Other people’s insights

(c) James Irvine Foundation / WolfBrown

Following my 6 February posting about audience/ visitor participation, I’ve been following the topic in other blogs and articles. In case you missed them, here are some interesting perspectives:

Simon Trevethick’s final article of his series unpicking aspects of the new UK Arts Index for the Guardian Culture Professionals network, looked specifically at the subject of public engagement.  As he says “Art relies on audiences – if satisfaction and attendance fall then there's no argument about funding to be had.”

Piotr Bienkowski, as project director of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation initiative Our Museum: Communities and Museums as Active Partners (which I mentioned in my blog) discussed in the Museums Journal the need for evolution in audience participation to be long-term and at the level of whole-organisation change to reach “deep into the heart of everything you do and affect every member of staff”.

Meanwhile, a report Getting In On the Act: How Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation from the James Irvine Foundation took insights from over 100 non-profit arts organisations in the US, UK and Australia to develop its model for understanding engagement – including the rather groovy graphic explanation of the Audience Involvement Spectrum shown here.

Enjoy.