Few cultural forms are more closely associated with a nation than opera is with Italy. The works of Puccini, Verdi and Rossini are still among the most performed globally, yet despite opera’s status as one of the country’s most celebrated cultural exports, many Italian opera houses continue to face financial instability, political intervention and uncertain futures.

Around the world, opera companies are grappling with rising costs, changing audience patterns and increasing pressure to demonstrate public value. Opera is expensive, requiring substantial investment in artists, technical expertise and cultural infrastructure. Around the world, opera companies rely on a mix of income – direct or indirect public subsidies, corporate sponsorship, and private patrons – and are unlikely to be sustainable without some form of government support. In the United States, New York City Opera declared bankruptcy in 2013 (and was later revived in 2016), and Miami Lyric Opera followed in 2024; that same year Portland Opera began selling its venue to cover debts (Bash, 2024). Even New York’s Metropolitan Opera – arguably the world’s most well-funded company – is reportedly considering selling artworks to address financial pressures (Lebrecht, 2026). In the United Kingdom, Arts Council England’s decision to withdraw National Portfolio funding from English National Opera prompted a major organisational restructuring and a promised relocation.

The challenges facing Italian opera houses are not unique; however, Italy presents a particularly interesting case because of opera’s unique place within national cultural identity and raises broader questions about how cultural policy shapes the long-term health of cultural institutions and cultural ecosystems.

A cultural symbol and civic pride

Bereson (2003) argues that throughout Italian history, opera houses have been associated with power, prestige and authority, reflecting opera’s status both as a cultural symbol and source of civic pride in the local cultural landscape. This privileged position has also shaped cultural policy. In 1967, the Ministry of Culture recognised opera’s cultural and social value, committing public funding to its preservation and development, eventually granting lyrical-symphonic foundation status to fourteen of the country’s leading opera houses in 1996.

Following new public management trends, like many cultural sectors internationally, opera became subject to reforms designed to encourage an entrepreneurial and business-oriented approach. However, the resulting tension between commercial pressures and cultural missions meant opera houses’ financial independence proved difficult to achieve, and they still significantly relied on public funding.

Despite the introduction of efficiency-oriented policies and the renewed support of public funding, opera houses still face serious issues. The repeated use of public policy and funding interventions in Italy suggests a system focused on organisational rescue rather than cultural ecosystem development.

Thinking beyond individual institutions

A remaining key challenge is collaboration. Even today, opera audiences travelling in Italy may find multiple productions of the same works being staged simultaneously. While this reflects the enduring popularity of the repertoire, it also raises questions about a lack of coordination between institutions, the use of shared resources, creative innovation and collective audience development. For cultural organisations more broadly, it highlights the importance of thinking beyond individual institutions and towards the health of the wider cultural ecosystem.

The close connection between Italian opera and politics may not always be beneficial. Changes in national and local governments can lead to shifts in leadership, priorities and strategic direction, creating instability for opera houses. Political actors often play an outsized role in new appointments and governance of institutions, highlighting the challenge for cultural organisations that need to balance political accountability with cultural autonomy. The case of Carlo Fuortes illustrates this interplay: his movement between leadership roles in Opera di Roma, the Italian national broadcasting company RAI, and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, after unsuccessful bids for La Scala and Naples was driven as much by political bargaining and regulatory constraints as by coherent artistic vision.

Questions of place-based development also emerge from the Italian experience. In some cases, administrators have attempted to replicate programming models that succeeded elsewhere, without accounting for local market size, demographics or institutional identity. Florence provides a particularly revealing example: the construction of a new, monumental opera house resulted in the demolition of the historic city-centre opera house, which was replaced by luxury apartments for tourists. While intended as a symbol of cultural investment, the decision raised broader questions about how cities understand value. When cultural infrastructure is lost, what disappears beyond the physical building? Opportunities for participation, collective memory, local identity and civic life may be affected too. Such decisions highlight the importance of thinking about culture not simply through physical assets, but as part of the wider social fabric of a place.

Internal governance challenges have also shaped the sector. The contested appointment of Beatrice Venezi as musical director at La Fenice triggered months of opposition from staff and the wider artistic community before the role was ultimately withdrawn. While the details were specific to one institution, this episode highlights a shared issue: cultural organisations depend not only on funding, but also on trust, transparency and legitimacy. Leadership decisions that are perceived as politically driven or lacking stakeholder support can undermine public confidence and can rapidly become existential risks for the institution.

Breaking the cycle

Such dynamics produce a cycle of reactive governance: short term political solutions, unstable leadership, and fragmented artistic strategy. Breaking the cycle will require insulating appointment processes from partisan pressure, aligning programming with local demand, strengthening internal coordination and prioritising medium term artistic and audience development over immediate headline grabbing initiatives.

The challenges facing Italian opera houses are not simply questions of organisational management. They raise broader questions about how culture is supported, how public investment is directed and what conditions are required for culture to remain meaningful within contemporary life.

A cultural vitality response recognises that effective solutions depend not only on the presence of cultural assets, but on the policy choices and investment decisions that shape their future. Viewed in this light, the question is not whether Italian opera can survive. Rather, it is whether cultural policy can create the conditions for opera to remain a living, evolving and accessible part of cultural life.

That is a question that extends far beyond opera and far beyond Italy.

Alice Borchi is a Lecturer in Creative Industries at the University of Leeds. Her research interests include the study of cultural commons and cultural value, with a particular focus on participatory practices and shared governance in cultural policy and management. A list of her publications can be found here.

Carlo Alberto Petruzzi (PhD, MBA) is an independent scholar and consultant and a former opera industry practitioner. His research spans cultural management and policy, as well as cinema and the performing arts. His most recent publications include Carmelo Bene a Cannes (2025) and Carmelo Bene: una bibliografia (2018). He has translated into Italian works by Guillaume Apollinaire and the Goncourt brothers, and he developed the first series of opera librettos translated into Chinese.

Top image: La Fenice Theatre, Venice. Photo by Alice Borchi.

The post Beyond the bailout: What Italian opera houses reveal about cultural policy appeared first on Centre for Cultural Value.

It is difficult to convey in words and explore something as messy and interconnected as cultural vitality. In my role as a community researcher, I have been using creative methods to collectively explore cultural vitality in Norwich in a more visual, embodied and sensory way. I view myself as a co-researcher, working alongside Norwich’s cultural community, which includes freelancers, grassroots collectives and larger organisations. An important aspect of this work has been the idea of cultural ecology, and I have been bringing this to life through collaborative mapping, collective making and creative methods that make space for quieter voices while helping people see themselves as part of a wider, interconnected ecology.

Across the three Labs, we explored what supports cultural vitality, the barriers, what is missing, and how people across the city might work together. Through the final Lab, we have also developed a shared Theory of Change, enabling us to consider how we can collectively contribute towards a healthier cultural ecology for Norwich.

Consultation fatigue, extractive practice and reciprocity

Research processes can often feel extractive. We are constantly being asked for our feedback, ideas and lived experience, often without knowing what happens with this information. This can be especially challenging when you consider people’s backgrounds, lived experience, ethnicity and the physical and emotional resources they have available at any given time.

How can we make research more enjoyable, reciprocal and relational? For me, that means creating processes where people gain something in return for taking part. This might mean sharing creative facilitation or research methods they can use in their own work, creating opportunities to develop relationships and new ways of thinking, or simply offering a genuinely reflective and enjoyable experience.

If the overall research question is centred on wellbeing, connection or cultural vitality, then the process itself should also contribute to those things. In this case, we were researching cultural vitality, so I designed resources that nourished connectivity and community. Through walking, making, listening, drawing, laughing and reflecting together, the research process itself worked to strengthen the ecology it was exploring.

Creating an atmosphere of trust has also been important. My experience shows me that people contribute more generously and openly when they feel safe, welcome and connected to those around them. Using exercises that connected and grounded people before discussions, including deep listening, drawing and quieter reflective activities, helped people feel more relaxed within the group and able to contribute their ideas and opinions.

Access and creativity

My approach to facilitation is shaped by my background in creative health practice. I have worked with people with lived experience of mental health challenges, living with dementia, and with learning disabilities, as well as young people, refugees and asylum seekers, and many others who may struggle to engage through more traditional discussion-based approaches.

This way of working has shaped how I think about access and design. When you design around different learning styles, communication styles and access needs, everybody benefits. Using movement, materials, sound, visuals and practical making alongside discussion often creates much richer responses than relying purely on verbal discussion.

Across the Labs, we used methods including walking, mapping, collage, tracing paper layering, sound recording, drawing, photography, meditation and large collaborative making processes. These creative methods spark different parts of the brain and can move people beyond rehearsed or fixed responses.

While some people may find conceptual frameworks and language immediately easy to grasp, others may need to physically work through ideas in order to understand and connect with them. This is particularly important when working in the cultural sector, where there are often high levels of neurodivergence and many people who lean towards thinking visually, creatively or spatially.

Walking felt particularly important within this work. When people move together through a place, listen deeply and notice things collectively, conversations often become less rehearsed and more thoughtful. Ideas emerge gradually through observation, conversation and experience. I often find that some of the richest reflections happen side by side while walking rather than sitting around a table.

Making cultural ecology visible

One of the strongest parts of the process for me was the large-scale mapping and layering work that happened across the three Labs.

Using collage, tracing paper, drawing, writing and collaborative making allowed people to physically work through abstract ideas of cultural vitality and cultural ecology. These are complicated frameworks and ideas. I’m a visual thinker myself, so part of my process became finding ways to physically and visually work through those ideas to deepen my own understanding.

What emerged was much broader than organisational mapping. People were layering conversations around care, access, exhaustion, local knowledge, informal support, visibility, barriers, friendship, belonging, funding pressures, physical spaces, memory, participation and the emotional realities of working within the cultural sector in Norwich.

We added a layer of tracing paper over the first collaged and drawn map to add perspectives, tensions and connections without erasing what was already there. Different experiences could sit alongside each other. Contradictions could remain visible. People could respond across layers rather than feeling pressure to simplify everything into a single agreed version.

As the maps became denser, people started noticing links, gaps and patterns that may not have emerged through discussion alone.

The final Lab built on this by developing a shared Theory of Change. Participants reused maps, quotes, reflections, photographs and notes from across all three Labs to build a shared understanding of what supports cultural vitality in Norwich and what needs protecting, strengthening or changing.

I found this process particularly interesting because it highlighted both the possibilities and challenges of this kind of work. Cultural vitality and cultural ecology are complex ideas, and what seemed to make the biggest difference was people physically working through them together. Cutting things up, moving them around, debating them and building something collectively helped to make the framework less abstract.

The process also reinforced the importance of continuity. The earlier Labs had gradually built a shared language and understanding through walking, making, discussion and reflection. For people who joined the process later, it was naturally harder to connect with some of the ideas. That reminded me that collective understanding takes time and that learning often happens through participation rather than simply receiving information.

Different ways of contributing

As a freelancer and someone who has worked across many different roles in the sector, from leading organisations and managing staff to working as an artist, facilitator and evaluator, I have an awareness of the different pressures we carry. People are exhausted and stretched, and for structural reasons, some will also find it much harder or more draining to participate fully in these spaces.

I was aware of the need not to centre dominant voices. In a room where you have larger organisations alongside freelancers, artists and grassroots groups, some people will naturally feel more confident speaking than others. We worked in pairs and small groups, with individual reflection, as well as whole-group discussion and making activities, creating multiple opportunities for people to contribute. Sometimes the quieter contributions were the most insightful.

Creating the conditions for contribution felt just as important as the methods themselves. Creative warm-ups, listening exercises, walking, drawing and making are not simply activities to fill time. They help people arrive, settle, connect with one another and feel more confident sharing their thoughts. In my experience, the quality of discussion is often shaped before it even begins.

This project has also reminded me that creative facilitation is a continuous process of learning. I am constantly adapting methods from different parts of my practice and trying them in new contexts. Some approaches worked exactly as I hoped, while others revealed unexpected challenges. If we want to find new ways of understanding complex systems and cultural ecologies, we need to leave some space for experimentation, curiosity and learning.

For me, part of the work is also about care, appreciation and atmosphere, recognising the value of people’s time and energy, and creating a process that feels regenerative rather than draining. If people came away feeling heard, creative, connected to others, and having had a genuinely good experience, then that constitutes a successful day.

Continuing to reflect

I’m still reflecting on this way of working and thinking about how it can be further developed. I am interested in how creative methods can help people collectively explore difficult or abstract ideas in ways that feel more human, relational and embodied. How can we hold complexity without flattening it? How can we make relationships visible? And how can the research itself actively contribute to the ecology it is exploring rather than simply extracting information?

Most of all, I’m curious to learn more about how people feel within these processes. Do they feel listened to, able to contribute, connected to each other, and part of a collective experience?

Perhaps my biggest reflection from the Labs is that cultural vitality cannot be fully understood from the outside. It needs to be experienced, explored and built collectively. The methods themselves become part of the ecology they are trying to understand. In that sense, the research is not only gathering information about cultural vitality, but it is also contributing to it.

Holly Sandiford is an artist, creative evaluator and freelance arts facilitator based in Norfolk, with over 25 years’ experience working across arts, creative health, mental health, community and heritage settings. She is currently an Associate Research Fellow at Norwich University of the Arts, an artist with Kettle’s Yard co-creating work with young people and has been working as a researcher with the Centre for Cultural Value. Across her practice, Holly brings together artistic research, facilitation and evaluation as connected ways of working. She is interested in how listening, making, movement and shared reflection can open up different forms of knowledge, particularly in work with communities, lived experience and place.

Connect with Holly on LinkedIn | Connect with Holly on Instagram

Discover more about the Centre for Cultural Value’s cultural vitality research

Coming soon … a new resource sharing more about using creative methods in your evaluation. Join our email list for future updates about Centre resources.

Top Image: Participants taking part in a Cultural Vitality Lab with Norwich Creative City Compact. Photo by Andi Sapey. 

The post Creative methods, cultural vitality and relational consultation practice appeared first on Centre for Cultural Value.

This article stems from both personal and professional reflection (and a small dose of frustration) regarding the shortcomings of culture-led urban regeneration strategies that have been in vogue across the West for the last twenty years. While these interventions were once highly popular, they increasingly feel outdated, partly because they remain uncritically anchored in a pre-2008 economic model, an era that assumed continuous growth and abundant leisure time.

In reality, as we navigate the intersecting crises of late capitalism — from climate breakdown to widening socio-economic polarisation — traditional urban growth models have proven not only obsolete, but actively destructive. Rooted in a linear, extractive logic, these paradigms treat land, resources and communities as infinite commodities to be exploited for short-term economic maximisation.

As a cultural planner passionate about spatial justice and the democratisation of urban lived space, I see that it’s more crucial than ever to rethink the narrative surrounding local development and urban regeneration. Overcoming this destructive paradigm requires advocating for a transition towards systems that mimic the holistic, self-sustaining balance of living nature, drawing from the ecosystem approach developed by the regenerative economics pioneer John Fullerton.

This means looking past balance sheets and instead focusing on a deeper kind of wealth, one that nurtures places and people, protects our ecosystems, and brings vitality to the entire living fabric of a community.

Re-examining the creative city

To cultivate vitality, we must look beyond surface-level adjustments and ask deeper questions about how our cities are constructed. In particular, we must re-examine the top-down ‘creative city’ approaches long favoured by civic leaders across the political spectrum. Such approaches are frequently transplanted with limited regard for local specificities and cultural vitality, reducing initiatives to engines for real-estate speculation. Concurrently, they also overlook unintended consequences, for example, over-tourism, civic alienation and accelerated community fragmentation.

As a city-making specialist deeply engaged with the future of our communities, I believe that navigating these challenges requires a radical shift in how we understand culture, and specifically its unique capacity to cultivate ground-up resilience.

Seen this way, culture is far from a passive, commercial pursuit; it is foundational to cultivating authentic, regenerative urban processes where active engagement acts as a direct catalyst for a sense of care and belonging, ultimately building the capacity for citizenship. From here, we can move on to pilot adaptive forms of governance.

Cultivating true cultural vitality

True cultural vitality isn’t something city leaders can manufacture. It’s a living fabric woven organically by people through their spontaneous conversations, shared (or contested) histories and their daily routines. By treating our communities as living, interconnected habitats, we can co-create policy frameworks that offer the flexibility to evolve the cultural vitality that is already present in every place.

But how do we deliver such a vision in practice? While past policymakers often overlook a place’s uniqueness, it is precisely by mobilising this distinctive cultural DNA that we start to build sustainable, cohesive and creative cities.

Using mapping to uncover a place’s true character

In my work, I use participatory tools, such as urban and cultural DNA mapping, to uncover a place’s true character while also documenting the full breadth of its cultural life before formal strategies are drawn up by municipal departments.

In his seminal work, The Practice of Everyday Life (1984), cultural critic Michel de Certeau distinguishes between strategies and tactics. He argues that strategies (e.g. urban strategies for regeneration or cultural development) are the formal tools of the powerful (those in government) while tactics serve as the response of the weak (the citizens), and those wielding the former are constantly in competition with those utilising the latter.

By using short-term, low-cost, open and iterative processes such as mapping, we seek to provide platforms that bridge the gap between top-down strategies and tactics while also building on the creative potential unleashed by social interaction.

As power continues to devolve to cities and regional leaders, and mission governance (an approach where governments set bold, society-wide goals, while coordinating public and private sectors to achieve them) is increasingly seen as the answer to old-style policymaking (Mazzucato, 2021), local DNA mapping emerges as a vital tool for delivering municipal mandates.

By actively engaging a diverse spectrum of stakeholders and welcoming previously unheard voices into the local governance landscape, this mapping framework serves as a collaborative platform. It translates grand, cross-sector ambitions into meaningful, community-owned action, allowing city leaders to operationalise the fundamental requirement that bold public leadership must always be anchored in grassroots reality.

Putting theory into practice with proven results

This is not just a theoretical framework; it is a proven approach. Over the last two decades, I have worked with cities that have experienced firsthand the benefits of applying collaborative frameworks to inclusive urban growth, community development and cultural vitality assessment. Despite starting from different baselines — some were facing population shrinkage, while others struggled with urban dereliction and social segregation — they all wanted their communities to actively contribute to shaping a vision for the future.

My work with the Italian town of Mantua perfectly illustrates this approach in action. Mantua was trapped in a cycle of mass, unsustainable one-day tourism. To break this pattern, I led a holistic reassessment of the town’s unique assets, looking past its physical monuments to map its deeper cultural DNA.

By mobilising the city’s historic architecture alongside its deep-seated traditions of civic debate, public conviviality and a genuine, localised passion for books and reading, we strategically pivoted its identity and long-term potential for growth. This process led to the creation of the annual Literature Festival, Festivaletteratura, successfully transforming Mantua into a vibrant and internationally recognised hub for publishing, creative writing and pioneering models of active, adaptive heritage.

In Zlin (Czech Republic), this methodology enabled the strategic mobilisation of the city’s unique functionalist architectural and design heritage. These particular assets had previously been underutilised by local cultural policies, which had instead historically prioritised traditional heritage conservation and broader, conventional creative-city frameworks.

By actively shifting the focus, this intervention brought an entirely new lens to nurturing, incubating and retaining creative talent within the region. Simultaneously, it enhanced the city’s image by proactively transforming redundant functionalist industrial buildings into dynamic spaces used for hosting vibrant cultural, educational and civic functions.

More recently, I have been working with the city of Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg). Over five years, I have engaged different layers of local stakeholders and communities in mapping processes to continuously update the city’s cultural development framework. In this diverse city, where over 120 languages are spoken, the task is to bridge its heavy industrial heritage with a modern, knowledge-based future to foster an inclusive and equitable place to live.

In this context, cultural mapping creates continuous feedback loops that facilitate real-time course corrections and embed transversal approaches to urban planning, cultural and tourism policies. A core component of this continuous engagement process in Esch-sur-Alzette is Nuit de la Culture (Night of Culture). While typically an annual event, in 2022 it was staged three times coinciding with Esch’s designation as a European Capital of Culture.

With local associations and citizens groups becoming Grands Rêveurs (Great Dreamers) and cultural activity decentralised into everyday spaces and local neighbourhoods, “La Nuit” isn’t just an event on a calendar; it is an ongoing, collective ritual where the municipality and its people reclaim public spaces, reinforce social inclusion and quite literally dream the future of their city into existence.

Events like Nuit de la Culture serve as visible milestones rather than endpoints, consolidating ongoing processes, making civic participation publicly legible, and deeply reinforcing civic pride and shared ownership.

Making the connection

Ultimately, this is about transforming urban governance. The cultural mapping exercises conducted across these diverse locations do more than collect data; they provide a non-hierarchical platform for amplifying diverse community voices and meanings, while also fostering an environment of learning through doing. By directly connecting grassroots evidence to strategic decision-makers, we can ensure that local lived experiences actively inform and shape future policy.

Lia references the following texts in her article:

• De Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. University of California Press.
• Mazzucato, M. (2021). Mission economy: A moonshot guide to changing capitalism. Allen Lane

Lia Ghilardi is a creative polymath based in London. As the founder and director of Noema, a globally minded organisation, she is at the forefront of reimagining cities through her unique approach to combining place and community mapping with strategic cultural planning. With over twenty-five years of experience, she regularly consults with mayors, urban designers, architects, and arts organisations, offering advice on creating vibrant, cohesive and sustainable places. Her innovative solutions have helped over 100 cities worldwide become more liveable, attractive, and culturally diverse. She is a member of the Academy of Urbanism and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.

Find out more about Lia’s work | Connect with Lia on LinkedIn

Discover more about the Centre for Cultural Value’s cultural vitality research

Top Image: Lia Ghilardi presents at a Cultural Vitality Lab with Norwich Creative City Compact. Photo by Andi Sapey. 

The post Start from place, not planning. Grounding policy in cultural vitality. appeared first on Centre for Cultural Value.

Across the arts, culture and heritage (ACH) sectors, organisations face the same challenge: how to effectively communicate their full economic and social impact in ways that are compelling to policymakers when the data available is so often fragmented, incomplete, inconsistent and insufficiently granular.

In 2024, the Centre for Cultural Value, alongside The Audience Agency, MyCake and Culture Commons, embarked on an R&D project to investigate developing a blueprint for a National Cultural Data Observatory, with a view to addressing these issues. Supported by funding from ESRC, the project was intended “to scope and demonstrate where a significant opportunity or gap lies in the data infrastructure landscape”.

The research included consultation with almost 500 sector stakeholders, and a pilot case study working with the evaluation team at Bradford, UK City of Culture 2025, including the development of a live regional demonstrator for the Bradford district.

This new report, Transforming the Cultural and Heritage Sector’s Data Infrastructure, explores why the sector’s current data infrastructure is limiting evidence-based policymaking. It highlights the need for an independent, people-centred approach to managing cultural data on a national scale, alongside a shared data framework that makes it easier to connect and compare datasets. The report also sets out how a National Cultural Data Observatory could connect fragmented datasets and uncover hidden data.

As the project moves into its next phase, the Centre will play a key role in ensuring the National Cultural Data Observatory remains research-led and ethically grounded. Continuing to work with partners across the sector, the Centre will focus on strengthening data practices, developing ethical frameworks and ensuring that the Observatory’s tools, standards and governance structures support more meaningful, people- and place-centred evidence for policy and investment.

Download the report

Discover more about the NCDO project, next steps and sign up to the NCDO manifesto by visiting the dedicated project website.

Image credit: Barnsley Bright Nights. The Dancing Fountain by Alexis Richter. Photo by James Mulkeen.

The post New report: Transforming the Cultural and Heritage Sector’s Data Infrastructure appeared first on Centre for Cultural Value.

Supported by Research England, the programme brings together local authorities, community networks and cultural organisations to develop approaches for understanding cultural vitality rooted in local experience and priorities.

Telling the whole story of a place

Across the cultural sector and local government, there is growing recognition that existing data does not always capture how people experience and value culture in their everyday lives. Cultural Vitality Labs responds to this by putting participatory research and co-production at the core of cultural evidence practice.

Rather than starting with predefined indicators, the programme will start from local knowledge and lived experience, allowing evidence to emerge from the realities of place. The Labs will create practical, locally meaningful ways to understand a place’s cultural vitality, including recognising informal cultural activity and exploring how culture connects to wellbeing, belonging, community resilience and civic life.

Working with local partners

We will be working with local authority, cultural sector and community partners in three local areas:

• Norwich
• London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
• West Yorkshire

The Cultural Vitality Labs will create space for collaboration between local authorities, cultural organisations and communities. Partners will work together to explore what cultural vitality looks like in their area, what kinds of evidence matter to local people and decision-makers and how participatory approaches can surface perspectives often missed by traditional data collection.

While each Lab will be shaped by its local context, all share a commitment to co-production, collective reflection and practical learning. Activities will include mapping local cultural ecologies, co-designing indicators that reflect everyday cultural life and testing creative and participatory research methods. This process will support reflection on how cultural evidence is gathered, interpreted and used, and how it might better support inclusive, place-based decision-making.

Shared learning

Alongside place-specific insights, the programme is designed to generate shared learning, supporting cultural practitioners across the sector to articulate the value of their work in ways that resonate locally, while helping policymakers access richer, more meaningful evidence to inform planning and investment.

Through this programme, the Centre aims to contribute to broader conversations about cultural data and evidence in the UK, offering practical, place-based approaches to understanding what culture means to people and places, and helping shape future national strategy, including the development of the National Cultural Data Observatory.

Want to discover more about cultural vitality and placemaking? Take a look at these resources:

Understanding and measuring cultural vitality in the UK

Developing a cultural indicator suite: Interim report

Research digest: Understanding cultural vitality

Research digest: Culture and placemaking

In Arts Professional: Indicators of cultural vitality: Hope not harm

Image credit: Mafwa Theatre. Flourish. Photo by Tribe Four Films.

The post Cultural Vitality Labs: Placing participatory research and co-production at the heart of cultural evidence appeared first on Centre for Cultural Value.

Stephen Dobson and Liz Harrop share more about the Centre’s next steps after securing ‘the rare gift of stability’– thanks to confirmed multi-year funding.

Across the UK, cultural organisations are navigating tightening resources and rising expectations. Freelancers are juggling multiple roles within fragile and disconnected ecosystems. New place-based policies are reshaping local landscapes in ways that feel full of promise, yet frustratingly uneven. There is a growing demand for evidence and evaluation, but those asked to provide it are often the organisations with the least infrastructure, time or support to do so fairly or meaningfully.

Over the last six years, the Centre for Cultural Value has worked in this space: translating research into practice, making evaluation feel useful rather than burdensome, and convening conversations that help the sector reflect and adapt.

In this previous article for Arts Professional, we reflected on what we had learned. Now, we look ahead to what comes next, and how we hope to help build the systems and capacity that cultural practitioners say they most urgently need. With recently secured core funding from the University of Leeds School of Performance and Cultural Industries through to 2029, the Centre has been given the rare gift of stability.

Head of the school, Professor Jonathan Pitches, said the funding would enable the Centre to “continue to deliver much-needed work that informs cultural policy and directly supports cultural organisations, policymakers, funders, artists and researchers across the UK and internationally.” Reaching this milestone has been made possible by the transitional funding provided over the past year by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Paul Hamlyn Foundation, whose continued support strengthens our ability to plan ambitiously and collaboratively.

Our vision for the next three years

Over the past year, as we listened to organisations, policymakers, freelancers and community partners, the message was clear: people want stronger support, better data infrastructure and approaches to evaluation that are collaborative, equitable and rooted in place and the realities of cultural work. These conversations have shaped our vision for 2026–29.

Practitioners told us they want to build skills without feeling overwhelmed and develop evaluation that supports rather than stifles purpose. Policymakers emphasised the need for more robust, connected evidence, while organisations highlighted the challenge of linking everyday practice to national conversations. The next three years will focus on building the infrastructure, training and partnerships that help practitioners and policymakers collaborate, creating a sector where evidence genuinely serves people.

What has emerged is a vision grounded in practical relevance and long-term benefit. We aim to enrich lives by building an equitable, confident and sustainable cultural sector, one where creative place-shaping is community-led, robust cultural data strengthens decision-making, and resilient models of practice support a thriving future.

This refreshed vision underpins our commitment to helping organisations and freelancers develop the tools, evidence and confidence they need to navigate complexity.

A structured approach

Our vision unfolds across three intertwined areas of activity:

Creative place-shaping and community-driven development

We will continue to model approaches that illuminate new ways of understanding cultural value, including through our recently launched Cultural Vitality Labs. These labs bring practitioners, communities and researchers together on equal footing to explore how community voices can shape meaningful indicators of cultural vitality, moving beyond narrow economic or health-focused measures toward those that resonate more deeply with lived experience of culture. This work will show how cultural activity fosters resilience, especially in communities facing change.

Looking ahead, we will deepen these partnerships by developing a network of regional hubs where practitioners, researchers and communities can test new approaches to data and evaluation in real-world settings. Our aim is to create research and learning projects across the UK that help people articulate what culture means to their communities in ways that chime with residents and local decision-makers. For practitioners, this means evidence which reflects nuance, research which honours community knowledge, and practical resources which support programme design, storytelling and evaluation.

In short, it is about helping people shape the narrative of how and why culture matters, grounded in the realities of the places they know best.

Strengthening cultural data

The Centre has become a trusted source of guidance on evaluation and reflective practice. But evaluation is only meaningful when it is accessible, collaborative and grounded in people’s needs. Over the next three years, we will expand this work significantly through the development of the Evaluation Academy, a national professional development programme offering cohort-based learning, mentoring and policy masterclasses.

Learning drawn from both the Evaluation Academy and the Cultural Vitality Labs will shape the development of the National Cultural Data Observatory (NCDO), a programme that will work with the sector to establish clear data standards, ethical guidelines and responsible governance; develop tools and shared methods that support better data collection; and create accessible insights that build confidence around data use.

Working with partners across the UK, the NCDO will convene conversations and champion inclusive approaches, ensuring diverse contexts and underrepresented voices shape an ethical, inclusive and coherent data infrastructure for cultural work across the UK.

Supporting sector resilience

The Centre’s next chapter is not simply a strategy update; it is a commitment to the people who shape cultural life across the UK. We will continue to work directly with organisations to help them use research and evaluation to strengthen and sustain their work, understand what’s effective, identify what needs to shift, and explore new opportunities.

Joining the conversation

This work will only succeed if it continues to be shaped with, not for, the sector. A future shaped collectively is one where cultural value can be understood and nurtured and sustained for everyone. We invite organisations, freelancers, policymakers and researchers to join us in building this next phase.

To stay up to date with the Centre’s work join our email list and follow us on LinkedIn.

Image credit: MishMash Productions – Smile. Photo by Pamela Wraith Photography.

The post Building the next chapter appeared first on Centre for Cultural Value.

What is peer research, and why does it matter?

Peer research flips the traditional research model on its head. Instead of researchers asking the questions and interpreting the answers, people with lived experience become the researchers, shaping the questions, choosing the methods and analysing the findings. In the context of projects taking place in school settings, it’s young people who are centred in the research process. This approach to research and evaluation aligns with the Centre for Cultural Value’s Evaluation Principles, valuing insider knowledge and creating space for authentic voices, while also empowering young people through recognition and leadership.

Their research, their words

At Outwood Academy City Fields, a small cohort of Speak Up students volunteered to become “Youth Researchers,” a term they chose to reflect their growing expertise and agency. In bi-weekly, one-hour sessions, the team of Youth Researchers developed research skills, debated youth voice and research rights and designed their own research study.

Rather than sticking to surveys, they opted to explore creative data collection – drawings, Lego models, photography and word associations – giving participants choice and making the process fun and inclusive.

Their choice of research question centred on the theme of courage, with the Youth Researchers agreeing on their own definition for this core concept: self-belief, bravery, confidence, self-expression, self-value.

They developed the imagery of a dandelion, which became their metaphor for growth and ambition. Visualisation became an important part of their approach when explaining the research to peers. Having this clear dandelion metaphor ensured that the Youth Researchers could effectively communicate what they were asking their peers to reflect upon, aiding their description of the research task.

They selected two research methods – photography and drawing – aiming to capture their peers’ reflections on how their courage had grown through participating in the Speak Up programme and where they hoped it would take them in the future. Offering two methods was important to the Youth Researchers, ensuring that participants felt they had a choice and could be confident in how they chose to express themselves:

We chose to offer two methods because we felt this gave participants a choice for how they wanted to be creative. For example, if a student was not confident drawing, being asked to do so could make them feel at a disadvantage – even though we were not judging their art, it could have felt like that.

Following data capture sessions with their peers, the Youth Researchers analysed the data. Findings revealed a clear journey from isolation and low confidence to growth, openness and future aspirations. As one Youth Researcher put it:

I believe that young people’s courage has been improved and will continue to grow.

Taking it a step further, the Youth Researchers also reflected on their own research processes, demonstrating a rigorous and robust approach to evaluation.

Experts in their own right

Between September 2024 and May 2025, the Youth Researchers also acted as consultants for the National Theatre’s own Speak Up survey, which was circulated to all participants across the Speak Up regions.

As consultants, they suggested various changes to the survey’s language and format and offered broader feedback on the survey process. One interesting suggestion was to include open-text boxes alongside multiple-choice questions, prompting respondents to comment on their answers. The Youth Researchers “felt this might help get more information from students”.

The Youth Researchers thought that their peers would have insights to share, and the use of mixed methods to capture both quantitative and qualitative data within the survey proved impactful, with many students choosing to include valuable additional comments that offered further insights into their perspectives.

Platforming peer voices

A significant ambition for Speak Up was to platform the voices of young people, including the work of the Youth Researchers who were invited to present at the National Theatre’s Speak Up: Arts Everywhere Symposium in July 2025.

Together they prepared and delivered a workshop for arts and education sector stakeholders, sharing their experience, the research findings and reflecting on the Youth Researcher programme.

The team of Youth Researchers also shared their presentation with local arts, culture and heritage sector practitioners at an event at the Theatre Royal Wakefield. A live illustrator captured the themes from the discussion, with the final illustration serving as an impactful and engaging way to communicate the project to young people. They were thrilled to see themselves and their work represented in this way.

Why peer research matters for arts and culture

For arts practitioners and cultural organisations, this project serves as a blueprint for co-produced evaluation. It shows that when young people lead, the insights are richer, the language more authentic, and the impact deeper. The Youth Researchers didn’t just collect data; they influenced survey design, presented at national symposia and led interactive workshops for professionals.

Beyond research skills, the Youth Researchers also reported increased confidence, resilience and creativity. They felt heard, valued and proud to contribute to something real. As one student remarked, “making research for everyone is satisfying”.

What can we learn as cultural practitioners?

If you’re working in arts education or cultural engagement, consider how peer research could transform your evaluation practice. It’s not just about gathering feedback. It’s about sharing power, amplifying youth voice and creating space for creativity in research.

Peer research isn’t just an evaluation tool; it’s a way to embed youth voice at the heart of cultural practice. When young people lead, the process becomes more authentic, inclusive and transformative.

If you’re inspired to try peer research, here are some practical steps from our learnings through the Speak Up Youth Researcher project:

1. Start small and voluntary
   Invite a small group of young people who are interested in shaping the project. Voluntary participation ensures genuine engagement. Flexibility around session timings can be beneficial, but regular involvement is key to ensuring development.
   
   
2. Provide training and support
   Begin with sharing basic research skills, such as question design, ethics and consent, with a focus on gradually moving towards facilitation skills. Shift from “teacher” to “guide” as confidence grows.
   
   
3. Co-create the questions
   Let young people decide what matters to them and guide them in defining their terms. Their priorities will often reveal insights adults might overlook.
   
   
4. Use creative methods
   Offer options beyond surveys, such as drawing, building, photography, storytelling and interviews. This makes research accessible and fun.
   
   
5. Share power and credit
   Involve youth researchers in analysis and presentation. Recognise their contributions publicly through events, reports and social media.
   
   
6. Reflect and adapt
   Peer research is iterative. Build in time for reflection and be ready to adapt methods based on feedback.
   

Ava Podgorski is a PGR student supervised by the Centre for Cultural Value (Professor Ben Walmsley and Professor Leila Jancovich) within the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds. Her PhD explores the issues of evaluation, learning and legacy in relation to Cities of Culture via a case study of Leeds 2023, the city’s dedicated year of culture. Ava’s PhD research is funded by a scholarship from the University’s Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures. Between March 2024 and December 2025, Ava was a Research Assistant for the University of Leeds’ evaluation of the National Theatre’s Speak Up project. Ava’s professional background is in Arts and Music Education, and she is proud to be a trustee for Mahogany Opera Group.

The National Theatre Speak Up programme ran for four years in 56 schools across 11 areas. The programme invited young people to explore issues important to them by co-creating new artworks with their teachers and local artists. Discover more about Speak Up.

To find out more about evaluation, co-creation and creative methods, take a look at the following resources:

• Evaluation Principles
• How to … co-create an evaluation
• Our essential reads: Evaluation Principles in practice
• Free-to-access online evaluation course: Evaluation for Arts, Culture and Heritage: Principles and Practice

The post Empowering Youth Researchers: how handing over the research reins reveals fresh perspectives and deeper insights appeared first on Centre for Cultural Value.

For decades, audience development has focused on understanding who attends, who engages and how we can broaden or diversify participation. Tools like The Audience Agency’s Audience Spectrum have been indispensable, giving cultural organisations a shared language and robust data on the habits, attitudes and attendance behaviour of UK audiences, drawing on national surveys such as DCMS Taking Part. But this approach primarily captures cultural consumption, not the wider creative ecosystem of cultural participation. Communities are creating culture in ways our current datasets rarely capture.

Research across digital culture, co-creation and community arts consistently highlights the shift toward active cultural participation. Community-led models like Creative People and Places and Fun Palaces show what happens when residents lead cultural decision-making. And studies of inequality in cultural participation reveal how much creative capacity exists in communities that remain excluded from formal cultural spaces.

Audiences increasingly act as co-creators, not passive consumers (Simon 2010; Jenkins & Ito 2015; Edelmann 2022). This shift is particularly marked in digital environments, where people move fluidly between watching, making, remixing, sharing and influencing cultural content. The Audience Agency’s Cultural Participation Monitor also highlights the rapid expansion of livestreaming, digital creation and hybrid participation during and after the pandemic. Yet these forms of creative labour remain largely invisible in traditional audience data. If we’re serious about inclusion, innovation and relevance, we need to understand the full creative lives of the people we seek to engage, not only those who attend, but also those who create.

Changing the way we view culture

This is where the Cultural Vitality framework offers a powerful shift. It encourages us to see culture as a living ecosystem shaped by everyday creativity, social networks, digital platforms and community-led activity, not just by what happens inside traditional cultural venues.

When we overlay a cultural vitality lens onto Audience Spectrum, something exciting happens: audiences start to appear not as passive consumers, but as micro-producers, co-creators and cultural influencers. It reframes familiar audience segments as actors within a cultural ecology, a view strongly supported by Holden’s argument that culture should be understood as an interconnected system of institutions, informal practices, amateur making, digital communities and everyday behaviours (Holden 2015).

Matarasso’s extensive evidence on participatory and community arts reinforces this perspective, showing that people often engage not by attending, but by co-creating, crafting, storytelling and collaborating within social contexts (Matarasso 2019). Meanwhile, O’Brien et al. (2020) demonstrate that marginalised communities, often categorised as “low attending”, are in fact rich in everyday creativity, though often structurally excluded from institutional spaces.

Seeing the creative potential

The cultural vitality lens helps address audience development blind spots by making visible the creative potential otherwise left out of audience development planning. Under a cultural vitality lens, Audience Spectrum segments become not consumer clusters but cultural contributors, for example:

• Up Our Street are often rich in everyday creativity, grass roots culture makers whose DIY arts, music and informal events are a significant part of community cultural participation, even if they rarely appear in box office data.
• Kaleidoscope Creativity communities are hubs of hybrid, intergenerational and diasporic cultural innovation.
• Frontline Families exemplify the democratising potential of digital platforms (Powell 2012; Edelmann 2022), acting as digital amplifiers and ideal partners for co-creation, digital storytelling, sharing, interpreting and recontextualising cultural activity on platforms that influence broader engagement.
• Home and Heritage are keepers of craft skills, place-based stories and analogue cultural practices who can support intergenerational activities and are vital to sustaining place-based cultural ecosystems.
• Experience Seekers are early adopters and co-creators within immersive, XR and participatory formats, becoming both audiences and active contributors.

Taken together, this remix of Audience Spectrum and Cultural Vitality offers a more representative understanding of cultural participation, one that values everyday creativity, digital production and informal, community-led activity alongside institutional forms. In the field of audience development, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity.

What could audience development look like if we valued audiences as producers?

Taking a cultural vitality approach invites us to:

1. Expand what we measure. Looking beyond ticketing and surveys to capture digital creativity, informal making, social sharing and hyperlocal cultural activity.
2. Rethink engagement strategies. Reconsidering how our programmes, communications and partnerships can support audiences as co-creators, not just attendees.
3. Design for permeability. The most vibrant cultural ecosystems allow ideas, people and practices to move between formal and informal spaces. How can your organisation open those channels?
4. Recognise and reward cultural labour that has long been invisible. This includes acknowledging community knowledge and skills, DIY culture and online content creation, grassroots culture, intangible heritage and everyday creativity.

A call to action for audience development managers

1. Start mapping everyday creativity in your community. Talk to people where they create, not just where they attend.
2. Use Audience Spectrum as a starting point, not an end point. Layer qualitative insight, digital behaviours and community intelligence on top of your audience segmentation.
3. Build partnerships with local creators, informal groups and digital communities. They are part of your cultural ecosystem—even if they’re not yet in your CRM.

Find out more about the Centre for Cultural Value’s work on cultural vitality

Discover more about the Centre’s work on cultural vitality, the cultural indicator suite and read our interim report.

Read our research digest: Understanding Cultural Vitality.

References

Edelmann, N., 2022. Digitalisation and developing a participatory culture: Participation, co-production, co-destruction. In Scientific foundations of digital governance and transformation: Concepts, approaches and challenges (pp. 415-435). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Jenkins, H. and Ito, M., 2015. Participatory culture in a networked era: A conversation on youth, learning, commerce, and politics. John Wiley & Sons.

Holden, J., 2015. The ecology of culture [online]. Available from: https://publicartonline.org.uk/downloads/news/AHRC%20Ecology%20of%20Culture.pdf

Matarasso, F., 2019. A restless art: How participation won, and why it matters (Vol. 15). London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

O’Brien, D, Taylor, M and Brook, O. (2020) Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries. Manchester University Press.

Powell, A., 2012. Democratizing production through open source knowledge: from open software to open hardware. Media, Culture & Society, 34(6), pp.691-708.

Simon, N., 2010. The participatory museum. Museum 2.0.

The post Rethinking Audience Spectrum through a cultural vitality lens appeared first on Centre for Cultural Value.

Junction Arts was founded in the District of Bolsover, in rural North East Derbyshire, by local people who had “a bit of an idea, to bring some sort of animation to a little town in the throes of change” (Junction Arts Annual Report, 2000-01). Over Junction Arts’ half-century of experience, it has occupied a space of constant flexibility, responding to the social and economic landscape in which it is rooted, and simultaneously working to actively create the space for imagining the future. It’s a place where change is noticed, considered and explored, and done so collectively.

Inspired by the Centre for Cultural Value’s Culture and Placemaking research digest, we want to share more about Junction Arts’ journey in the creative placemaking space. Through sharing our experiences, we aim to address some of the gaps in placemaking research identified in that digest, focusing on the experience of creative placemaking in a predominantly rural area, and from the perspectives of communities facing the multiple challenges of poverty, health inequalities and under-investment.

Responding to economic change and barriers to participation

Creative placemaking in post-industrial communities is deeply entwined with their histories of economic change and social (dis)connection. 1993 saw the closure of Bolsover and Shirebrook collieries, with other local industries, notably in chemical processing and textile manufacture, soon following suit. With them went the network of social clubs, pubs and miners’ welfares that formed the backbone of community togetherness and mutual aid. By 2001, the Census was reporting that Shirebrook, and nearby parts of Chesterfield and North East Derbyshire “display a range of social and economic problems, including high unemployment, poor health, low educational attainment and various forms of deprivation”.

The early 1990s saw Junction Arts throw itself headlong into responding to these economic shifts, asserting confidently in their 1992-93 Annual Report that “in the face of economic decline in our area, it has become increasingly evident that creative activity is of vital importance to people’s lives”. Conscious of the new skills that would be required for the changing economy, Junction Arts positioned creativity as key to “an education system obsessed with literacy and numeracy”, and creative opportunity as crucial to quality of life (Junction Arts annual report, 1997-98). They agreed to focus on a new strand of work specifically tailored to the needs of young people, developing a new “local people, local skills” programme to create work in schools and a lifelong learning programme with specific social, environmental, and educational outcomes.

Junction Arts’ success in enabling people to embrace new opportunities is built, in part, on their work recognising and addressing the barriers potential participants face. Some of these barriers are deeply practical: bus routes, the financial costs of attendance and event timing are all carefully considered. Other barriers are social and emotional. For example, some participants need access to quiet spaces away from the hustle and bustle of a busy session, while for others, the act of sharing food has proved effective in both meeting the immediate needs of those who arrive hungry, while also creating opportunities to get to know one-another.

Taking care to address barriers and enable participation has proven impactful. Young people joining Junction Arts’ creative groups report feeling more confident to try other activities, such as drama clubs, art classes and sports activities. Moreover, confidence spills over into other areas of life. They have been more interested in college and exploring post-school options, and demonstrated a greater awareness of their mental health, proving more able and willing to reach out for additional support when needed.

Building pride in place through co-creation

Alongside equipping people with the skills to navigate their changing social context, Junction Arts took seriously its founding purpose – to create ‘animation’ in and for its communities. Junction Arts positions creativity as a way to realise a vibrant, optimistic future for Bolsover. A flagship public art sculpture, Bolsover Gateway, by artist Liz Lemon, and commissioned by Junction Arts, welcomes folk to Bolsover with the slogan “the past we inherit, the future we create”.

This vision of a positive, ambitious future needed high-profile moments of togetherness, an opportunity for the people of Bolsover to see the place as somewhere that things happen, and a place with a future that could be created collaboratively. Bolsover Lantern Parade, founded in 1994 and celebrating its 32nd edition this year, offered a way to realise that vision. Created each year from scratch by hundreds of local participants supported by community artists, the lantern parade is a highlight of the town’s annual calendar, drawing in visitors from across the region, as well as creating a real sense of pride for local families, many of whom have now taken part across multiple generations. The willow and tissue-paper creations grow more elaborate each year, with the parade representing the glorious diversity of the town’s community groups, schools, passions, interests and creative inspiration. Embracing everything from Buzz Lightyear to steam trains, smoke-breathing dragons and astronauts, this is a place where all ideas are enthusiastically embraced into a noisy, joyous celebration of local creativity.

This sense of a community’s pride in their place, and sense of agency to shape it, is enabled by Junction Arts’ approach to co-producing creative activity alongside participants. This illustrates in practice the findings from the Centre’s research digest: that placemaking practices are inherently ‘collaborative in nature’, and in a grassroots context are ‘as much about social processes than tangible outputs’. For Junction Arts, this means that programmes of activity aren’t fixed in advance, but rather shaped by and with participants. Creative practitioners may introduce new ideas, artforms, practices and approaches, but participants are given every opportunity to choose which direction the activities take, adopting leadership responsibilities in sharing skills and supporting new attendees, and in making decisions about what their provision looks like. As such, no two groups or activities look the same, each growing and evolving in response to the needs and aspirations of its participants. In doing so, creative placemaking becomes led by the community, rather than something imposed upon it from the outside.

Navigating demographic change and divided communities

Whilst the end of mining in North East Derbyshire marked the end of one era, new jobs brought their own challenges and opportunities and made their own mark on the shape of this community. Most prominent amongst new local employers was Sports Direct, whose headquarters and distribution centre opened in Shirebrook in 2013. Bringing 4,000 new jobs, the new opportunities also attracted some 1,500 people relocating to Shirebrook, many of them arriving in the UK from Poland, Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria. A 2016 parliamentary report found that many of the new Sports Direct workers were offered zero-hour contracts, for low pay and in frequently exploitative conditions, presenting “a disturbing picture” of “appalling working conditions and practices”.

The arrival of new people and demographics led to a new approach to community-building and placemaking. A refresh of Junction Arts’ strategic priorities in 2001 identified community cohesion as a key focus, with projects “designed to tackle the problems we face of social inclusion, neighbourhood renewal, and cultural diversity” (Junction Arts annual report, 2000-01). For community artists, working with the diversity of stories within and between communities is nothing new. The community arts movement had grown from a desire to share the less-told stories of those excluded from dominant narratives, and from its earliest days, Junction Arts developed projects to reflect the ‘special needs’ of women (founding a vibrant women’s choir and printmaking group), disabled people and teenage parents. Today, projects similarly showcase the experiences of young LGBTQ+ people, celebrate the thriving creative groups led by the area’s diverse ethnic communities and create space for people from all kinds of backgrounds to build relationships, navigate differences and engage constructively with ideas about our past and future. In doing so, this work builds on the research digest findings that complicate binary narratives of ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ development, instead illustrating how placemaking initiatives from a range of actors have evolved alongside, in response to, and in dialogue with each other.

What stands out from Junction Arts’ experience is the importance of time and the long-term support required for building trusted relationships with changing and sometimes complicated or divided communities. Relationships develop over time, and building trust with those who might feel cautious, ignored or sceptical is a long-term, ongoing process with no shortcuts. The Junction Arts ethos is to move “at the speed of trust”; as one community artist reflects: “You can’t expect you are going to start and get massive numbers [straight away]. The work involved in getting young people even confident enough to attend the sessions is big… they need smaller steps and encouragement to engage”.

Shaping and being shaped by places

The learning from this work underlines:

• the need to address participants’ practical, emotional and social barriers in projects that respond to the full complexity of people, lives, places and communities;
• the value of co-production to allow participants to shape interventions that respond to their needs and aspirations;
• the importance of time and long-term support for building trust and allowing places, priorities and relationships to evolve.

Through these processes, matured over 50 years, you get a place and an organisation that are inherently of one another. Junction Arts would not be the same if it had begun somewhere else, but it’s also true that Bolsover would not be the place it is today without the constant presence and gentle creative provocations of Junction Arts. It may be true that the only constant is change, but the consistency, stability and longstanding experience of one of the UK’s oldest and most established community arts organisations strongly positions the District of Bolsover communities to be able to navigate change – past, present and future, together.

Kathryn Welch (she/her) is a freelance creative practitioner working at the intersection between the arts and social change. Current and recent roles include C0-Director of Culture Counts (Scotland’s advocacy network for arts, heritage and creative industry organisations), and as Programme Lead for Culture Collective (Creative Scotland’s flagship funding programme for participatory arts). Now based in Central Scotland, she grew up in Bolsover and was a participant of Junction Arts’ creative programmes throughout the 1990s. Connect with Kathryn via her website or on LinkedIn.

To support, follow, or learn more about Junction Arts, take a look at their website or connect via Facebook or Instagram.

To find out more about how the Centre for Cultural Value’s work provides insights into culture and placemaking, take a look at these resources:

Research digest: Culture and placemaking
Research digest: The role of the artist in society
Research digest: Lifelong cultural engagement
Essential Reads: The politics and possibilities of artists working with communities
Arts Professional: Culture and place: Why we need to look beyond cities

This case study from Junction Arts also reflects many of the themes now being explored in the Centre for Cultural Value’s work developing a cultural indicator suite. We’re seeking to understand and measure the cultural vitality of places in ways that recognise everyday creativity, inclusivity and the role of culture in shaping place identity and wellbeing. Learn more about this project.

The post Junction Arts: Fifty years of creative placemaking appeared first on Centre for Cultural Value.

The Arts Impact Partnership (TAIP): Understanding the Arts’ Civic Impact in the Data-Driven Economy brings together 67 researchers and 33 partner organisations, including two national consortia representing over 1,000 arts entities across Canada and three international satellite partners. Together, they will address the challenges faced by arts-based research and creative practices in the era of data-driven analytics.

The project recognises the inadequacy of existing data and impact frameworks to capture the qualitative richness of arts contributions to society, directly impacting funding and public understanding.

The Centre’s role in the project will include contributing the time of expert staff and a resident researcher to support the data analysis and knowledge mobilisation, working alongside other UK and European scholars.

Centre for Cultural Value Director, Stephen Dobson, says:

To be part of this large-scale, international research consortium is an exciting opportunity for the Centre. With the project spanning seven years, we’re curious to learn more about the research findings and how this connects to the work the Centre is doing in the UK, especially around data-driven analytics and the outcomes of the current work developing a blueprint for a National Cultural Data Observatory.

Join the Centre’s email list for regular updates about our current work and future projects.

The post Working internationally with The Arts Impact Partnership appeared first on Centre for Cultural Value.