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This case study discusses the impact of the research that contributed to Asia Triennial Manchester (ATM) in 2008 and 2011. The ATM is the only Asian Arts Festival in Europe with a focus on new work. It attracts established audiences for art as well as those not normally engaged with culture through exhibits in nationally important venues and in locations with low levels of cultural engagement. ATM has established new cultural partnerships and knowledge exchange that has affected gallery programming and curatorial knowledge and ensured demonstrable impact. Over 364,000 people attended events at ATM08 and 11 generating £12m in economic activity across the Northwest. The ATM's directly engaged 1500 artists in the production of 58 entirely new productions.
Professor Paul Heritage joined QMUL in 1996. His research over the last two decades has opened up new understandings of Brazil's transformative arts practices within the UK cultural sector. Through practice-based projects, his research continues to deepen and extend the understanding of innovative Brazilian arts practices in Britain. Heritage has forged new opportunities for UK arts practitioners to develop their work in Brazil and shaped new policy exchanges between ministerial/governmental and non-governmental organisations. His research engages with a diverse range of artists and cultural institutions, reaching over 50,000 people in the period since 2008 via performances/screenings/seminars/exhibitions/events. Through disseminating research into Brazilian culture policy and practices that have responded to extreme social crises, he has strengthened the British cultural sector's confidence in using art in the advancement of social development.
The University for the Creative Arts has a longstanding commitment to the history, practice, and theory of craft. The research of the Crafts Study Centre (CSC) and Anglo-Japanese Textile Research Centre (AJTRC) has long championed the work of craft practitioners in order to find new ways of thinking through creative practice. This curatorial work, public facing in nature, has contributed to the personal, professional and creative development of a range of craft practitioners by offering an enquiry-led platform for the exploration of craft as profession. Though this research has brought numerous benefits to a wide range of people and organisations, this case study explains specific qualitative and quantitative benefits brought to a number of craft practitioners by this work.
The `Impacts 08' research programme was inherently, in and of itself, designed to impact upon policy-makers and practitioners by documenting the process of hosting major cultural events and providing robust evidence of their social, economic and cultural impact. Between 2006 and 2010 regular and easily accessible research based reports were shared with stakeholders and the public. The impact of the work is evidenced in the development of local, UK and EU policy on cultural regeneration and events. These policy developments have addressed approaches to funding, promoting and assessing the value of cultural events.
Led by Professor John Butler at the School of Art, BIAD/BCU, a programme of research was embarked upon to create, develop and evaluate a series of models linking artists and their work with diverse communities under-represented in audiences typically brought into contact with the visual arts.
The effects of this research have been to make new connections between cultural providers and to engage diverse audiences with art that they would not normally encounter. This has, inter alia, re-invigorated the regional art scene, contributed to the regeneration of areas of Birmingham and extended the cultural offer of the nation's second city. The impact of these models is recognized by the region's political leaders and celebrated by the public and artists. The work is acknowledged with substantial and continuing national and other funding, so far exceeding £2.1m.
Irit Rogoff has shaped the emergence of an `educational turn' in the arts and humanities, arguing that contemporary artwork, together with its institutions and social platforms, transforms education practices in non-academic arenas such as museums, theatres, bookshops, art academies, and social and political occupations. This work started at the moment in which both the Bologna accord and neo-liberal impacts on education began pulling towards the professionalisation and homogenisation of Higher Education culture. All of the projects elaborated within this case study have aimed to expand the understanding of how cultural actors become educational stakeholders.
Rogoff's theoretical and curatorial research has taken diverse forms including scholarly publications, exhibitions and social forums, and she has brought these issues to audiences from the arts and public organisations beyond the university sector through advisory roles, public speaking, and social organising. Following numerous publications, exhibitions, and events, she founded freethought, an experimental platform for pedagogy, research and production. Launched in 2012 at the Austrian arts festival, Steirischer Herbst, freethought has subsequently developed a core project on `infrastructure' launched at Berlin's House of World Cultures in 2013. Her published research, exhibitions, and public forums have been widely influential in debates on education in the public sphere, as evidenced for example by her involvement as a funded partner in the establishment of a freethought laboratory in South Korea's new Asia Cultural Complex.
The University of Southampton has carried out a programme of research into transnational networks of migrants, especially musicians from African countries, and multicultural neighbourhoods across Europe. This has resulted in a series of popular multi-national arts events in Africa and Europe, involving artists numbering in the hundreds and audiences in the hundreds of thousands. These events have generated new independent cultural projects, leading to economic benefit for organisers and participants and to greater public awareness of migrant and mixed community issues.
Rhythm Changes is Europe's largest ever jazz research project to date, examining the inherited traditions and practices of European jazz cultures, engaging audiences, performers, the creative industries and arts agencies in the collection, interpretation and sharing of cultural experiences, resources and data, demonstrating the following impact:
Work undertaken by the Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN) at the University of the Arts London (UAL) focuses on the role of identity and nation in the production and consumption of artwork and artefacts. This has resulted in an increased awareness and critical understanding of transnational art and design, to the benefit of the Museums and Galleries sector, arts organisations, and the artistic community.
Research undertaken by Professor John Holden of City University London on cultural diplomacy and cultural value has had a direct impact on cultural policy-makers both nationally and internationally. In the UK it has impacted specifically on the funding of cultural diplomacy activity and the operations of Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Internationally advice has been sought by politicians and cultural administrators around the world including the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Culture in New Zealand, Alberta's Minister of Culture and the Chairs of the main cultural organisations in Hong Kong. Through this, Holden has: (i) provided expert advice to governmental, third sector and private organisations in relation to cultural policy; (ii) influenced directly the thinking of senior government ministers in relation to arts and culture; (iii) proposed new ways of thinking about the methods and mechanisms by which culture and creative practice are supported through the distribution of public funds; (iv) contributed to the enhancement of frameworks supporting the creative industries, which in turn has aided economic prosperity for a range of individuals and organisations; and (v) helped creative industry professionals and those who support them to adapt to changing cultural values.