Mapping and Analysis of Engagement Approaches across the Creative People and Places Programme

“It’s not somebody coming in to tell us we’re so uneducated we need to draw pictures”

Corby resident and participant in audience voice workshop.

Introduction

Creative People and Places (CPP) is a national action research programme funded by Arts Council England that aims to increase arts participation in places where historically there have been fewer opportunities for people to get involved with arts and culture.

The programme comprises a network of 21 independent projects across England, and there were three initial rounds of CPP funding from Arts Council England starting in 2012. Each CPP is led by a consortium which must include at least one non-arts partner, and each CPP has created their own ten-year vision for their place.

There is strong evidence that CPP Places are successfully reaching communities that are usually considered to be amongst the least engaged in arts and culture, and this research aims to map and analyse the approaches that are being used across the network of CPP Places that are enabling this to happen.

Methodology

A variety of sources have fed into this research:

• Desk research provided background on the impacts and learning already gained from the CPP programme, as well as themes, models and approaches to engaging ‘new’ arts audiences from other programmes and research.
• Semi structured telephone or skype interviews using a standard set of questions around approaches, activities and learning, with a representative from every CPP Place (mainly directors)
• A workshop and mapping exercise with CPP teams at a CPP network peer learning gathering.
• Audience voice group discussions with self-identified ‘new’ audiences at three CPP Places.

Further details including process, full findings, conclusions and recommendations can be found in the full report.

Download the research. [PDF]

Photo: A Great Night Out produced by WildWorks with The Cultural Spring. Photo credit: Dan Prince 

Creative People and Places is an Arts Council England funding programme which focuses on parts of the country where involvement in creativity and culture is significantly below the national average. More.