The beginning of a beautiful friendship

The equivalent of Sport England’s ‘This Girl Can’ advertising campaign is not “a new approach to audience development” but rather a push to encourage everyday participation in creative cultural activity – and this is already starting to happen.

Liz Hill’s article ‘Unusual suspects’ (ArtsProfessional, 25 February 2016) points out that “Taking Part reveals that there has been no real change in arts engagement in England since 2005/6 when the survey first began” but the Taking Part survey only provides a partial measure of participation in creative cultural activity, missing much of the amazing everyday cultural participation undertaken by millions of people across the UK.

‘This Girl Can’ is not about audience development: the campaign does not seek directly to increase audiences for elite sporting events. As Liz Hill says “The creative message in the advert aimed to inspire ‘ordinary’ women to exercise, rather than celebrate the super-fit who run marathons or spend hours in the gym”. The equivalent would be to showcase the creativity of the millions of everyday artists across the UK in order to encourage those who don’t yet already take part in some form of art or craft to get started. This is the aim of the Get Creative campaign launched in February 2015 by BBC Arts in partnership with more than 1,000 arts and cultural organisations. Liz Hill points out that “mass media can be used to change attitudes and connect with the unconnected” and that is exactly what this nationwide campaign involving BBC television, radio and online is now doing.

As one of the eight stakeholder organisations helping to run Get Creative, Voluntary Arts (which has been working for more than 25 years to promote participation in creative cultural activity) is proud to be playing a part in what feels like a growing movement of interest in ‘everyday creativity’:

• ‘Understanding Everyday Participation’ is a five-year research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Connected Communities programme and by Creative Scotland and led by Dr Andrew Miles at the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at the University of Manchester. The project is re-evaluating the relationship between participation and cultural value, looking at the meanings and stakes people attach to their hobbies and pastimes.
• Arts Council England has recently commissioned 64 million artists to run a series of ten regional meetings across England, thinking about everyday participation and understanding why it is important in creating a more democratic culture.
• Arts Council England’s investment in Creative People and Places is supporting programmes in places where people’s involvement in the arts is significantly below the national average, with the aim of increasing the likelihood of participation. The initial evaluation of Creative People and Places indicates that one of the most successful approaches has been “developing partnerships with non-arts organisations”. This appears to reinforce the need to reach beyond arts and cultural organisations into people’s everyday lives in order to “connect with the unconnected”.
• ACE’s proposals for ‘Public investment in art and culture from 2018’ indicate the intention to focus strategic funds on place-based approaches, saying “a place-based approach will help us to get the best reach and engagement at a local level”.
• Our understanding is that the forthcoming Government Culture White Paper will also formally recognise and value the creative cultural activity that many people already participate in as a normal part of their everyday lives. This promises to be a significant moment in the growing interest in everyday creativity.

Get Creative Day – Saturday 2 April 2016 – will provide an opportunity to showcase and encourage everyday creativity across the UK. We’re asking artists and arts organisations, community groups and societies of all shapes and sizes to invite others to take part in a creative experience. It could involve making music, dance, film or photography, creating with words, paint or digitally.

This is a huge opportunity to recognise and involve the ‘unusual suspects’ with nationwide support from the BBC. This could truly be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Robin Simpson
Chief Executive, Voluntary Arts