YouTube LinkedIn

In Arts Professional: The Beauty Project



Performance of 12 last songs. Colourful confetti in the foreground obscures the image.

Artist Sarah Hunter, physicist Rox Middleton and philosopher Lucy Tomlinson spotlight what they learnt from spending a year exploring the cultural value of beauty through their collaborative research project.

In this piece for Arts Professional, they reflect upon their approach to capturing the cultural value of beauty, asking the question: why and for whom do we create, reflect and evaluate?

One reason beauty gets sidelined in policy and funding priorities is the difficulty of its evaluation. Evaluation allows us to interact with funders, but the intangibility of beauty isn’t easily condensed to statistical summaries.

Read the full article on Arts Professional.

Image: Quarantine’s 12 Last Songs, at HOME Theatre Manchester. Photo by Chris Payne.

Related news

A vibrant community event takes place in front of a block of flats. In the foreground is person wearing a hijab, jeans and a shirt smiling. There is also a person is a red t shirt and roller skates. In the background adults and children are rollerskating and playing.
Mafwa Theatre - Community Garden Event
News

Understanding and measuring cultural vitality in the UK

Where culture plays such a pivotal role in shaping place identity, fostering social cohesion, and improving well-being, why is measuring ...
Two people sat a long wooden bench talking to each other.
University of Leeds. Photo by Susannah Ireland.
News

Transforming knowledge into practical outcomes

The Centre for Cultural Value is connecting with international academic colleagues as part of a new COST Action: Connecting Critical ...
A group of primary school children, wearing bright colour clothes all stood together in a rehearsal studio. They all have their arms in the air and look happy and engaged in what they are doing.
Image credit: Leeds Playhouse
News

Child of the North report highlights the value of creativity in education

A new report published by the N8 Research Partnership and the Centre for Young Lives calls for a new era ...
A light installation, with a purple glow, in a market place. Triangular sails create a canopy between the empty stalls. A older person, walking across the marketplace is pictured under the sails.
Walk This Way. Photo by Rob Eagle.
News

“What’s the point of it?” Art, community, and the challenges of cultural value

In a northern market town, a light and sound installation simultaneously sparks a wealth of community interactions and highlights the ...
A theatre performance. A large puppet of a bird with bright colour feathers is next to a performer wearing a green jumper and looking through binoculars.
Mafwa Theatre. Michka and Me. Photo by Tribe Four Films.
News

What happens next? Taking time to reflect, learn and move forward

As the Centre’s initial five-year funding period ends, we share our plans to take a deliberate and strategic pause to ...
A busy street in Florence, Italy. Crowds of tourists are on the street.
Photo by Maxime Steckle.
News

Mass tourism, heritage, music, and debt: the curious case of opera and urban planning in Florence

How can we successfully acknowledge the challenges of protecting cultural heritage while also balancing the economic realities of a flourishing ...






Keep in touch,

Sign up to our newsletter