the more you are likely to enjoy (and art, like cycling, replays effort and learning). For the arts organisation that suggests we need to enable visitors and audience members to learn more as a route to enjoyment (and not telling them what to think, but enabling them to discover for themselves).
2. The power of super-users
How did I develop my knowledge of cycling? I read books, and cycling magazines, but there’s relatively little published on cycle racing in the mainstream media so getting hold of information about what’s happening can be challenging. That’s where other cycling fans come in – and web 2.0. Five or six years ago I discovered the BBC online cycling forum which was a space for enthusiasts to share information and opinions – and for novices like me to ask questions which others took great delight in answering. The BBC’s own journalism was pretty poor in comparison – many forum members knew more about cycling and the official posts served more to provoke discussion than inform. I would visit – as I’m sure many did – to read other forum members’ posts, not the so-called expert journalists. As with many online communities there emerged an unofficial hierarchy with a handful of highly knowledgeable and active users (some people must have spent hours contributing each day). And when the BBC editorial policy – and online forum format – changed, and we didn’t like it, we developed out own independent site which continues to this day at justcycling. I used to contribute and enjoyed being able to share my passion or experience with others – or sometimes just my personal views. And I gained a huge amount of information, insights and enjoyment from hearing the views and ideas of other non-professionals. I’ve not used the site for a few years, but there’s a community of 350 members from around Europe and North America, many of whom have posted more than 3,000 messages.
Lance’s lesson: there’s lots of expertise and passion among non-professionals – many of us enjoying sharing what we know and are happy to support new learners looking for support, and we enjoy contributing to debates. Not everything needs to be provided by experts and offering a platform for interested users to meet and share ideas can be a very effective (and cost-effective) way of supporting learning and engagement.
3. The link between spectating and doing
When I see the professionals charging up the hills on their bikes I long to be on mine! I’m not alone in wanting to join in – each year many thousands of amateurs bid to test themselves against the pros by riding the hardest stage of the Tour that year in an event called the Etape du Tour – it’s massively over-subscribed. I know I’ll never really be a pro cyclist – but seeing the pros reminds me of what I love about riding my bike and makes me want to get it out of the shed and go for a spin. And, having slogged slowly up some of the major climbs of this year’s tour I enjoyed seeing the real pros tackling those same, familiar climbs.
Lance’s lesson: some people enjoying doing as well as watching and these two activities – which we try and keep separate in the arts – can nourish one another.
4. Offer different ways to join in
There are many ways you can get involved in pro cycling: you can watch on TV or turn up on the route and watch for free. Before the race it’s possible to chat to the riders as they warm-up, and for the Tour de France there’s a whole tradition of decorating houses along the route, people dressing up and having parties etc. Lance Armstrong took joining in further still with his yellow Livestrong wristbrand phenomenon which raised millions for his cancer charity and enabled millions of people to show their support for his causes. Lance is also a Twitter phenomenon – sharing insights into his training, his daily life, is preparations for the race.
Lance’s lesson: Offering people many opportunities to get involved with cycling, with various levels of engagement, encourages support and enables enjoyment.
So, far-fetched as it may sound – there’s much we can learn from how cycling engages with its fans about how we can develop relationships with our audiences.
 On the panel with John Tusa, Sarah Weir and John Holden at the launch event at NESTA earlier this week What would a more user-centred approach mean for art galleries and museums? Could engaging with our audiences enable us to make galleries matter to a wider range of people, and in so doing provide new resources (human and financial) for our organisations?
Earlier this year I explored these issues, looking at how user innovation was being used in other sectors (public, commercial, other parts of the arts) and talking to a wide range of arts professionals in the visual arts and museums sectors about what user engagement means for how we run art galleries.
Today, I spoke at seminar hosted by NESTA and the Clore Leadership Programme entitled ‘Leadership in Uncertain Times’ at which this article – along with another seven on similar themes – were launched. You can read (and download) my article here – I’d be delighted to hear any comments, feedback or suggestions.
audiencestousers
UPDATE: Clore Leadership Programme have now published all the essays via their website including two others looking at user-led innovation in different sectors (Abigail Pogson in music and Michelle Knight in theatre), and Jonathan Best’s provocation around media convergence and live theatre, William Wong’s exploration of new business models and three articles on leadership by François Matarasso, Nadine Andrews and Teo Greenstreet.
I’m looking for suggestions for art galleries and museums (and non-buildings based projects) to visit in the UK and overseas as part of my research project looking at different ways of engaging with audiences for modern and contemporary art to inform my planning of a number of study trips in the autumn/winter 2010.
Broadly speaking, I’m looking for art galleries and museums which are engaging with their audiences as participants in programming, interpretation, visitor services, management and governance – all areas of an organisation’s operation. Organisations that might inform or challenge some of the ideas I’ve explored in these posts about user-centred galleries or my ideal gallery. I’d also be interested in other cultural organisations (non-art museums, theatres etc) engaged in this kind of work – but my primary interest is modern and contemporary art.
I’d be very grateful for suggestions about places to go and see – and key people to meet. (You could email me this if you’d rather not publish names of individuals – up to you). It’d be extremely helpful if you could say why you’ve suggested these places – what it is about them you find interesting?
I’ve summarised below my outline plans of what I’m already thinking about – if you know people based at these organisations who you think I’d find it interesting to talk to then please let me know as in many cases I don’t have any contacts (especially outside the UK).
- UK (I’ve left off my ‘home’ regions of the North – Yorkshire, NE and NW)
SW – Tate St Ives, Arnolfini (Bristol), Newlyn Art Gallery, Plymouth Arts Centre
WM – Ikon, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, New Art Gallery Walsall
EM – Derby QUAD, Nottingham Contemporary
SE – Towner (Eastbourne), Turner Contemporary (obviously not opening until Spring 2011), The Lightbox.
E – Wysing Arts
- USA – (I’m not sure my budget will stretch beyond New York but let’s think big and then see if I can stretch to it)
The New Museum (NY)
The Brooklyn Museum (NY)
MoMA (NY)
LA Hammer (Los Angeles)
- France/ Benelux (I’m thinking of combining these into one trip)
Van Abbemuseum, (Eindhoven)
Kröller Müller museum and sculpture park (Otterlo, Netherlands)
Pompidou Metz (France)
- Scandinavia (as above – I’d try to cover these in one trip)
Kiasma (Helsinki)
Louisiana (Denmark – nr Copenhagen)
Moderna Museet (Stockholm)
So where else would you suggest I go? And why?
 Not only was it a great course - we also got a certificate and a badge! I’ve recently completed an excellent course to learn more about ‘relational dynamics coaching’. The course covered three main areas: coaching skills, leadership awareness and understanding of self and others (aka emotional intelligence). I’d recommend the course to anyone looking to develop either their coaching skillset, or coaching mindset (approach) – whether you’re interested in becoming a coach yourself or if like me you’re simply interested in developing your style. I say ‘style’ because whilst it’s designed with leadership development in mind (and our trainer also runs a leadership coaching course for Cultural Leadership Programme), it is already proving useful in all other areas of my life: professional, social, parenting.
So what is coaching? Coaching is about self-directed learning. Rather than advising or solving problems for others, a coach facilitates learning and development, Because the coachee finds their own insights and ways forward, these are owned and more likely to be successful than externally imposed ideas. A coach believes the client has the answers and resources within themselves – and through skilful questioning, framing and challenging – provides a positive, supportive and encouraging space in which to find them. Coaching is also about building capacity and avoiding creating dependent relationships – so a coachee feels responsible for their own development and progress. Coaching comes in many flavours – the course I followed was called ‘relational dynamics’ because of its focus on emotional intelligence as a key resource, often through realising different perspectives and insights into a situation.[1]
Or put simply, in the words of one of the other ladies on my course:
‘coaching is a bit like putting on an old coat you’ve not worn for a while and finding a fiver in your pocket: it was there all along, but it’s nice to find it and gives you a little spring in your step for the rest of the day.’
My interest in coaching stems from a desire to be better able to facilitate other people’s contributions when I’m working as a line manager or consultant. I’d noticed that on occasions whilst I wanted to empower and involve others, it wasn’t always working as well as I’d like and people had suggested coaching might offer me some new techniques. In my experience, you can only get so far on your own efforts but working with others slows you down, and I’m always in a rush! The words of a wise former colleague stuck in my mind: ‘If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go further go together’. I like fast, but further sounded good too – and I hoped coaching would help me get further, with others.
The other reason I wanted to find out more about coaching was that many of the principles of coaching chimed with the kind of values I hold dear in relation to how I’d like to work with audiences in the arts. Therefore I was interested to discover what coaching might offer in terms of ideas for how to approach engaging audiences with art.
Far too many people believe the arts are not for them. Some of us in the arts (and I used to be guilty of this when I started work as a curator 15 years ago) see their role as ‘taste-makers’: determining on behalf of the rest of us what art is worthy of our attention. These days I value expertise and I’m glad someone else has done all the research and found the most interesting artists so I don’t have to traipse round every studio and biennale across the world, but I see a difference between expertise and control. Just as my doctor (with her professional knowledge) can advise me about my options for treatment of my dodgy back – I expect her to offer me a range of choices, and if I prefer to opt to ibuprofen over acupuncture then she respects my choices.
Personally I believe that we all have different tastes and respond differently to even the same artworks is a great strength of the arts – because these interactions are often personal and subjective they offer us fresh insights into ourselves and other people. If we see our role as arts professionals as facilitating opportunities to discover and enjoy cultural experiences – then I think we will be able to reach and engage with more people than if we prescribe culture for them. That means we need to shift our mindset from one of provision of culture by an elite to a passive audience, to think in terms of expert facilitation and offering of high quality content in a way that respects an audience’s own values, tastes and needs, as well as builds their capacity to understand and enjoy more. I think many of the principles of coaching (e.g. self-directed learning, building capacity in the coachee for their own progress, being non-judgmental) could be helpful in thinking about how we create these conditions I’ve just described in terms of the arts sector and our relationships with audiences.
For example, if we enable a viewer to articulate and understand what it is about a particular artwork that they enjoy, or through exploring the impact of an artwork on them begin to understand the artist’s intentions more deeply, then we are giving them the skills and tools to enjoy and understand more.
So, in my view, coaching is very useful as both a mindset and skillset for the kinds of things I’m interested in achieving in the arts – and this course has been fantastic in helping put in place enough awareness, tools and excitement to enable me to keep on learning and improving.
Perhaps one of the simplest, but most effective tools we learnt was around use of ‘clean’ and positive language. I was staggered by the power that expressing what we wanted to do in positive terms and being clear about the benefits could create within a conversation. I’m not the kind of person who feels comfortable talking about energy outside of a physics laboratory, but even a cynic like me could see the impact that simply phrasing things in the positive could have on motivation and energy levels.
A quote the trainers used really captured this insight about the power of language for me:
‘we do not describe the world we see but we see the world we describe’ (Jaworski).
The other revelation from this course was the lovely group of ladies who were fellow-learners on the course – from whom I’ve learnt as much as I did from our excellent trainers Deb Barnard and Rivca Rubin. At the end of our 8 days, and having all passed our exam, we discussed what next – someone put it nicely by saying it reminded her of when she’d just passed her driving test and the instructor said: ‘Right now you’ve passed you really start learning’. And I really, really look forward to practising and learning more.
In fact I’ve decided to work towards a formal coaching qualification so I’m looking for people to practice with so if you fancy a bit of free coaching to try it out then drop me an email.
[1] Paraphrased from my Relational Dynamics course manual ‘Foundations of coaching: the key principles’ by Deb Barnard.
If you’re interested in understanding how to make participation work for your institution then look no further.
Nina Simon’s new book The Participatory Museum is a practical guide to designing and managing activities which engage visitors in a range of ways: leading to a deeper, personalised experience for them, and contributing to institutional goals. The book offers an insight into the range of participatory approaches currently being used in museums and other cultural institutions: what they offer in terms of different benefits and experiences for the visitor and the institution, and what’s entailed in delivering and managing these kinds of projects. There are also many case studies from all scales and types of museum, offering insights into the kinds of approaches and projects that arts professionals are using with the aim of involving visitors in creating, sharing and connecting with one another around content. Further case studies, and other reference materials, are available online at the book’s website – a valuable resources for anyone working in or studying museums.
Despite being resolutely practical in focus, the book is engaged with theoretical debates around participation and as such is essential reading for anyone interested in how we involve make our cultural institutions more relevant and responsive to their users. It’s premised on a vision for museums as being a dynamic social – as well as cultural – heart of their communities:
When people have safe, welcoming places in their local communities to meet new people, engage with complex ideas, and be creative, they can make significant civic and cultural impact [...] Rather than being ‘nice to have’ these institutions can become must-haves for people seeking places for community and participation.’ (p.351)
So how do we create more, and better, opportunities for participation within arts and cultural organisations? Nina Simon identifies four main models for participation:
Contributory - where visitors make a contribution within parameters that are controlled by the institution – e.g. a feedback wall.
Collaborative – where visitors are active participants in projects originated by the institution – e.g. artist janice Macaulay’s allotment project at Cafe Gallery Projects in Southwark where people are invited to join in the project.
Co-creative - visitors and staff work together from the outset to define a project and deliver it together. The Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle is cited as an institution that has completely integrated this approach across its programme.
Hosted - where an institution makes available its resources or facilities to an external group to mount their own activity. Again, Cafe Gallery Projects offers an example – through its hosting of student projects such as this one with the Royal College of Art (it also hosts shows of work by local schools).
The main difference between models is the relative power balance between participants and institution. But significantly – in contrast with much writing on the subject which celebrates the co-creative above other models – Simon does not suggest that there is a hierarchy and sees each model as being valuable. She provides a useful table which summarises the features of each model, so you can identify which would suit your organisation or project best. She also advocates providing a range of participatory opportunities – not just those that privilege the ‘creatives’ in the audience – citing studies of user behaviour on social media websites as evidence of people’s desire to contribute through reviewing, sorting, commenting on as well as creating content.
She highlights main design principles as the basis of thinking about successful participation: constraints/ frameworks make it easier for people to join in (as opposed to open ended opportunities) and what she terms ‘from me to we‘: starting with personal engagement as a means to enable social engagement. This focus on starting with personal engagement requires a far higher degree of personalisation than many arts and cultural organisations currently offer their audiences. Simon draws on examples from beyond the world of museums – often looking to the world of web 2.0 – to illustrate the potential of responding to user behaviour and needs. Many cultural professionals are anxious or dismissive of responding to user demand – but Simon argues it’s not about being demand-led, it’s about developing users’ abilities and understanding so they can discover for themselves:
Personalization doesn’t just give you what you want. It exposes you to new things, and it gives you a vocabulary for articulating and refining why you like what you like. The world opens a little wider and hopefully, you keep exploring.’ (p.65)
For those involved in running organisations, the book offers insights on the cultural and management issues that arise. There are useful chapters on evaluation and one on ‘managing and sustaining participation’ that addresses the five common issues that organisations often face when working in this way, providing examples of how other organisations have handled these issues.
From my perspective – as someone interested in how we can engage audiences more effectively within arts organisations – I found this to be an enlightening read. The discussion of principles and frameworks provides a model which could easily be translated into other contexts. The book is written in a clear and practical fashion – with plenty of examples to elucidate the theory and to bring the text to life. It’s jam-packed with inspiring and interesting stories which make you want to go out and start your own museum!
Nina Simon is also the author of a a fantastic blog Museum 2.0 where early versions of some of the book’s contents were shared. Readers of this blog, along with a wider group of peers, were invited to comment on drafts of the book – and suggest case studies – through a wiki. The process of writing the book is outlined on Nina’s blog in 4 parts exploring and documenting the experience from various angles. I was inspired by this process to try and incorporate participation the research and writing process for my recent article and blogged about this here.
The book is also available online for free, and with additional case study and reference material here. You can also order the book through that website.
 my bookshelf I noticed quite a few people had found the reading list I was using for my forthcoming article useful – so I thought I’d share the final version of the bibliography:
Bakhshi, Hasan & and Throsby, David, 2009. Innovation in arts and cultural organisations: interim research report. London: NESTA.
Boyle, David & Harris, Michael, 2009. The challenge of co-production: How equal partnerships between professionals and the public are crucial to improving public services. London: New Economics Foundation & NESTA.
Bunting, Catherine, et al., 2007. Informing change: Taking Part in the arts: survey findings from the first 12 months. London: Arts Council England.
Connor, Michael, 2009. A manual for the 21st Century gatekeeper. [Online] Manchester: Cornerhouse. Available at http://www.cornerhouse.org/art/ongoingproject.aspx?ID=9&page=0 [Accessed 8 April 2010].
Fleming, Tom, 2009. Embracing the desire lines – opening up cultural infrastructure. [Online] Manchester: Cornerhouse. Available at http://www.cornerhouse.org/media/Learn/Reports%20and%20studies/Embracing_the_Desire_Lines.pdf [Accessed 8 April 2010].
Flowers, Stephen & University of Brighton, 2008. The New Innovators: How users are changing the rules of innovation. London: NESTA.
Falk, John H. & Sheppard, Beverly H., 2006. Thriving in the knowledge age: New business models for museums and other cultural institutions, Oxford: AltaMira Press.
Gorschlüter, Peter, ed., 2009. The fifth floor: Ideas taking space, Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press.
Govier, Louise, 2010. Leaders in co-creation? Why and how museums could develop their co-creative practice with the public, building on ideas from the performing arts and other non-museum organisations. Leicester: Research Centre for Museums and Galleries & London: Clore Leadership Programme Available at http://www.le.ac.uk/ms/research/rcmg.html & http://www.cloreleadership.org/library.php?cat=fellowship_research_projects [Accessed 9 April 2010].
Guntillake, Rohan, 2008. Mission 2.0: Advice for arts and cultural organisations from the social web. [Online] London: Mission, Models and Money. Available at http://www.missionmodelsmoney.org.uk/papers/mission-2-0/ [Accessed 8 April 2010].
Jones, Samuel, 2006. ‘The new cultural professionals’, in Craig, John, ed. Production Values. London: Demos, Ch.6.
Jones, Samuel, ed., 2009. Expressive lives. London: Demos, London.
Knell, John, 2006. Whose art is it anyway? London: Arts Council England.
Holden, John, 2008, Democratic culture: opening the arts up to everyone, London: Demos.
Holden, John, 2009, What are the new values that will inform arts provision in the next twenty years? [Presentation notes] London: Theatre Managers’ Association. Available at http://www.tmauk.org/Downloads/JohnHolden_TMAWinterEvent2009.pdf [Accessed 8 April 2010].
Leadbeater, Charles, 2005. Arts organisations in the 21st century. London: Arts Council England.
Leadbeater, Charles, 2009. We think. 2nd ed. London: Profile Books.
Leadbeater, Charles, 2009. The art of with. Manchester: Cornerhouse. Available at http://www.cornerhouse.org/media/Learn/The%20Art%20of%20With.pdf [Accessed 8 April 2010].
Morris, Gerri & McIntyre, Andrew, n.d. Insight required. [Online] Manchester: Morris Hargreaves McIntyre. Available at http://www.lateralthinkers.com/Resources/MHM_PDFs/insightrequired%20final.pdf [Accessed 8 April 2010].
Selwood, Sara, 2008. Towards developing a strategy for contemporary visual arts collections in the English regions. London: Arts Council England.
Simon, Nina, 2010. The participatory museum. Santa Cruz: Museum 2.0.
Museum 2.0 blog. [Online] Available at http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/ [Accessed 8 April 2010].
 Kijkdepot project at Van Abbemuseum For my forthcoming article about how user engagement could transform art galleries and museums, I’ve been thinking about what the implications would be for how we run galleries. I’ve developed a framework – set out below – as a basis for talking about this and would be keen to hear what you think. Is it useful to talk about user engagement in these terms? What do you think about some of the issue arising? Have you come across other examples of where this is working in practice? Where do you see the pitfalls?
I suggest it is helpful to consider the implications of placing users at the centre of galleries and museums around a framework[i] based on three overarching principles:
- Openness – we actively seek the ideas and contributions of others and open our working practices to enable this. Galleries and museums offer a platform for a full range of cultural and creative opportunities, not just their own content.
- Equality – art and audience are equally important and it is the role of art galleries and museums to support both equally.
- Pluralism – diversity of views and artistic approaches are essential and art galleries and museums are places where through looking, thinking and talking about art we explore, discover and express our identities, as individuals and as part of society.
Table 1 outlines of what each of these principles might look like for different part of our institutions: leadership, staffing, programme, interpretation, audiences and business model. Then below, I highlight some of the key questions they raise for art galleries and museums.
Characteristics of a user-centred art gallery or museum
|
Openness |
Equality |
Pluralism |
| Leadership & Vision |
Transparency: open recruitment of Trustees, publication of artistic policy etc.
Actively innovating, researching impact and sharing learning with peers and public. |
Confident artistic vision, coupled with strong audience focus.
Public service ethos.
Strong audience voice within the Board and senior management. |
Distributed leadership within the organisation.
Strong collaboration with peers. |
| Staffing |
Making full use of expertise and ideas within the organisation.
Skills and capacity augmented by users as volunteers and ‘super users’. |
Galleries led by staff with varied backgrounds – learning, marketing etc.
Art and audience championed equally throughout the organisation and reflected in structures and in HR systems. |
Porous models for sharing expertise with multiple entry routes.
Diversity of workforce (e.g. class, gender, ethnicity, age).
New roles and skills developed around engagement. |
| Programme (online, offsite and in the gallery) |
Collaborations with other institutions (e.g. co-produced exhibitions).
User-generated content.
Use of the facilities by other cultural organisations. |
Programme decisions informed by artistic and audience intelligence.
Activities conceived as services, not products.
Strong focus on good visitor service. |
Exhibitions and displays selected by non-curators given space in the gallery and wider programme.
Artist-led participatory arts practice.
Artists working in response to collections. |
| Audiences |
Opportunities to engage at different levels – creative, critic, collector, spectator.
Promotion of wider cultural opportunities e.g. art classes, broadcasts about art. |
Mutual respect between audiences and professionals.
Audience voice in planning and review.
Investment in understanding audience behaviour and impact on audiences. |
Users able to interact with the organisation on their own terms (personalisation).
Multi-layered experiences – gallery, offsite and online. |
| Interpret-ation |
‘Re-mixing’ and re-appropriation of content by users in other contexts – e.g. through posting images in Flickr. |
Enabling users to look at and understand art for themselves, rather than telling them what to think. |
User voices present in labels/ texts, talks and tours, online forums.
Discussions – formal and informal, in the gallery and online – about art. |
| Business model |
Users contributing time (volunteers, participants) and financial resources as members and donors. |
Good customer service maximises income from trading (café, shop).
More visitors means more income from trading. |
User willing to pay for additional (‘premium’) services such as talks or classes. Additional services are self-sustaining. |
1. Openness
Making better use of existing staff and volunteers, before then reaching out more widely to peers and public, could transform many organisations. Openness also means rethinking where the art gallery and museum fits in the wider creative and cultural aspirations of its users and finding ways (often through technology) to open access to these other opportunities: be those amateur, commercial or through other institutions. Transparency about how we run our organisations, and artistic decisions in particular, is essential for building legitimacy and understanding.
Changes to the role and position of the curator
The role of the curator is important to the user-centred gallery but equal with roles in interpretation and learning. In many cases these professional boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred through integrated programming teams and roles. The relationship with the public has also changed: the curator is no longer principally a gatekeeper exercising quality-control of content on our behalf (Jones, 2006; Connor, 2009). Instead we look to cultural professionals to enable us to experience art for ourselves through introducing us to things we might not otherwise encounter, helping us understand our options and articulating what we enjoy. We expect a ‘conversation’ with professionals about our interests and an explanation of their choices or recommendations.
Example: opening up curatorial thinking
The Northern Art Prize encourages audiences to make up their own mind about the work on display through exhibiting short-listed artists in the run-up to the announcement of the winner.
In 2010 members of the public could also vote and the public choice was announced before the judges’ decision. Does it matter that the experts and the public didn’t agree? No: but if the judges explained why they had chosen Pavel Büchler, what it was about his work that they valued, then this could have offered audiences new perspectives and greater understanding of artistic values.
Opening up organisations
Many learning projects involve young people finding out more about how the gallery works. For example, Van Abbemuseum is experimenting with inviting visitors ‘backstage’ during an installation period to offer insights into the roles and views of art handlers. Other galleries encourage staff, including curators and information assistants, to blog about their experiences. Galleries and museums working with living artists can open up the creative process, either through providing a platform for the artist to talk about their work (through an event, video in the gallery, online), hosting an artist during the production of their work and providing public access (e.g. through having a studio space, or opening the gallery during installation periods).
Open programming and co-creation
Artists have been finding ways to open up access to exhibiting for since the Salon des Réfusés (Connor, 2009). This continues today, Café Gallery Projects, an artist-run community gallery in Southwark Park, has long held open exhibitions and ‘hosted’ exhibitions by young people and students alongside high-quality professional artists. Openness doesn’t just mean open submission. Co-creation, where artists and public work together to create artworks and projects, is widely seen within the gallery and in offsite projects with artists such as Antony Gormley and Jeremy Deller capturing both the public imagination and critical acclaim.
In many galleries co-creation (or ‘participatory practice’) forms a significant aspect of programming but is not usually presented in the gallery (for example Ikon, Birmingham and Serpentine Gallery London). Unless this activity is scalable so that the opportunity for participation can be extended to all (and often it isn’t) levels of engagement are high, but numbers tend to be small. Alternatively, these projects are presented as displays in galleries, raising complex questions about authorship and whether the audience is interested in viewing non-professional work.
Does everyone want to be an artist, or a creative, as some suggest (Leadbeater, 2009)? Recent research into use of social technologies indicates creatives account for 24% of us, with the vast majority still enjoying spectating.[i] But most importantly, it points to a wider range of activity than simply creating or viewing – including ‘critics’ (who enjoy rating others’ content, writing reviews etc) and ‘collectors’ (who aggregate content for personal or social consumption and organise links). These roles are not fixed and people play for different roles in different contexts. The challenge, then, to art galleries and museums is to offer a range of participatory activities that appeal to all – not just those at the extremes of the spectrum (creatives or spectators). This may go some way to dispel the notion that greater participation inevitably leads to galleries filled with co-created content.
2. Equality
There’s a widespread, and mis-placed, fear among cultural professionals that being user-centred means disregarding quality and the role of expertise. It doesn’t – but it entails championing the art and the audience equally, and separating expertise from control, as Pluralism implies.
New leadership models, and leaders, that champion audiences and art
There are many professionals in the visual arts sector who are committed to art and artists equally, and we have seen the emergence of joint leadership models, for example at Tate Liverpool and St Ives, where an artistic director and executive director jointly run the gallery. However the vast majority of organisations are led by a curator and while there are those whose vision encompasses audiences, it is not surprising that curator-led galleries tend to concentrate more on art than audiences.
Audience champions – many and senior
Gerri Morris and Andrew McIntyre (n.d., p.5) underline the importance of interdisciplinary structures and a culture where ‘it is the responsibility of everyone in the organisation to understand, think about and respond to audiences’. There is also need for senior audience champions at management and Board levels and a corresponding increase in resources dedicated to market research.
3. Pluralism
Hearing others’ perspectives can open up new insights, encourage users to respond to art in their own way and allows us to engage in conversations around art, and ideas. Rather than seeing the gallery purely as a place to experience art, it becomes a place where through looking, thinking and talking about art we explore, discover and express our identities, as individuals and as part of society. Already this happens daily in learning departments in many galleries and museums, but it is time we extended this opportunity to all our visitors by integrating pluralism across all programming, including the gallery space.
Example: modelling pluralism in the gallery
 Installation view, Tate Liverpool Rineke Dijkstra’s The Weeping Woman, Tate Liverpool, 2009 is a video installation inspired by the ways school groups discuss art.[ii] The artist observed the children as they looked at works from the collection. Rather than being offered an art historical explanation, the children are simply asked ‘what do you see?’ They are guided, through questioning, to explore the formal aspects of the work and its subject and the context in which is was produced (art historical but also social and political). Learning curator Abigail Christenson explains the approach thus ‘each viewpoint is taken on board – it’s a layering of interpretation, multiple viewpoints, the workshops are about the children’s voices and what they see’.[iii]
The video portraits which emerged from this process show the children looking at, and talking about Picasso’s Weeping Woman (1937), but the viewer’s attention is channelled towards the children’s response rather than the artwork itself. Their observations and reactions reveal far more about themselves than about the picture. This work prompts two thoughts: first, we all see different meaning in artworks and quite often our response will be personal, and second, that art can provide a social opportunity to come together and share these perspectives. By displaying this work the gallery is modelling the kind of responses from audiences it would like to enable.
Collections and contemporary opportunities
Collections and contemporary practice offer different opportunities to engage users. With living artists their practice can often be participatory either in how it is presented or produced. With collections, there are many examples of engaging users in the selection or interpretation of displays. Worcester City Art Gallery’s Top 40 exhibition[iv] is one such example, or the Van Abbemuseum’s Kijkdepot below. Other museums have involved users in leading tours or creating labels and other interpretation materials.
Example: visitor selection and interpretation with collections
The Van Abbemusuem, a contemporary art museum in Eindhoven, is experimenting with different models for engaging users in programming including the Kijkdepot (‘Viewing Depot’) where anyone can request a work from the collection and every two weeks a new work is shown – alongside the request from the public which sets out why they want to see this work. Users are also engaged in interpreting the collection by ‘tagging’ individual works through which they can suggest particular meanings or approaches to navigating works which the museum hope will create ‘multiple players and multiple meanings in the museum domain.’
A place for technology
Technology plays a key role in enabling multiple perspectives to be shared. Increasingly users can engage with gallery through social media to augment the experience of physical visits. But there is a tendency to keep user engagement safely online (or offsite) and away from the ‘real’ space of the gallery, and if we focus exclusively on fostering discussion through online activity, we miss out of the social value this can bring to a gallery experience.
Personalisation
As professionals we need to find ways to develop sustainable channels to enable dialogue with users, supported by technology. For example, some online communities develop ‘super users’ (similar to the expert patient model in medicine) where keen and skilled users take on a supporting role with less experienced users. Nina Simon offers a detailed consideration of other design principles we could consider including personalisation and ‘recommendation engines’ which use intelligence gathered through a personal profile to make suggestions about content you might like (Simon, 2010, Ch.2). For example, many online retailers (such as Amazon) use these devices to suggest products and services, based on what you’ve looked at or purchased before, and the behaviour of customers with similar profiles.
Are these examples useful? Can you suggest others? What’s your experience of trying these approaches in your gallery or museum?
[i] This framework draws on aspects of Gerri Morris and Andrew McIntyre’s seven pillars of C21st organisations (Morris & McIntyre, n.d.), John Holden’s model for a ‘democratic culture’ (Holden, 2008) and Hasan Bakshi and David Throsby’s model of ‘aspects on innovation’ within arts and cultural organisations (Bakshi & Throsby, 2009).
[i] Forrester Research, 2008. Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies, cited in Simon (2010) p.8.
[ii] The work will be displayed as part of the exhibition I See A Woman Crying at Tate Liverpool 27 April – 30 August 2010, and an extract from the video can be viewed online at http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/weepingwoman/default.shtm [ Accessed 31 March 2010].
[iii] Interview with the author, 2 March 2010.
[iv] An account of this project is available online at http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2009/11/guest-post-top-40-countdown-at.html [Accessed 8 April 2010].
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