Making sure Great Art is for Everyone

At a time when public funding is under increased pressure, many arts organisations are now doing the most they can to argue why they should sustain and grow their resources.  They will do it well.  They are focussed, articulate, and can demonstrate the quality of their work.

But who is speaking for the audiences of today and tomorrow?  Who is putting the case for the 85% of the population in Wigan and Ashford who aren’t satisfied with the local provision of theatres and concert halls?  Who is questioning why the people who buy the fewest Lottery tickets benefit the most from Arts Lottery Funding?

This week we’re launching Audiences UK with a document that describes what we think needs to be done to increase public engagement in culture in challenging times.  We want to make sure the public view is considered in debates about cultural policy in the lead up to the 2010 UK General Elections.  They will have a major impact on priorities for culture in England in the coming years.  Next year we will be focussing on the other Nations in their lead up to major elections.

In the meantime we’ll be doing all we can to get people thinking and shape the debate around public engagement in culture.  This is the first of what we hope will be a weekly blog.  As well as thoughts from the staff of Audiences UK and the family of Audience Development Agencies, we’ll be welcoming guest bloggers too. We’ll also be sending out a weekly alert about interesting things that are happening in different parts of the UK.

Audiences UK is here to help organisations learn from the best audience development practice within and beyond the UK, and help funders and policy makers make sense of research and data so more of the people can enjoy great cultural experiences.  We’re here to make the case for the audiences of today and tomorrow, but we’ll only do this by working in partnership with artists, arts organisations, local government and national policy makers and funders. 

Arts Council England state they exist to get ‘great art to everyone’.  Graphically, this often appears as a very big ‘art’ and a much smaller ‘everyone’.  We believe in ‘great art’ for ‘everyone’ too.  The UK needs well funded and supported arts organisations that can innovate and take risks.  But the public also needs opportunities to engage in high quality cultural experiences with organisations that understand how best to reach out to and work with diverse audiences. 

We don’t want the ‘art’ to get smaller, but with your help we would like the ‘everyone’ to be a lot bigger in the coming years.

David Brownlee, 11 March 2010