Finding viewers

At Impressions Gallery, the audience is at the heart of what we do. This working philosophy was already in place when we were based in York but took on added importance when we made the transition to Bradford, with a different and diverse audience to reach. The time we invested in understanding the needs and expectations of our new potential visitors has been crucial to our success here.
This process was kick-started when we employed development consultant Wafer Hadley, who helped us identify our new audiences and decide what was worth keeping from our existing approach. They also suggested new directions, such as moving our marketing focus towards the web rather than our former print-based strategy. During this period we took part in ‘Not For the Likes of You’, a project that identified strategies for removing barriers to attendance and participation, run by our regional audience development agency, Audiences Yorkshire. This programme advocated a holistic approach to audience development and our new plan was shaped with input from executive level through to our front of house team. This meant everyone had a clear vision of what we were trying to achieve from the outset.

One outcome of this process was a shift towards promoting the value of being able to interact with large-scale photographic work. This was particularly pertinent to us as a photography gallery, when competing with all the other ways in which the medium is viewed and used in the digital age, such as online galleries. Our publicity tries to reach new audiences by describing the benefits of physically visiting the gallery, the experience they can expect to have here, and how engaging with the artwork up close might make them feel.
Another outcome was the creation of new opportunities to engage with the artistic programme through the provision of non-traditional gallery events. Events including meditation classes, vintage clothing fairs and even a pickling demonstration, explore the exhibition thematically and encourage new visitors to take part. Such events usually have a social aspect, which hopefully debunks the myth that galleries are quiet, often intimidating spaces. We believe these events send the right message to our audiences – that you don’t have to be a specialist to come in and enjoy the space. These are just two examples of the many transformations we have made over the last few years. Such developments only came to fruition because we were not afraid to take risks and listen to external, sometimes critical, voices and make well considered changes where needed.