New Audiences has funded arts organisations to develop projects with other sectors which are seeking to gain access to new areas and test different ideas. This month, we examine two ground-breaking examples of cross-sectoral work, one with rural agencies and another with scientific bodies.
?Play Garden? was a year-long national research project seeking to encourage new audiences to engage with art and science events. The rural arts agency Littoral developed ?Digital arts and rural upland communities? and ?Cultural documents of the foot and mouth crisis? in the context of rural regeneration, enabling farmers and rural communities to gain access to high quality arts work and develop their own creativity.
Art meets science
?Play Garden - developing audiences for art and science?, explored how marketing, education, interpretation and signage can influence audiences? learning and enjoyment of arts and science events. It looked at the way audiences are invited to play or interact with arts and science exhibits. Nine events, encompassing a variety of ideas, took place at venues as diverse as the Magna Science Discovery Project in Rotherham, the Gallery Oldham, the Eden Project in Cornwall and the Design Museum. Led by the Interdisciplinary Arts Department of Arts Council England, the project was funded by New Audiences and by the Wellcome Trust, the charity which funds medical research.
Audience response
The nature of a science-based venue, and the reasons people visit it, are completely different from an arts-based venue, starting with the way exhibits are perceived as artistic or scientific. A visitor to Cheltenham Festival of Science commented: ?I would imagine that both the artist and scientist involved in this had a great time doing it. And I bet it really made them think about their fields in much more open-minded and inspirational ways.? As well as feeling the impact of the unusual venues, audiences responded strongly to the moment when the meaning of the work sank in. ?Primitive Streak? at the Eden project first appears to be a fashion show. The realisation that the collection is in fact inspired by human embryonic development evoked such audience descriptions as ?beautiful?, ?provocative? and ?inspiring?.
Another key finding was the vital importance of appropriate interpretative materials or invigilators, enhancing the audience experience of art or science exhibits in unfamiliar contexts. ?For the first time in a long viewing life, I have encountered well briefed communicators,? commented a visitor to the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art. ?Because of this I go on my way reflecting rather than dismissing.?
Countryside alliances
Littoral (formerly Projects Environment) had already worked through New Audiences on a pilot digital arts and media project with hill farmers and rural communities in Lancashire?s Forest of Bowland, culminating in an international conference in 2001. As the foot and mouth (FMD) epidemic hit Britain in 2001, they created an ambitious programme of rural arts work in collaboration with the National Farmers? Union and the Women?s Food and Farming Union (WFFU).
Ian Hunter, Director of Littoral, says that the farming community seemed bemused when the company first approached them. ?They were saying, ?well, we?re just surviving, what has the arts got to do with us??? he said. ?When we went to the arts community they said, ?well, agriculture has nothing to do with us.? There was no hostility, but it had simply never occurred to anybody that there might be a connection.? The FMD crisis paradoxically provided an opportunity for this overlooked audience to engage with the arts in ways significant both for them and for the non-rural population.
Farming the imagination
?We showed the relationship between art and agriculture, creatively linked together,? says Gillian van der Meer. As President of the WFFU, which works to provide a link between food producers and consumers, she has been working with Littoral to address the impact of FMD on farming families, and in a scheme to bring artists on to farms to record a vanishing way of life. Artist Sara Harp visited her as part of the Crop Project, using pumpkins grown on the farm as her material. Artists have also worked with willow, wool and other crops. Outreach through schools and farmers? markets caught the imagination of the farming press, the BBC?s Country File and CBBC. ?The rural community can offer so much opportunity to artists ? the location, the inspiration, farm buildings converted into workshops, and the materials,? Gillian points out. She hopes to work with Littoral to develop a farming cultural embassy, involving artists in partnership with farmers, to record and promote British farming.
The challenges of partnership
Working with sectors outside the arts can be extremely challenging. Evaluations from both these projects (see Beyond the Page, left), and critical commentaries on the Play Garden website (http://www.newaudiences.org.uk/playgarden), show that the learning curve was often steep. Yet it is also clear that, through taking these risks, cross-sectoral partnerships can develop their own momentum and create lasting, significant change.
Beyond the Page
Find extra information, analysis, downloadable reports, summaries and resources as well as the final evaluation reports of Play Garden and Littoral at http://www.newaudiences.org.uk
Feedback to Essential Audiences can be sent to audiences@artsprofessional.co.uk
Essential Audiences is compiled and written by Catherine Rose. For more information about the
New Audiences Programme, contact Arts Council England, 14 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 3NQ. t: 020 7973 6497 f: 020 7973 6791 e: newaudiences@artscouncil.org.uk textphone: 020 7973 6564