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A participatory public artwork commissioned as a part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, The Boat Project's impact reaches to a national audience of 440,698 while a global audience of many millions encountered the work via print and broadcast media. Outreach activity engaged over 100 schools while some thirty public artworks were commissioned in response to the project, underlining its impact on local authority cultural provision and the professional fields of contemporary performance, theatre and public art. The project created 22 paid positions, 80 volunteer positions and an on-going commercial venture.
Professor Lois Weaver joined QMUL Drama in 1997. Her research-led practice as artist, curator and activist has had substantial impact within two areas. First, within the cultural world of live art she has influenced the practice of both emerging and established artists, and the programming and curation of performance. She has facilitated, mentored and directed a range of artists; opened up new spaces for performance's production and presentation; and actively supported other curators in the expansion of live art programming, especially in London. Second, Weaver's research into forms of public dialogue — her `Public Address Systems' — has had impact in the wider social field, leading to events and projects around the world in which citizens of diverse perspectives and backgrounds, often excluded from public discourse on grounds of age, class, gender and sexuality, have been able to contribute meaningfully to discussions of urgent social issues, including human rights, sexuality, aging and new technologies.
Andrea Phillips has worked with numerous institutions in the public realm to address questions about the commissioning of public art. This commenced with an AHRC-funded research project, Curating Architecture (2007-08), and in 2009 upon the invitation of a Dutch public art foundation [SKOR] she co-founded a research project called Actors, Agents and Attendants (AAA). This comprised public dialogues, expert meetings, and publications that brought together the expertise of commissioners, politicians, curators and directors to investigate the role of art in the shaping of public, social life. The project coincided with major changes to the Dutch arts funding system, and its activities and outcomes were widely disseminated and influential in this context. Thus for example SKOR has changed its shape since 2012, its new approach having been significantly influenced by the outcomes of Phillips' collaborative research. Her expertise in this area also led to her co-curating the public programme of the 2013 Istanbul Biennal on the highly topical issue of citizen's rights to, and use of, the public sphere. The Biennial was attended by over 350,000 people including local and national politicians, commissioners, philanthropists, collectors, artists and curators, many of whom took part in the public events.
The impact of this case study is the evidence that public art can function for social benefit. Significant research projects were completed for Ashford, commissioned by Kent County Council (2010), New Art Gallery Walsall (2005 - 2009), Collective Gallery Edinburgh, UK (2008), Liverpool Biennale (2010). This research claims three types of impact: 1. Public Service: a public artwork as part of a shared traffic scheme, which demonstrates a reduction in traffic accidents, 2. Civil Society: participatory artworks that enable public engagement in the design of a place (Ashford & the Black Country) , and 3. Influencing Policy — making: a contribution to policy debates concerning public art's function for social and economic regeneration.
Since 2005, Dr Quick has created a series of practice-as-research projects and educational workshops to increase understanding of how new media-based performance is created and understood. Key beneficiaries have been young people, teachers, theatre practitioners, mixed media artists, and cultural organisations. Five new works have impacted through the introduction of innovative practice performance to new audiences, nationally and internationally (including central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Brazil and Taiwan); pioneering new uses of digital technology as creative practice, and sharing such innovation with both established and new theatres and groups.
This case study focuses on the impact of Professor Adrian Heathfield's research. Heathfield curated numerous multi-form research exchanges with his Performance Matters Co-Directors over a four-year period, expanding non-academic beneficiaries of performance research, influencing prevailing professional discourses as well as creative and curatorial practices across the arts sector. Workshops, collaborative dialogues, symposia, talks, films, screenings and performances were conceived, realised and hosted by major cultural sector partners, involving an international array of leading academics, artists, activists and curators. Direct impacts for the non-academic partner-organisation — Live Art Development Agency (LADA) — were the expansion of its educational, archival and media activities, and user community. Specific professional development effects were delivered for a culturally diverse group of participating established and early-career artists.
Studio for Electronic Theatre (SET) is a group of researchers examining the relationship between technological advance and creative practice. They examine how technology can change the nature of performance environments in specific spaces and address social and political issues in distinct places. Specific performances have:
Additionally, the work being carried out engages directly with non HEI partners and has resulted in members of the group being invited to communicate with a range of interested partners beyond the academy: Greenwich Theatre, Albany Deptford, Kids Company.
`Performing Migration' impact case study includes a number of workshops, performances, artist talks and events undertaken and/or organized by Dr. Lena Simic with contributions from Dr. Gary Anderson, Dr. Niamh Malone and Ms Carmel Cleary. The case study is embedded in the community work within Liverpool, but its outreach is also transnational. This case study's impact lies in enriching cultural life and influencing public discourse around the themes of citizenship, belonging and migration. This work is furthermore activist and political — financial resources have been used from institutions (Arts Council England and Liverpool Hope University) to channel the funds and better the lives of the migrants.