MEASURING THE EXPERIENCE #30
Measurement of the value or success of artist-led practice
“The qualities that really empower are not quantifiable. Passion, enthusiasm, inspiration, creativity, tenacity and ambition are the qualities that shape our lives and these are the qualities needed by the entrepreneur.”[1]
Case studies indicate a varied approach to monitoring and evaluating the work of artist-led organisations. In formally constituted organisations, arts officers are often ex-officio on trust boards and thus derive a detailed knowledge of an organisation’s work from attendance at meetings or receipt of board reports. Officers tend to operate a more ‘hands-off’ approach in their dealings with informally-constituted groups, especially where grant aid is at a low level. In both cases however, qualitative judgement of a group’s activities is largely subjective, tending to rest with officers’ and advisers’ professional opinions and on reports produced by groups themselves.
The low levels and irregular nature of public subsidy are sometimes perceived as being an advantage, as exemplified by a contributor to one study who commented that by being project- or occasionally-funded, artist-led organisations were not “required to negotiate public expectation in the manner required [by other types of organisation]” and therefore had more freedom. Conversely, however, such funding places artist-led organisations ‘outside the system’, that is largely excluded from the discussion and decision-making structures that shape visual arts policies and which subsequently lead to development within the arts infrastructure, of which their work is part.
In real terms, there are currently relatively few ways in which practitioners – individually or collectively – can influence the development of arts policies. Although the arts councils in England, Scotland and Wales continue to maintain artform panels which include artists and which discuss and review policies, this is no longer the case in many regional arts boards. In these, the board advised by officers oversees development of policy. Although boards contain some arts specialists amongst influential professionals from business, education and elsewhere, these are drawn from all artforms and include professional managers and directors and occasionally practitioners. Although regional arts board officers may regularly consult individually with key clients as regards reviewing and revising policies, there would appear to be few opportunities for collective or peer group discussion between clients and those who aren’t in receipt of funding on the subject of policy and artistic direction at a regional or national level. This means in practical terms that although an artist-led organisation instigates a project to fulfil particular aspirations and expectations as regards audience and outcome, because their values are not able to influence policy development within funding bodies, these aspirations and values are not necessarily going to be the ones by which a proposal is judged and subsequently, the quality or success of the outcome assessed.
The authors of Creative Accounting: Beyond the bottom line[2] have argued that the methods which are generally used to measure the impact of the arts are flawed because by concentrating on economic measurement and ‘number crunching’, they have failed to measure the wider impact that the arts are capable of having. Their proposal for a more effective way of measuring this impact acknowledges that because the way the arts enriches people’s lives is not a scientific process, a more creative approach is required. Such an approach focuses around the notion of recognising who the various constituencies for, or ‘stakeholders’ in, the arts activity are, and the need to involve these people in developing the methods by which the arts activity is evaluated. Such an approach could be likened to good business practice, in that interaction with both the workforce and with customers or clients feeds into the development of a company’s strategies and future plans.
[1] Sir Ernest Hall, introduction to the Yorkshire & Humberside Arts Annual Report 1995/96
[2]Creative Accounting: Beyond the bottom line, Lingayah, MacGillivray and Raynard, New Economic Foundation, Comedia Working Paper 2, The Social Impact of the Arts Programme, 1996
