Centre for Cultural Value

📢 Exciting news! The Centre for Cultural Value will be leading a new scoping project to develop a blueprint for a national cultural data observatory. In this article, Ben Walmsley (Centre for Cultural Value) and Patrick Towell (The Audience Agency) share more about the project ambitions and why it is vital to solve the problem of fragmented and hard-to-compare data in the arts, culture and heritage sectors. This project presents “ … an ambitious next step towards a joined-up data infrastructure for the arts, culture and heritage sectors, promising pioneering cross-sector, mixed-methods analysis”. The project is funded by the ESRC: Economic and Social Research Council (part of UK Research and Innovation). The Centre for Cultural Value will be working alongside project partners: The Audience Agency, MyCake Ltd, Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA) and Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture. https://lnkd.in/ezF7QEi8

How can we use immersive theatre to look afresh at ‘arts-led dialogue’ and understand the ethical and social implications of digital transformation? BIG TELLY THEATRE COMPANY worked with a team of The Manchester Metropolitan University academics to explore how ‘arts-led dialogue’ can uncover the psychological and social effects of digitising memory and memorialisation through immersive theatre performance, Granny Jackson’s Dead. Supported by the Centre’s Collaborate fund, the project centred on co-creation at every stage, exploring various methods to understand whether immersive performance and elicitation techniques could work together to generate meaningful data. Learn more about this collaborative research partnership on our website. https://lnkd.in/e75rCC-Q Performance Research Group (Manchester Metropolitan University) | School of Digital Arts (SODA) at Manchester Metropolitan University | Michael Pinchbeck | Joshua Edelman | Professor Kirsty Fairclough

The Culture Commons team has published new research about the future of devolution in the UK and how increased local decision-making can impact the creative, cultural and heritage ecosystem. As a project partner, the Centre for Cultural Value played a central role in the resulting findings and policy recommendations. In this article, learn more about the policy recommendations and the Centre’s work as a research partner for the programme. You can also learn more about the next steps Culture Commons is taking to move forward with the recommendations and how you can be part of this. 👇 https://lnkd.in/eDDe_Jd5

Can finding your creative voice unlock your civic activist voice? And what potential barriers or social inequalities might limit this? In this Centre-funded collaborative research project, Fun Palaces worked with Dr Katy Pilcher (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Aston University) to investigate whether communities who make creative and cultural experiences for themselves also create ways to have their needs heard. Through interviews and group storytelling workshops based on sensory-object elicitation, Katy and the Fun Palaces team uncovered rich stories of creative and civic engagement from Fun Palace Makers. Discover more about this collaborative partnership and research findings, plus how you can access an Activist Toolkit developed by the research team, with tips and tools designed to help individuals and communities get creative and find their activist voice 👇 https://lnkd.in/er-Rs7Ck

As research partner for South London Gallery Open Plan programme, our friends at Shared Intelligence will be presenting at this free symposium event taking place later this month. The free event is open to all. It will be of particular interest to artists, students, community leaders, museum and gallery professionals, and those working with socially engaged practice, place-based art, public art and creative health. Take a look at the post below to discover more 👇

This year marks five years of the Centre for Cultural Value, and our recently published five-year review reflects upon the work and the impact of the Centre over its first five years. During this time, we navigated unpredictable changes, inevitably resulting in the Centre adapting some of its original plans. Using findings from a commissioned external evaluation, the five-year review presents an overview highlighting the three strands of our core work – research, evaluation and policy – and celebrating successes and learning. In this article, the Centre’s inaugural director Ben Walmsley and co-director Anne Torreggiani reflect on the Centre’s first five years. And the full five-year review is available on our website; find the link in the comments. https://lnkd.in/d4x6QN-s The Audience Agency

"This is a clear message to rethink the traditional business mantra and harness data about the sector in ways that support and enrich its offering …" Writing for Arts Professional, the Centre's director, Stephen Dobson, reflects upon the new publication, Pandemic Culture, and the need for a fairer, more equitable sector. As the sector moves forward, still feeling the impact of the past four years, he argues for the need for smarter, more people- and place-centred data to inform cultural policymaking. Read the full article in Arts Professional [no paywall] 👇 https://lnkd.in/eKN2qPh5

Great to see our top tips for creative evaluation included as a recommended read here! Thanks Centre for Cultural Value 😀

On Tuesday 5 November, Culture Commons will host a free online event sharing the key findings and recommendations from its 12-month research and open policy development programme, The Future of Local Cultural Decision Making. As a project partner, the Centre is pleased to have played a part in this national project, providing research, policy and cultural leadership expertise. This includes providing research insights to shape policy recommendations, being instrumental in sector consultation and policy development, and being a member of the project steering group. We hope to see you at the event on 5 November. Find more information and the event booking link in the post below 👇 Ben Walmsley | Anna Kime | John Wright

How may the value and impact of engaging with culture evolve across someone's lifetime? Are our cultural tastes set in childhood? Or is there scope for our behaviours to change? If so, what can affect these shifts? Written by the Centre’s Emma McDowell, the Lifelong Cultural Engagement research digest explores what we can learn from the current evidence base. What do we know (and what more do we need to discover) about the impact of cultural engagement on people’s lives? Whether you are thinking about audiences, visitors or participants, the research digest brings together studies and research from different disciplines and practices that provide insight into how regular and sustained cultural engagement can have an impact on people's lives. Available to read online or as a PDF download. https://lnkd.in/gHSDKEgJ