Getting in On The Act 2011OCT19 PDF

F O C U S A Regional Nonprot Sector Report
OCTOBER 2011
F O C U S Research Findings
Getting In On the Act
How arts groups are creating opportunities
for active participation
Alan S. Brown and Jennifer L. Novak-Leonard,
in partnership with Shelly Gilbride, Ph.D.
P A G E 1 T H E J A ME S I R V I N E F O U N D A T I O N
F O C U S G E T T I N G I N O N T H E A C T
Contents
Foreword by Josephine Ramirez 2
Summary 3
Terminology 5
Introduction: The New Landscape of Arts Participation 6
How Participatory Arts Fits in the Cultural Ecology 7
Benets of Participatory Arts 9
Relationship Between Participation and Attendance 10
Embracing the New Ecology 11
Participatory Arts in Practice 13
The Audience Involvement Spectrum 15
Overview of Case Studies 19
References and Endnotes 42

Illustrative Case Studies 22
1. Community-Sourced Arts Events: Building Institutional Relevance 24
2. Community-Activated Theatre Programs: Acts of Collective Will 26
3. Participatory Arts Events: Celebrating the Artist in Everyone 28
4. Storytelling Events: Building Community Identity 29
5. Virtual Activation: Pioneering the New Frontier of Active Arts 30
6. Public Dance Events: Activating the Moving Spirit and Social Camaraderie 32
7. Co-Creation: Curating Unpredictable Outcomes Through Participation 34
8. Community Music-Making: Bringing Together Professionals and Amateurs 36
9. Engaging Civic Values: Building Community Vitality and Public Support for the Arts 38
10. Participatory Arts Networks: Achieving Advocacy Outcomes 40
People are engaging in the arts in increasingly active and expressive ways. There is a growing
awareness in the arts field of what have come to be known as participatory arts practices. Arts
funders and arts organizations are examining this seismic shift toward a participatory arts culture
and figuring out how to adapt in new and creative ways that will have long-term benefits to
arts organizations and the people they serve. We commissioned this report to deepen our own
understanding of these changes and to help spotlight exciting examples of participatory arts
practices. And in reviewing the findings, we believe more than ever that the arts organizations
that will thrive in our current environment will be the ones who create new and meaningful
opportunities for people to engage.
This report and case studies of illustrative projects help provide a better understanding of how
people are engaging in the arts, and of how arts organizations are enabling this involvement.
Researchers at WolfBrown investigated active arts participation across the arts sector in the
United States, United Kingdom and Australia, learning from more than 100 organizations
currently engaging in participatory arts. The report helps address many of the concerns that arts
organizations may have in embracing participatory arts practices and illuminates the various trends
in the field that are responsible for this shift. This report also presents the Audience Involvement
Spectrum, a helpful new model for understanding various levels of arts engagement.
We hope that other funders and those interested in the interplay between arts and community find
this report inspiring and informative. As we evolve Irvines Arts grantmaking strategy to support
participatory arts practices, we hope that this report provides ideas and inspiration for organizations
who are interested in exploring how they can best engage their audiences and communities.
Our thanks go to Alan S. Brown, Jennifer L. Novak-Leonard, Shelly Gilbride and other members
of the WolfBrown research team, as well as the many nonprofit practitioners who shared their time
and insights to make this study possible.
Sincerely,

Josephine Ramirez
Arts Program Director
The James Irvine Foundation
October 2011
Foreword
ARTS PARTICIPATION is being redened as people increasingly choose to engage with art in
new, more active and expressive ways. This movement carries profound implications, and fresh
opportunities, for the nonprot arts sector.
We are in the midst of a seismic shift in cultural production, moving from a sit-back-and-be-told culture to a
making-and-doing-culture.
1
Active or participatory arts practices are emerging from the fringes of the Western
cultural tradition to capture the collective imagination. Many forces have conspired to lead us to this point. The
sustained economic downturn that began in 2008, rising ticket prices, the pervasiveness of social media, the
proliferation of digital content and rising expectations for self-guided, on-demand, customized experiences have all
contributed to a cultural environment primed for active arts practice. This shift calls for a new equilibrium in the arts
ecology and a new generation of arts leaders ready to accept, integrate and celebrate all forms of cultural practice.
This is, perhaps, the dening challenge of our time for artists, arts organizations and their supporters to embrace
a more holistic view of the cultural ecology and identify new possibilities for Americans to engage with the arts.
How can arts institutions adapt to this new environment?
Is participatory practice contradictory to, or complementary to, a business model that relies
on professional production and consumption?
How can arts organizations enter this new territory without compromising their values
or artistic ideals?
This report aims to illuminate a growing body of practice around participatory engagement (with various illustrative
case studies proled at the end) and dispel some of the anxiety surrounding this sphere of activity.
The discussion begins by placing participatory practice in the context of the larger cultural ecology, with
consideration of the role of the Internet in fostering interactivity. A synopsis of the individual and community
benets associated with active participation is provided, as well as an analysis of the symbiotic relationship between
participatory arts practice and attendance. Without greater attention to community-based creative expression, the
report suggests, arts groups devoted solely to a consumption model of program delivery will slowly lose ground in
a competitive marketplace.
Summary
With growing frequency, artists and arts organizations are integrating active arts practices into their work, often through
collaborations and partnerships. The Audience Involvement Spectrum (below) is a simple framework developed to
describe the different ways participatory arts programs work, and the various entry points for participation. This
ve-stage model illustrates a progression of involvement from spectating in which the audience member plays
only a minor role in the artistic outcome to the point at which there is no conventional audience at all because
every person involved is creating, doing or making.
In the last section of the paper, 10 case studies shine a light on different families of active arts practice employed
by arts groups to engage audiences, visitors and communities. In researching active arts practice, an extraordinary
diversity of programs and activities were found in terms of scale, artistic genre, budget and creative outcomes,
ranging from public dance events to participatory theater productions taking place entirely within Facebook
.
Hyperlinks throughout the text offer opportunities to explore the current state of practice.
Culture is not being shaped by someone or something else.
2
We all are shaping our culture. We all are creating
what is meaningful, vibrant and real the amateurs and the experts, the institutional and the individual, the
privileged and the disenfranchised, the mainstream and the alternative. We is collective and social, yet often very
personal. It is participatory, active and interactive. Of course, this has always been true. But a great shift is underway
as participatory arts practice moves closer to the core of public value. This should not be seen as a marketing
problem, but as an opportunity to engage the collaborative, co-creative, open source mindset that is present in every
community, however small or large, urban or rural.
3
Navigating these waters will require us to reimagine what
creative vibrancy looks like in the 21st century, and to reconsider what roles we want to play in the creative
life of our communities.
THE AUDIENCE I NVOLVEMENT SPECTRUM
PARTICIPATORY RECEPTIVE
The Audience Involvement Spectrum
Spectating is
fundamentally an
act of receiving a
finished artistic
product. It is
therefore outside the
realm of participa-
tory arts practice.
Educational or
enrichment
programs may
activate the creative
mind, but for the
most part do not
involve creative
expression on the
part of the audience
member.
Audience becomes
activated in choosing
or contributing
towards an artistic
product.
Youth mosaics
Photography
contests
An opera libretto
comprised of Tweets
Virtual choruses
Participatory theater
Pro/Am concerts
Storytelling events
Participatory
public art
Audience members
contribute something
to an artistic exper-
ience curated by a
professional artist.
Public dances
Community drawing
contests
Audience members
substantially take
control of the artistic
experience; focus
shifts from the
product to the
process of creation.
SPECTATING
ENHANCED
ENGAGEMENT CROWD SOURCING CO-CREATION
AUDIENCE-AS-
ARTIST
PARTICIPANTS LEVEL OF CREATIVE CONTROL
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
option 2
WHAT I S PARTI CI PATORY?
Participatory arts practice as dened in this report requires
creative expression which includes some arts experiences
but not others.
TERMINOLOGY
The terminology surrounding arts participation is in a state of ux. There is no generally accepted set of terms to
describe arts participation, but an evolving lexicon of words and phrases that describe how people encounter and
express their creative selves and share in the creativity of others. Key words and phrases used in this paper are
dened as follows:
Participatory Arts Practice and Active Arts Programs: The focus of this paper, these terms are used to describe
various forms of arts participation in which people play an expressive role. More specically, these terms refer to
arts programs and activities in which the participant is involved in artistic production by making, doing or creating
something, or contributing ideas to a work of art, regardless of skill level. The degree of creative control varies from
minimal (e.g., learning a dance step) to maximal (e.g., choreographing an original dance step). The expressive nature
of the activity is what makes it participatory, whether or not original work is created. All of the case studies featured
in the last section of this report are examples of active arts programs.
Arts Engagement: Engagement is often used within
the eld to describe enrichment or educational
activities intended to enhance or deepen audience
experiences (e.g., post-performance discussions).
In this report, the term is used differently, to
describe the entire spectrum of ways that people
can be involved in the arts. In this context, arts
participation and arts engagement are used
interchangeably.
Arts Learning or Arts Education: The boundary
between participatory arts practice and arts learning
(i.e., acquisition of artistic skills) is blurry. In a sense,
all arts learning (e.g., taking a sculpture class) is
participatory arts practice, but the reverse is not true.
The focus of this paper is participatory arts practice,
exclusive of arts learning.
4

Audience: Traditionally, the term audience
is associated with observational or receptive
participation
5
(i.e., spectating or consuming an arts
program, either live or recorded). In the realm of
participatory practice, however, the line between
artist and audience is less distinct. At times, audience
members become active participants, and sometimes
toggle between these two roles at the same event,
such as a street dance at which participants both
dance and watch others dance. Sometimes, there
is no audience at all beyond those who actively
participate. This report acknowledges that the idea of
audience is being redened and, in the future, may
take on a more expressive connotation.
VS.
VS.
VS.
VS.
PLAYING A
VIDEO GAME
WATCHING A DANCE
COMPETITION ON TV
ATTENDING
A CONCERT
READING
A BOOK
MAKING
A VIDEO
DANCING IN
A COMPETITION
WRITING A STORY
ABOUT YOUR LIFE
SINGING IN
A CHOIR
Throughout history, participatory arts practice has ourished, from the raucous Dionysian festivals of ancient
Greece to the parlor piano recitals of the Belle poque. With the advent of recording technologies and commercial
entertainment, spectatorship and consumption became a priority in American culture. While writing, drawing,
singing and craft-making have all remained central to our identity as a people, art-making as a social pastime
waned signicantly during the 20th century.
6
Now, once again, the tables are turning. Sharing the bounty
of our personal and collective creativity with the aid of technology is a dening characteristic of this
making-and-doing-culture.
Technology has fundamentally changed the way people interact, learn and think about culture.
7
Contemporary
notions of creativity, shaped by Web 2.0, center on shared construction of cultural identity and an ethos of
participatory expression. Interactivity, as a means of building shared meaning and uniting communities, has
deep historical roots, from the call and response in gospel preaching to the improvisatory turns in traditional folk
dance. What is different now is the unprecedented ability of the average person to access, make and share art and
ideas on a global scale.
8
The open, free and instantaneous exchange of digital content affords people the resources
to control their own creative experiences and make their own meaning. Interactive experiences of all sorts are now
an expected norm.
9
This shift is about more than just technology. People are thinking about the experience of culture differently than in
the past, placing value on a more immersive and interactive experience than is possible through mere observation.
From the resurgence of knitting circles to the growing legions of rusty musicians and aspiring storytellers, Americans
are activating their own creativity in new and unusual ways. This phenomenon is not limited to culture, but part of
a larger participation economy in which social connection eclipses consumption. Increasingly, Americans want to
meet the people who make our products, share in the work of the makers and make things ourselves.
10
As artists collaborate, sample, remix and repurpose, they obscure the line between creator and observer and toy
with fundamental presumptions of originality and authenticity that traditionally dene artistic excellence.
11
In
recent years, researchers have brought to light the vitality of cultural activity occurring outside of the nonprot
sector in more informal or community-based settings. In cities and towns across the United States, participatory
arts practice is gaining recognition as an important aspect of quality of life and a means of building civic identity
and communal meaning.
12

Interactivity and hyperstimulation are now dening characteristics of contemporary living. Extreme sports,
interactive gaming and even the escalating production costs on Broadway belie a fundamental shift in American
thinking. Inevitably, it seems, the thresholds for physical pleasure, especially visual and aural stimulation, rise ever
higher. Notwithstanding the efforts of some orchestras and theaters to enfranchise youth through programs themed
on video games
13
, conventionally presented arts programs are less and less likely to hold the attention of younger
consumers. Yet, the arts remains a pervasive aspect of American life, with 74 percent participating in some way
be it through attendance, arts creation or media-based participation.
14
Perhaps the time has come to focus attention
on how and where Americans are participating in the arts, rather than how and where they are not.
As active forms of participation gain legitimacy and become culturally ingrained, values that were so much a part
of 20th century conversations about American cultural vitality for example, economic impact, professionalism
and virtuosity have receded, and a different conversation is taking hold. The value of the arts in this participatory
culture is its ability to connect people through shared experiences and to contribute to vibrant, livable communities.
15

Participatory arts practices, whether technology-based or physical, are integrating art into the fabric of peoples
everyday lives, their neighborhoods and their value systems.
Introduction: The New Landscape
of Arts Participation
If you run a theater company, consider what drama means to the average person in your community. What
connections might be made between literature, spoken word, storytelling and live drama? If you serve on the board
of an art museum, think about how art creates meaning for people outside of museums. How might home-based art
activities fulll your mission? If youre the artistic director of a dance company, reect on the prominence of social
dancing as a creative outlet and what connections your company might make to other parts of the dance world.
While some may see these ecological questions as a distraction, they can be regarded as an opportunity to sharpen
focus on art and creativity the core of all we do.
If participatory arts practice lies outside of your
organizations mission and value system, why is that? Is
it intentional, presumed or unintentional? Whatever your
answers to these questions, the thought process is healthy.
Exciting new partnerships and programs can emerge
from a dialogue between professional and community
artists, audiences, board members and staff about an
organizations place in the arts ecosystem.
16
At minimum,
clarity on why you choose to be active in one area but not
another might be gained.
There are several ways to conceive the arts ecosystem.
In their 2005 report, Creative Community Index, John
Kreidler and Philip Trounstine offer a simple and intuitive
framework for thinking about the cultural ecology of a
community. Their model asserts cultural literacy as the
foundation of a healthy cultural ecology, supporting
higher levels of engagement such as participatory cultural
practice and consumption of professional cultural goods
and services. An adaptation of their model appears at left.
17
Where do you operate in this system? Who else in
your community operates in adjacent spaces?
Using a cultural frame that encompasses informal arts practices as well as consumption, a growing body of
international research paints a more nuanced and multi-layered picture of arts participation, including and validating
parts of the ecosystem that were previously invisible.
18
CULTURAL ECOLOGY FRAMEWORK
How Participatory Arts Fits
in the Cultural Ecology
Cultural literacy
Participatory
cultural practice
Professional
cultural goods
and services
Further insight into the complexity of the ecosystem can be gained by looking at the different types of settings
and venues where arts experiences occur:
Purpose-built arts venues such as museums, theaters, concert halls, jazz clubs, cinemas and community
art centers; these may be operated by nonprot arts organizations or for-prot businesses
Community spaces such as schools, places of worship, recreational facilities, libraries and other
neighborhood venues
Outdoor public spaces such as parks, sidewalks and streets
Virtual spaces, including websites, blogs, posts and games
The home
19
While an in-depth discussion of setting is outside the purview of this paper, it is worth noting that participatory
arts practice can take place in a wide range of settings, both physical and virtual. The symbolic importance that
different people ascribe to different settings, and the availability of different settings in different communities, are key
drivers of participation. Networks of people move in and around these different settings. For example, young music
lovers will go see a jazz artist in one venue but not another.
20
In what settings do you reach your constituents? How
might your audience change in different settings? Finding the right setting for an active arts program can greatly
increase its chances of success.
21
The Internet, as a relatively new setting for arts participation, has expanded the denition of community beyond
geographic boundaries and added an important dimension to the arts ecology. Online communities can be global
and uid, often coalescing around a specic idea or project, and then disappearing as fast as they formed. Web-
based arts communities are bridging the physical barriers to arts access as well as reshaping the denitions of
artistic creation.
22
The social structures and network theories underlying Web 2.0 have added fuel to the re of
participatory arts practice, as typied by performance ashmobs, and giving rise to a new family of digital arts
projects, such as the Australia Council for the Arts What Makes Me website, which aims to build Australias
largest collaborative digital story. Just as participatory arts practices provide effective bridges across boundaries
of race, class, age and ethnicity within physical communities,
23
the value of the open source Web environment
is its social atness and structural disregard for traditional demographic indicators like race, age and gender
notwithstanding issues of access to technology.
Gaining an ecological view of arts participation is, perhaps, the greatest challenge and most urgent need facing
the arts sector. Every community has a different ecology with distinctive providers, publics and resources. Arts
institutions must assess their current place in the ecology and adapt to meet the changing needs of their communities.
Participatory arts practice is alive and well in every community, though it is often under the radar of foundation
funders and wealthy donors. As public interest in participatory arts practice gains critical mass, policymakers attuned
to meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse voter base will pay more attention. Arts groups who overlook this
broad and robust layer of the ecology will miss an important opportunity.
BENEFITS OF PARTICIPATORY ARTS
An international debate rages about the value of the arts. Can the economic value of investments in culture be
measured? Do public investments in culture require any justication at all, if the true benets of the arts are
intrinsic? Much of this debate stems from declining public subsidies for the arts in the United Kingdom and Europe,
and the consequent efforts by government agencies and private funders to seek a better framework for guiding
future investments. John Holden, an inuential writer in the U.K., has argued for several years that culture needs
a more democratic mandate.
24
Missing in this debate is a dispassionate, critical assessment of the relative benets and value of participatory arts
practice versus receptive participation (i.e., spectating). For example, how are the benets of attending a choral
concert different from the benets of singing in a choir? Are certain cognitive, emotional and social benets more
attainable through participatory practice than observational participation? Conversely, what benets are unique
to receptive participation? How are the benets of these two modes of participation symbiotic? In 2004, RAND
produced Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate about the Benets of the Arts, a comprehensive review of
research literature on the benets of the arts.
25
Few distinctions were offered in reference to participatory arts
practice, although the authors noted that creating an original work of art can activate a sense of pride and satisfy
a deep desire to leave a legacy.
Much of the insight on active participation resides in the evaluation literature of the arts education eld. A good deal
is known about how children benet from arts learning programs, including greater self-efcacy, agency (stemming
from a sense of accomplishment), socialization skills and learning how to collaborate.
26
Do adults involved in active
arts programs experience the same benets as children?
Research on creativity has blossomed in recent years, especially in the domains of psychology and management
science. Findings have described the nature of creativity itself and the effects of creativity on individuals and
organizations. Critical thinking skills, an ability to communicate clearly and persuasively, creativity in problem
solving and a passion to embrace new ideas are widely recognized as 21st century job skills.
27
What does
participatory arts practice contribute to the American workforce, and what more can it contribute? In his 2011
book Making Is Connecting: The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0,
David Gauntlett reminds us that creativity helps us to build resilience and the creative capacity to deal with
signicant challenges.
A small but growing number of studies address the benets to neighborhoods and communities of a creatively
engaged citizenry, particularly the work of Mark Stern and Susan Siefert at the University of Pennsylvanias
Social Impact of the Arts Project. WolfBrown research on cultural engagement in Philadelphia illustrates the close
relationship between cultural engagement (including participatory forms) and civic engagement.
28
In a 2008 study,
Magnetizing Neighborhoods through Amateur Arts Performances, D. Garth Taylor analyzes the correlation
between amateur, informal arts practices and neighborhood stability and improvement in Chicago. According to
Taylor, There is a signicant correlation between the amount of amateur, informal arts activity and neighborhood
stability and/or improvement. This correlation is evidence of magnetization an increase in the desirability,
commitment, social integration and quality of life in a community area. The idea that neighborhoods can be
magnetized by participatory arts practice is powerful, and it appeals to civic leaders.
29

Looking across the research, it seems reasonable to claim that active forms of arts participation generate many
personal, community and societal benets. Yet, there are many unanswered questions.
P A G E 1 0 T H E J A ME S I R V I N E F O U N D A T I O N
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PARTICIPATION AND ATTENDANCE
A growing body of data illustrates the interconnectedness
of participatory arts practice and attendance at live events.
General population studies of arts participation consistently
nd that active participants are more likely to be audience
members in the conventional sense. For example, a 2010
study of Philadelphia area adults found that those who
make crafts of any kind attend art museums at twice the
frequency of those who do not.
30
An analysis of the most
recent Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA)
commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts
(NEA) in 2008 suggests that 45 percent of Americans do
creative arts activities (as dened by the 2008 SPPA), while
50 percent of Americans engage by attending arts events.
As illustrated at left, the overlap is substantial 33 percent
of all adults do both.
31
Although causality cannot be proven
in one direction or another, a clear symbiosis is evident
between participatory arts practice and attendance.
Audience studies conducted over the past several years
provide further evidence that large percentages of ticket
buyers have some personal involvement in the art form,
past or present. A 2010 national survey of more than
7,000 dance ticket buyers (ballet and contemporary dance)
found that a majority are currently dancing themselves, either socially or more formally.
32
In the classical music eld,
orchestras have long known of the correlation between participatory arts practice and attendance.
33
Other research
suggests that audience members with a background in the art form are not just more likely to attend, but are more
likely to prepare in advance, to report higher levels of anticipation, and, in some cases, to report that the experience
had a strong impact.
34
The relationship between participatory arts practice and attendance takes on added importance with regard to
younger adults, who are much more likely than older adults to be involved in participatory activities, according to
several of the studies cited here.
35
In fact, The James Irvine Foundation 2008 study of cultural engagement in the
central regions of California concluded that active arts programs are likely to be an entry point for younger and
more diverse populations.
36
Examination of more than 70 examples of active arts programs revealed a range of motivations at work. Some arts
groups see active arts programs as a means of gaining a more favorable prole in the community, or as a long-term
investment in audience development. Others use active arts programming to cultivate donors. The association
between participatory arts practice and increased attendance is positive, but it is a byproduct of a fullling expressive
experience, not a direct result. While any number of secondary benets may accrue to the institution, participatory
arts programs are intrinsically worthwhile, and essential to a healthy arts ecosystem.
DI STRI BUTI ON OF U. S. ADULTS
BASED ON PARTI CI PATI ON I N ARTS ATTENDANCE
AND ARTS CREATI ON, 2008
38%
Neither
12%
Created
only
33%
Created and
attended
17%
Attended only
Source: 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts,
National Endowment for the Arts.
Embracing the New Ecology
No one suggests that theater companies should stop producing Hamlet or that symphony orchestras should stop
playing Mozart. Traditional arts experiences will continue to hold meaning and value for many people, and
observational participation will always be an essential part of arts ecology. Those experiences, however, are a part
of a much larger cultural whole. Just as the U.S. population is diversifying, so, too, are the types of arts and cultural
experiences that Americans enjoy. Most likely, we are still at the beginning of this seismic shift. It is not a fad or
a trend, but a fundamental realignment of demand that will, inevitably, reshape supply. In response, funders and
policymakers will increasingly wake up to inequities in the system of cultural provision and move resources to
historically undercapitalized parts of the ecology, including participatory arts.
A great reconciliation between art and audiences is underway, characterized by a
period of tful innovation, bankruptcies and a generational shift in leadership. With the
decline in arts education, fewer young adults are arriving on the professional arts scene
with the knowledge and experience that their parents had.
37
The arts education system
is not replenishing the pool of arts-educated adults who visit art museums and buy
theater tickets. Assuming a 20-year lag between cause and effect, it is likely that we are
just beginning to see the results of disinvestment in arts education. In this challenging
environment, exibility and creativity in programming will become paramount to the
survival of arts organizations. Artists, curators and administrators must quickly embrace
the diversity of preferences, settings and formats that will engage the next generation, and
the one after that.
It is important to recognize that the young people entering todays cultural scene are not aesthetically bankrupt.
More often, their creative interests simply lie elsewhere beyond attendance in the realms of spoken word,
sharing playlists, competitive dance, digital design and remixing and refashioning a wide range of artistic content.
As cultural tastes diversify and fragment, expectations for what constitutes an
enjoyable evening out are changing. For example, it seems that more and more
concertgoers are content with a 75-minute program with no intermission. Yet,
marathon all-day and late-night programs attract large crowds.
38
In short, it
is becoming more difcult to satisfy everyone with one experience. Audience
development, therefore, is not just a marketing problem. Primarily, it is a programming issue. Attracting the next
generation of audiences and visitors will require a transformation in programming, not just better marketing. Even
then, when new audiences appear on the scene, they will be different. Fewer will want to sit still in uncomfortable
seats, and more will demand a larger role in shaping their own experience.
The implications of this shift are rattling the very foundations of the infrastructure and value systems at work in
the sector. A new equilibrium is emerging, in which civic cultural leadership not only builds and sustains pillar
organizations, but aims to integrate art, culture and creativity into every aspect of community life. In order to
preserve their cultural signicance and symbolic importance to community, our largest cultural programs and
facilities must assume new roles, much like the re-orientation occurring through the Active Arts
program of the
Music Center/Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County.
39

Audience development is not just
a marketing problem. Primarily,
it is a programming issue.
Artists, curators and
administrators must quickly
embrace the diversity of
preferences, settings and
formats that will engage
the next generation, and
the one after that.
Every arts group must nd its own way through this new terrain. As active arts programming moves toward the center
of the body of practice, some arts groups will make minor adjustments to time-tested programming formulas, while
others will rewrite their mission statements and launch entirely new initiatives. Time has shown that the art forms
themselves are robust enough to accommodate new approaches to presentation and audience involvement. But art
evolves in the hands of artists, curators and the institutions that fund their work. Will they see participatory practice
as the dumbing down of the legacy of professional artistic production, or will they see it as a necessary complement?
Arts groups who wish to expand their impact and garner additional community support will need to reconsider
their role in the larger ecology of cultural literacy, participatory arts practice and professional production. Signs of a
vibrant culture of active participation are all around us. The study behind this report turned up scores of examples
of innovative programming, which will be discussed in the next section.
Arts groups around the world are responding to the changing landscape of arts participation with innovative
programs that actively engage the public in a myriad of ways. This study uncovered a wide range of programs and
activities, some recurring, some ephemeral, sponsored by a rich variety of arts organizations, large and small,
across all artistic disciplines.
40
Extraordinarily diverse in nature, scale and scope, these practices defy clear
categorization. Yet, their underlying purposes and structures provide clues to an emerging conceptual model
for participatory arts practice.
Participatory arts practice involves two broad categories of programs and projects, based on the intended audience:
Audience-Based Programs. This category of activity includes arts programs and projects that seek audiences
beyond those who participate in the art-making. Examples include Pro-Am classical music concerts that blend
professional and amateur performers (e.g., Rusty Musicians), community-based theater events, public exhibitions
featuring crowd-sourced art, storytelling programs in which community members both contribute and spectate,
video-making contests that involve public voting, and some co-created performance events such as HERE Art
Centers Lush Valley that give audience members the option to contribute.
Participant-Based Programs. This category encompasses arts programs and projects whose primary purpose is
to provide a fullling creative experience for those who participate. Examples include social dances such as Bal
Moderne, participatory art-making events such as the SketchCrawl
drawing marathons, and some co-created

performance events in which there is no intended audience apart from the participants.
While the distinction between these two categories of activity may be clear enough, a philosophical gulf runs
between them. Audience-based programs maintain focus on consumption of an artistic product, even with a
participatory component, while participant-based programs focus on the process of artistic creation, independent of
the product. As a result, the former category represents more comfortable territory for presenters of professional arts
programs, while the latter category tends to occur outside the purview of nonprot arts presenters (although it need
not). Both are essential parts of the ecosystem.
Participatory Arts in Practice
WHO PAYS FOR PARTI CI PATORY ARTS PROGRAMS?
Case study research attempted to gather nancial information about the costs and revenues associated with each program.
While some programs generate signicant earned and unearned revenues, not all are monetized (i.e., some depend almost
entirely on volunteers).
Four general approaches to nancing active arts programs were found: 1) using unrestricted funds (not specically designated
for programming) to avoid confusing donors about what is, or is not, core programming; 2) integrating active arts elements into
core programming, so the two become indistinguishable from a fundraising standpoint; 3) charging admissions or participant
fees; and 4) leveraging an arts activity to generate support from community partners (e.g., sponsorships, supplies and materials)
and volunteers (pro bono time). More research and experimentation are needed to better understand the economics of producing
different types of active arts programs. According to one organization, an entirely new vocabulary is needed to motivate donors to
support active arts programs.
Another helpful way to distinguish active arts programs is by their intended goals or outcomes, which are placed
into four categories that follow. The order in which they are listed should not be construed as indicating anything
about their relative value. Arts groups with existing active arts programs might consider where their programs fall in
this taxonomy.
Participation in Service of a Community Need or Societal Goal. This study uncovered many participatory arts
programs designed around specic goals such as social justice, social activism or giving voice to disenfranchised
communities. An example is the Art is Ageless program, a series of participatory art projects involving youth
and seniors in Philadelphia, organized by NewCourtland Network, a social service agency, and The Center for
Emerging Visual Artists. Many of these programs are organized by community organizations outside of the arts
sector, although there are exceptions, such as Helix Arts and Spare Tyre (both in the United Kingdom). In technical
terms, these programs serve instrumental purposes (i.e., art as an instrument of some other outcome).
Participation in Support of, or as a Complement to, Artistic Vision. These activities are mission-driven but not
connected to core programming. Usually, the process of participating is more important than the artistic outcome.
This category of activity can be a good entry point for arts groups. Examples include orchestras that sponsor
amateur performances, such as the San Francisco Symphonys Community of Music Makers program, and theater
companies that encourage patrons to gather together in small groups to read scripts, with each person assuming a
role. These activities can build loyalty and buy-in to the organizations mission, and foster a sense of community.
Participation in Service of an Artistic Process or Product. This includes situations in which audience members
are allowed to co-create aspects of the artistic experience, or actually create the art. An example is the National
Theatre Wales production of The Passion, a contemporary retelling of the story of the crucixion of Jesus Christ
with the people of Port Talbot, Wales, as its cast and crew (more than 1,000 volunteers, in total). In these programs
the participatory activity, however cursory or deep, is in service of a professionally curated artistic outcome.
Participation as the Fundamental Goal. Here, the participatory aspect of the activity is paramount, and the artistic
outcome is impossible to curate. In fact, the whole point of these programs is that the artistic outcome is uncertain
and largely in the hands of the participants. In other words, the artistic outcome is a byproduct of participation.
In this category, audience members and artists become one. An example is Figment, a free, annual celebration of
participatory art and culture featuring the work of local dancers, musicians, actors and visual artists in four cities:
Boston, New York, Detroit and Jackson, Mississippi.
THE AUDIENCE INVOLVEMENT SPECTRUM
At the core of participatory arts practice is the nature and extent of the audience members involvement in the
artistic experience. The Audience Involvement Spectrum, illustrated below, provides a simple depiction of ve
overlapping stages of involvement
Each of the elements in the spectrum is described further in the pages that follow.
THE AUDIENCE I NVOLVEMENT SPECTRUM
Spectating is
fundamentally an
act of receiving a
finished artistic
product. It is
realm of participa-
tory arts practice.
Educational or
enrichment
programs may
mind, but for the
most part do not
involve creative
expression on the
member.
Audience becomes
or contributing
towards an artistic
product.
Youth mosaics
Photography
contests
An opera libretto
comprised of Tweets
Virtual choruses
Pro/Am concerts
Storytelling events
Participatory
public art
Audience members
ience curated by a
Public dances
Community drawing
contests
Audience members
substantially take
experience; focus
shifts from the
product to the
SPECTATING
ENHANCED
AUDIENCE-AS-
ARTIST
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
option 2
Receptive Stages
The involvement spectrum begins with spectating. While audience
members may be actively involved in the artistic exchange
emotionally and intellectually, and while audience members give
something back to the artists (e.g., applause or laughter) and thereby
play a role in shaping the artistic experience of both the artist and
the audience itself, spectating is fundamentally an act of receiving
a nished artistic product. It is therefore outside the realm of
participatory arts practice.
Arts groups are devoting a great deal of energy these days to assisting
visitors and audiences in having deeper, more meaningful arts
experiences (i.e., enhanced engagement). A wide variety of methods
have been developed (and are still in development), including pre-
event contextualization, interpretive assistance, post-event discussions,
impact surveys and other forms of meaning-making. These programs
can heighten anticipation and magnify impact, and to some extent
have already become standard practice. While these types of educational or enrichment programs may activate the
creative mind, for the most part they do not involve creative expression on the part of the audience member (i.e.,
making or doing). This is a key distinction.
The rst two stages in the Audience Involvement Spectrum do not involve participatory arts practice as dened
in this paper, and are included in the spectrum for contextual purposes only. The starting point for participatory
arts practice begins when the audience member becomes an expressive participant in the making of the
artistic experience.
41
Participatory Stage 1: Crowd-Sourcing Artistic Content
Here we enter the realm of participatory arts practice. In the crowd-sourcing stage of
the involvement spectrum, the audience becomes activated in choosing or contributing
toward the creation of an artistic product, typically curated or produced by professional
artists. The audience is not yet on stage but has contributed to the artistic work. This
burgeoning area of artistic production has a rich history.
42
Art exhibitions comprising of
works by community artists, youth mosaics, photography contests, sculptures involving
public input, an opera libretto composed of tweets, virtual choruses and theatrical works
based on community stories these are all examples of the crowd-sourcing stage
of audience involvement. In this sphere of work, artists are challenged to nd ways
of incorporating input from audiences or community members (some of whom may
be accomplished artists) into their work, which represents a fundamentally different
approach to artistic creation. Many of the current-day examples of crowd-sourcing
artistic content are made possible by the ease of sharing digital les. While a small circle
of artists, curators and directors has always been interested in this modality of creation,
it has not yet entered the mainstream, although this appears to be changing.
43
Spectating is
fundamentally an
act of receiving a
finished artistic
product. It is
realm of participa-
tory arts practice.
Educational or
enrichment
programs may
mind, but for the
most part do not
involve creative
expression on the
member.
Audience becomes
or contributing
towards an artistic
product.
Youth mosaics
Photography
contests
An opera libretto
comprised of Tweets
Virtual choruses
Pro/Am concerts
Storytelling events
Participatory
public art
Audience members
ience curated by a
Public dances
Community drawing
contests
Audience members
substantially take
experience; focus
shifts from the
product to the
SPECTATING
ENHANCED
AUDIENCE-AS-
ARTIST
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
option 2
Spectating is
fundamentally an
act of receiving a
finished artistic
product. It is
realm of participa-
tory arts practice.
Educational or
enrichment
programs may
mind, but for the
most part do not
involve creative
expression on the
member.
Audience becomes
or contributing
towards an artistic
product.
Youth mosaics
Photography
contests
An opera libretto
comprised of Tweets
Virtual choruses
Pro/Am concerts
Storytelling events
Participatory
public art
Audience members
ience curated by a
Public dances
Community drawing
contests
Audience members
substantially take
experience; focus
shifts from the
product to the
SPECTATING
ENHANCED
AUDIENCE-AS-
ARTIST
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
option 2
Participatory Stage 2: Co-Creation
In this stage of the spectrum, audience members become directly involved in the
artistic experience, such as when community musicians play concerts with professional
orchestras, or when audience members at a dance performance are asked to stand up and
move as part of the choreography. Inherently, some level of artistic control
is ceded to the participant or audience member. Hannah Rudman, a consultant in the
United Kingdom, asserts that co-creation is not as much about giving up control as it
is about a new form of organizational porosity a mindset that allows for a free
exchange of creative energy between an arts organization and its public.
44
Co-creation is a dynamic and emerging area of arts practice. The performing arts offers
more examples in participatory stage than does the visual arts, where artistic content tends
to be more xed. An exception is the realm of participatory public art, a fun and highly
engaging area of artistic work in which visitors touch, climb into, change and otherwise
interact with the work, creating a unique experience each time. One example is an
outdoor lighting installation in which visitors are asked to wear all-white clothing in order
to become a moving, living palette for the light.
Theater, music, dance and storytelling programs that involve audience members in an artistic capacity also qualify
as co-creation. A large part of this work involves professional artists working with community groups on an artistic
project, such as when the Cincinnati Opera sends its singers into local churches to rehearse and perform in gospel
music concerts. Sometimes the work is part of an organizations core programming, although co-creation more
typically falls under the umbrella of community engagement. As this work continues to move from the fringe to
the core of artistic programming, the generational shift in audience that is already underway will accelerate.
Sometimes the line between spectating and co-creation is a ne one. When artists interact extensively with audience
members during a live performance, the result can amount to co-creation. For example, the popular vocalist Bobby
McFerrin regularly engages his audiences in co-creation through call and response techniques and other forms of
involvement. Other times, the line is very clear, as with Attack Theatres Some Assembly Required, described as
a collision of the planned and the spontaneous. One of the most colorful examples of co-creation in recent
memory was Drumstruck, an interactive drum-theatre experience that played in New York for a short time in
2006. Upon entering the Theatre, each audience member found a 2-foot-tall drum on his or her seat. During the
show, the 11-member percussion ensemble and the audience collaborated on some raucous music-making.
Participatory Stage 3: Audience-as-Artist
The fth and most participatory stage of the Audience Involvement Spectrum
occurs when audience members substantially take control of the artistic experience.
A professional artist may design the experience, but the outcome depends on the
participants. This is not necessarily an unbridled creative free-for-all, but often a highly
organized, collaborative effort. There may be an audience for the work, such as when a
crowd gathers to watch mural artists or street painters at work. Or, audience members
may alternate between spectating and creating, such as at Feast of Words, a monthly
experiment in participatory literature in San Francisco. The resultant work of art may
or may not be created for public consumption or critical approval, but the process of
creating it is what matters most. In participatory dance events like Bal Moderne and
Big Dance, the creative outcome is entirely dependent on the participation of the public.
Spectating is
fundamentally an
act of receiving a
finished artistic
product. It is
realm of participa-
tory arts practice.
Educational or
enrichment
programs may
mind, but for the
most part do not
involve creative
expression on the
member.
Audience becomes
or contributing
towards an artistic
product.
Youth mosaics
Photography
contests
An opera libretto
comprised of Tweets
Virtual choruses
Pro/Am concerts
Storytelling events
Participatory
public art
Audience members
ience curated by a
Public dances
Community drawing
contests
Audience members
substantially take
experience; focus
shifts from the
product to the
SPECTATING
ENHANCED
AUDIENCE-AS-
ARTIST
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
option 2
Spectating is
fundamentally an
act of receiving a
finished artistic
product. It is
realm of participa-
tory arts practice.
Educational or
enrichment
programs may
mind, but for the
most part do not
involve creative
expression on the
member.
Audience becomes
or contributing
towards an artistic
product.
Youth mosaics
Photography
contests
An opera libretto
comprised of Tweets
Virtual choruses
Pro/Am concerts
Storytelling events
Participatory
public art
Audience members
ience curated by a
Public dances
Community drawing
contests
Audience members
substantially take
experience; focus
shifts from the
product to the
SPECTATING
ENHANCED
AUDIENCE-AS-
ARTIST
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
option 2
Level of Participants Creative Control
Within the three participatory stages of the Audience Involvement Spectrum (Crowd-
Sourcing, Co-Creation and Audience-as-Artist), audiences may engage with the art
at various levels of interactivity or creative control: curatorial engagement (selecting,
editing, organizing, voting), interpretive engagement (performing, remaking an existing
work of art), or inventive engagement (creating something entirely new).
45
This adds
another layer of complexity to the spectrum (page 15), and may be helpful in providing language to describe a
complicated area of arts practice.
Audience members who are given the opportunity at the end of a concert to vote for an encore are, technically
speaking, exercising a supercial form of curatorial engagement. They are expressing themselves by making a
choice, which requires no artistic skill but allows everyone to participate. This should be distinguished from other
types of engagement activities that involve more creative control, such as making a new work of art (i.e., inventive
engagement).
Consider the dynamics between the three stages of participatory involvement and the three levels of creative control.
For example, can you think of a program that involves crowd-sourcing artistic content at the interpretive level?
46
For
those willing to reect on the many intersections between them, the creative possibilities are endless.
Spectating is
fundamentally an
act of receiving a
finished artistic
product. It is
realm of participa-
tory arts practice.
Educational or
enrichment
programs may
mind, but for the
most part do not
involve creative
expression on the
member
Audience becomes
or contributing
towards an artistic
product
Youth mosaics
Photography
contests,
An opera libretto
comprised of Tweets
Virtual choruses
Pro/Am concerts
Storytelling events
Participatory
public art
Audience members
ience curated by a
professional artist
Public dances
Community drawing
contests
Audience members
substantially take
experience; focus
shifts from the
product to the
process of creation
SPECTATING
ENHANCED
ENGAGEMENT CROWD SOURCING COCREATION
AUDIENCEAS
ARTIST
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
INVENTIVE
INTERPRETIVE
CURATORIAL
option 2
With the assistance of many colleagues, this study examined
approximately 70 examples of participatory arts programs and
events. The case studies were selected to reect a diversity of
dening features encountered in this research.
Detailed case studies follow in the next section of this
document. They are introduced with brief descriptions below.
Overview of Case Studies
Case study content involves art forms or purposes represented with
these icons to help readers identify examples relevant to their work.
Community
Building
Visual Arts Music Dance Theater
1. Community-Sourced Arts Events
Community
Building

Community
Building
Build institutional relevance and shift the organizations role from gatekeeper to catalyst of creativity.
The Art Gallery of Ontarios In Your Face was an open-submission art exhibit featuring 17,000 portraits collected
from the public. The 5 Minute Theatre Festival featured 200 ve-minute theater works culled from an open
submission process and streamed live over the course of 24 hours.
2. Community-Activated Theater Programs
Community
Building

Community
Building

Weave theater into the fabric of peoples daily lives and use theater as a community-building tool.
Taking the theater for community development genre developed by companies like Cornerstone Theater
Company and Augusto Boals Theatre of the Oppressed to a new level, these projects involve community members
in the creation of a theatrical production, and in its performance. By inviting community members to create, perform
and witness, these programs offer shared, meaningful experiences. Headwaters, produced by the Sautee Nacoochee
Community Association in rural Georgia engages 24 to 40 community members in its bi-annual production while
The Passion, produced by the National Theatre Wales activated the participation of 2,000 in Port Talbot, Wales.
3. Participatory Arts Events
Community
Building

Community
Building

Include festivals and events that celebrate the creative spirit through the act of making art. These events encourage artistic
participation from anyone and everyone willing to participate.
Every few months, the organizers of SketchCrawl
post an upcoming weekend date on sketchcrawl.com for a

day-long sketching marathon. Local sketchers take up the call, advertising a meeting place and sketching the route in
their local communities. Then, on the same date in communities across the world, sketchers of all levels gather with
charcoals, pencils and watercolors to sketch their surroundings and then share the fruits of their creativity online at
sketchcrawl.com and urbansketchers.org.
4. Storytelling Events
Community
Building

Include both individual events and series that encourage people from all walks of life to articulate the stories of their lives,
and to artistically and publically share those stories.
At Stoop Storytelling events, seven Baltimore-area participants get seven minutes each to share a true story with
an appreciative audience. Each program centers on a theme. Having grown in popularity since its founding, the
program now regularly sells out the 541-seat Pearlstone Theater at CENTERSTAGE.
5. Virtual Activation
Community
Building

Comprises interactive web-based programs that encourage and facilitate creative expression.
New Paradise Laboratories, an experimental performance company in Philadelphia, creates original online
participatory theater programs and the technologies that facilitate them. The company has re-imagined the
institutional website as an online platform for user-generated artistic content.
6. Public Dance Events
Community
Building

Activate the moving spirit and social camaraderie through dance.
The Big Dance (2012) in London and the Bal Moderne in Brussels are making dance a part of peoples lives by
using professional choreographers, dancers and dance teachers to produce large-scale public dance projects in which
anyone can learn and dance together. The choreographies are simultaneously fun and interesting, unintimidating but
challenging, personally fullling and collectively inspiring. These programs bring communities together in collective
acts of kinetic energy.
7. Co-Creation
Community
Building

Community
Building

Involves artists and companies that build participation and interactivity into their creative processes.
These performance events activate a profound level of interaction between audience and artist, involving the
audience in the creative process. The outcome of these performances is dependent on what the participants
contribute. Sleep No More by PunchDrunk lets audiences choose their path as they encounter different characters
and performance vignettes. In Attack Theatres Some Assembly Required, participants work with professional
dancers to create a dance based on the artistic qualities of a visual art object.
8. Community Music-Making
Community
Building

Community
Building
Includes symphony orchestras, opera and chamber music groups that engage in professional-amateur activities.
All We Do is Play by the Pacic Symphony responds to demand for more participatory arts experiences by inviting
community members to play, sing and create their own music events, both face-to-face and digital.
9. Engaging Civic Values
Community
Building

Community
Building
Events build community vitality and public support for the arts.
The Davis Art Centers Junk2Genius program celebrates the communitys commitment to reduce, reuse and recycle.
This annual competition features 15 teams of community members competing in a timed sculpt-off using recycled
materials.
10. Participatory Arts Networks
Community
Building
Represent organizations nding ways to facilitate art-making in their communities through events or by providing platforms from
which people can engage.
A growing number of local and regional arts agencies such as ArtsWave in Cincinnati are expanding their support
for the arts beyond grantmaking and technical assistance. Through participatory arts programs and events, these
agencies activate community networks to catalyze, mobilize and facilitate creativity and art-making.
ILLUSTRATIVE CASE STUDIES
Each of the case studies in this section reects an aspect of current practice in active arts programming.
In some cases, multiple examples of a particular practice are grouped together in order to illustrate different
approaches to a similar practice. Suggestions for case studies were sourced through an open nomination
process, which generated a pool of more than 100 individual practices. Through preliminary analysis,
these practices were aggregated into families with similar characteristics 10 of which were selected
for further research.
The case studies include short descriptions of each program, a representative photo or image, hyperlinks
to online resources, as well as a discussion of the implications.
Looking across the case studies, a number of design questions arise for those who plan to conceptualize
and implement an active arts program:
What form(s) of artistic expression do you propose to engage (e.g., dance, music, sculpture,
spoken word)?
What scale or breadth of impact do you aim to make?
How might technology be used to extend impact?
What are you hoping to accomplish in terms of participant outcomes, audience outcomes
and community outcomes?
To what extent will the activity yield an artistic outcome that is visible to the community?
What community partners might be brought into the project?
What degree of technical prociency is required of audience members or participants?
Does the activity allow for solitary participation (e.g., at home), social involvement, or both?
To what extent will professional artists and curators be involved? What qualications will they have?
How many entry points into the project/activity can be created? Is the activity accessible to people
who cannot physically attend?
We are indebted to the many individuals who gave generously of their time and enthusiasm to make
these case studies possible.
Illustrative Case Studies
on Participatory Arts Practice
F O C U S G E T T I N G I N O N T H E A C T : I L L U S T R A T I V E C A S E S T U D I E S
i
McIntyre, Gillian, In Your Face: The Peoples Portrait Project, in Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions, ed. McLean and Pollock (2007): 128-133; McIntyre, Gillian,
In Your Face: The Peoples Portrait Project, in Exhibitionist (2009): 46-50.
ii
Personal interview with Gillian McIntyre, August 4, 2011.
iii
Personal correspondence with Gillian McIntyre, September 27, 2011.
Photo Credit: 2008 Art Gallery of Ontario
IN YOUR FACE: THE PEOPLES
PORTRAIT PROJECT, ART GALLERY
OF ONTARIO
i

Are we actually connecting with the people we think
were serving?
ii
asked Gillian McIntyre, Coordinator
of Adult Programs at the Art Gallery of Ontario. In
January 2006, following the lead of McIntyre and
her co-organizer David Wistow, the Gallery put out
a call for portraits with very few restrictions: the size
had to be 4" x 6", the artists had to sign a copyright
release, the submission had to be received within the
submission time window and the images had to be
original. The response was overwhelming: 17,000
submissions were received from all over the world
and displayed in the In Your Face exhibition. Many
of the artists and their families and friends came to
see their portrait hung and revered inside the Gallery,
bringing a greater than usual diversity of visitors
to the gallery. The In Your Face exhibition occurred
at the same time as the Art Gallery of Ontarios
rebuilding; an attempt to change the Gallerys
way of being philosophically, as well as physically.
iii

The exhibition helped to pull the Gallery away
from its modus operandi where curatorial expertise
is paramount toward a model where the visitor
Community-sourced arts events feature
the works of everyday artists, shifting
the organizations role from gatekeeper
to catalyst of creativity. Programs of this
type broaden community ownership
by opening their proverbial doors to
community artists and inviting their
creative voices to be a part of the
organization. In doing so, the
projects take on a life of their
own, exceeding expectations.
COMMUNITY-
SOURCED ARTS
EVENTS: BUILDING
INSTITUTIONAL
RELEVANCE
experience is paramount. The exhibit transformed
the Gallery into a community space by featuring
the communitys works and community members
voices. This shift in focus did encounter some
pushback from curators, but ultimately the exhibition
helped the Gallery itself become a catalyst for
creativity. The budget for this highly publicized
exhibition: sweat and duct tape.
5 MINUTE THEATRE, NATIONAL
THEATRE OF SCOTLAND
On June 21, 2011, the National Theatre of Scotland
streamed more than 200 ve-minute pieces of live
theater within a 24-hour span. When putting out
a call for pieces, staff was not condent that they
would receive enough submissions. They ultimately
received almost twice the number they could use,
necessitating a screening process, which they had
not originally intended. The pieces came from a
mix of professional and amateur artists, community
groups and individuals. Marianne Maxwell,
Audience Development Manager, National Theatre
of Scotland, explained that watching the streaming
was like listening to an iPod on shufe you never
knew what would come next and that the 24-hour
streaming event had the energy and sense of a
communal experience of live theater.
IMPLICATIONS
The open calls for submissions to these events
encouraged work from professional and recreational
artists, and from those who dont consider
themselves artists at all. Efforts were made to
show nearly all, if not all, submissions. How might
your organization use an open submission process
to build relationships with the community? How
can the communitys creativity be reected back to
it, in a way that benets your organization? While
arts organizations may have to relinquish some
level of quality control in these types of events,
it is nevertheless possible to exercise a degree of
curatorial initiative. The success of these programs
illustrates the potential for achieving a high level of
artistic quality through open submission events.
ii
CONTINUED: CASE STUDY COMMUNITY-SOURCED ARTS EVENTS: BUILDING INSTITUTIONAL RELEVANCE
Photo Credit: Colin Hattersly, 5 Minute Theatre, National Theater of Scotland, 2011
i
Personal interview with Marianne Maxwell, Audience Development Manager, National Theatre of Scotland, August 4, 2011.
ii
Simon, Nina, Contributing to Museums, Chapter 6 in The Participatory Museum, 2010.
Through this pilot project, the National Theatre
was aiming to harness creativity, not dictate what
creativity is. Maxwell reports they are only just
beginning to realize the potential of this dynamic.
i

Photo Credit Headwaters: A Goodly Portion of Our Songs and Stories, Silver Image Studio, 2011
HEADWATERS, SAUTEE NACOOCHEE
COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION, GEORGIA
Headwaters is a community story-play and
performance taking place annually in a small
community in rural northeast Georgia.
ii
The project
is driven by Lisa Mount, a professional artist, under
the umbrella of the Sautee Nacoochee Community
Association, a nonprot organization dedicated to
nurturing creativity and committed to preserving
and protecting the natural and historical resources
in the Appalachian foothills. With its rst production
in 2007, the process of creating Headwaters is a
two-year cycle generated by a creative collaboration
between professional theater artists and community
performers. While many programs may use
community members to augment the work of
professional performers and writers, Headwaters
taps into local resources and empowers community
members to collaborate together to create the work.
Beginning with a story collection process, anyone
can be involved. There are no auditions. Rather, the
producer and director conduct Talent Inventories,
learning about the talents and skills people have and
how they can be utilized.
Taking the theatre for community
development genre developed by
companies like Cornerstone Theater
Company and Augusto Boals Theatre
of the Oppressed to a new level, these
projects involve community members in
the creation of a theatrical production,
and in its performance. By inviting
community members to create, perform
and witness, these programs weave art
into the fabric of community life and
create shared, meaningful experiences
for community members.
COMMUNITY-ACTIVATED
THEATRE PROGRAMS:
ACTS OF COLLECTIVE
WILL
i
i
http://www.snca.org/performingarts/headwaters.html.
ii
Personal interview with Lisa Mount, Director of Headwaters, July 25, 2011.
THE PASSION,
NATIONAL THEATRE WALES
National Theatre Wales is a theater without
walls it focuses on creating location-based works.
The Theatre uses a diverse range of sites, thereby
accessing communities that do not typically attend,
let alone participate in theater. The Passion, performed
in April 2011, was a three-day contemporary,
ecumenical revival of the traditional Passion play
created for and performed in Port Talbot, Wales,
the childhood home of actor Michael Sheen, who
co-created and championed the project. Key to the
success of the production was the development of
deep relationships with community organizations
and individuals who acted as gatekeepers, providing
access and helping network throughout the town.
The scripting process began 18 months before the
show by reaching out to social service agencies and
community care-giving organizations. The Theatre
partnered with Wildworks, a theater company
known for their community work and massive
site-specic spectaculars, who put out a broad call to
the community for skills (not actors), successfully
attracting and engaging a diversity of people integral
to the performance. More than 2,000 people were
directly involved in the production.
i
People knew that
IMPLICATIONS
In both of these cases, professional theater artists
and production staff generated the creative impetus
for the project and served as the catalysts and
community motivators. Not all theater artists
are interested in this sort of work. What sorts of
training and skills do theater artists need to inspire
and awaken the creative voice of the community?
What scale of community involvement can be
managed? Headwaters involved a cast of 24 to
40 in different years, while The Passion directly
involved approximately 2,000 people. Anyone who
was willing to commit the time to participate was
welcome and given an opportunity to get involved.
How might your organization invite and manage
community members creative input? These
projects were not designed to be ongoing, sustained
events, but rather were conceived as one-off or
time-limited projects. Must all projects of this type
be one-offs, or is there a way to sustain community
involvement over a longer period of time?
CONTINUED: CASE STUDY COMMUNITY-ACTIVATED THEATRE PROGRAMS: ACTS OF COLLECTIVE WILL
i
Personal interview with Lucy Davies, Executive Producer, National Theatre Wales, August 17, 2011.
by showing up they would not be just spectators,
but would become involved in the production. More
than 12,000 people are reported to have attended the
nal scenes of the production.
Photo Credit: Ian Kingsnorth/National Theatre Wales
IMPLICATIONS
The impact of these events is two-fold: the shared
experience of participating in the physical crawl,
and the impact of web-based documentation of
the various crawls, connecting the communities
together. How might your organization participate
in existing local festivals or fairs? Are there informal
art events like SketchCrawl that you can tap into,
or start anew? How can active arts programs like
this be designed in such a way as to be scalable in
terms of impact (i.e., to allow an indenite number
of people to participate)?
SKETCHCRAWL
Every few months, the organizers of SketchCrawl
post
an upcoming weekend date on Sketchcrawl.com for a
day-long sketching marathon. Local sketchers take up
the call, advertising a meeting place and sketching a
route in their local communities. Then, on the same date
in communities across the world, sketchers of all levels
gather with charcoals, pencils and watercolors to share
in the experience of sketching their surroundings and
then sharing the fruits of their creativity online through
the blogs of Sketchcrawl.com and UrbanSketchers.org.
What started as a personal project in San Francisco by
Enrico Casarosa has become a worldwide phenomenon.
Casarosa started blogging about his drawing marathons
in which he would gather a group of friends to
sketch their surroundings in San Francisco and then
use web-based resources to share their sketches and
experiences. Open to anyone with paper and a pencil,
these gatherings are virtually no-cost, with few barriers
to participation. Now facilitated by local sketchers who
organize community crawls, SketchCrawls happen
on the same day every few months across the world.
These crawls are minimally organized by volunteers and
decidedly not monetized. Rather, they are enacted for
the sheer joy of sketching together. A strong web-based
community actively posts and contributes to sites like
UrbanSketchers.org and Sketchcrawl.com.
Festivals and street fairs that celebrate
aspects of specic communities have
always been a vibrant part of cultural
life, temporarily transforming streets
into hotbeds of creative exchange. While
festivals are inherently participatory in a
sense, many contemporary festivals like
Burning Man and Figment are dedicated
to participatory arts practice. While not
labeled a festival, the SketchCrawl

movement refashions the essential
elements of a festival into a web-
facilitated recurring art event.
PARTICIPATORY ARTS
EVENTS: CELEBRATING
THE ARTIST IN
EVERYONE
Drawing by Pete Scully at SketchCrawl in Davis, California, August 2011
IMPLICATIONS
These programs clearly hit a creative nerve,
and can generate box ofce revenue. Why are
vernacular expressions of art often considered
off limits to professional theater companies?
Similarly, why is social dancing outside of the
mission of most professional dance companies and
presenters? How might your organization tap into
the personal experiences of community members
in a meaningful way?
THE STOOP STORYTELLING SERIES,
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
At each Stoop Storytelling event, seven community
participants get seven minutes each to share a true
story with an appreciative audience. Having grown
in popularity since its founding, the program now
regularly sells out the 541-seat Pearlstone Theater at
CENTERSTAGE on Monday nights. Centered on
a chosen theme, the stories range from epic tales to
intimate moments. The storytellers come from all
walks of life.
Laura Wexler, one of the founders of the Stoop
Storytelling series, isnt sure if she would call her
storytelling events art.
i
But, why not? Art, in the best
sense, is a creative illumination of the truths of life that
stimulates the senses, emotions and intellect. While the
stories may not be polished and the tellers may stumble
over their words, the impact of Stoop Storytelling is
to celebrate the people and communities of Baltimore,
one story at a time.
When originally conceived, the founders of Stoop
Storytelling sought out local celebrities to tell stories,
but found that audiences and storytellers were most
empowered by the stories of ordinary people. There
is as little intervention as possible, and the producers
consider themselves the midwives of the stories rather
than editors. Authenticity and honesty, rather than
perfection, lead to successful storytelling, according to
Wexler. While only seven people tell their story on any
given night, audiences feel like it could be any one of
them up on stage. The success of the series has led the
producers to partner with a larger performance venue,
CENTERSTAGE, and to create a local radio broadcast.
The popularity of these programs in communities across
the country is a testament to the desire to tell and hear
peoples personal stories. The Porchlight Storytelling
series takes place monthly in various locations in San
Francisco, while FirstPersonArts in Philadelphia hosts
an annual Festival of Memoir and Documentary Art.
Probably the most recognized storytelling organization,
StoryCorps, partners with National Public Radio to
record and preserve the stories of everyday people,
aiming to touch the lives of every American. These
programs are low-cost and low-tech with huge potential
impact. The stories of life have the power to connect
people of diverse backgrounds, and the sharing of those
stories is an empowering experience for both the teller
and the listener.
Some of the most engaging art events
are happening in unlikely places, in novel
formats and with surprising participants.
Vernacular expressions of art are growing
in popularity in many genres. While oral
traditions have always existed, the art
of storytelling seems to be an especially
effective mode of personal and communal
expression right now.
STORYTELLING
EVENTS: BUILDING
COMMUNITY IDENTITY
Stoop Storyteller Ian Blumenfeld. Photo by Dan Kempner
i
Personal interview with Laura Wexler, July 26, 2011.
The other founder is Jessica Henkin.
Many artists specialize in network-
enabled practice, artistic practice
enacted through technological mediums,
like those featured in the Networked
Performance Blog. These artists and
others like New Paradise Laboratories
are encouraging and facilitating
creative expression through interactive
technologies and web-activated
artistic programs.
VIRTUAL ACTIVATION:
PIONEERING THE
NEW FRONTIER
OF ACTIVE ARTS
i
Personal interview with NPL Artistic Director Whit MacLaughlin, July 25, 2011.
ii
For an excellent case study of this program, see the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage website.
NEW PARADISE LABORATORIES,
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
New Paradise Laboratories, an experimental
performance company in Philadelphia, is exploring
the use of the web to create original online
participatory theater programs that can interact
with their real-time theater events and stand on
their own as web-based art work.
In 2006, when working on a theatre piece
involving teenagers, New Paradise Laboratories
Artistic Director Whit MacLaughlin noticed that
the young actors, who he describes as Digital
Natives, interacted with the world differently than
the adult actors. They thought about bodies in
space differently. They could go to their rooms
to be activated, reaching out into the world from
their bed.
i
This profound generational difference
MacLaughlin attributes to two years of using
Facebook. This realization inspired New Paradise
Laboratories 2009 production of Fatebook, a series of
performance parties in which the cyber world and the
real world met.
ii

In Fatebook, audiences rst encountered the work by
friending the Fatebook characters online. As ctional
and real users communicated through Fatebooks
Photo by JJ Tiziou
IMPLICATIONS
While New Paradise Laboratories work is highly
experimental, other, more conventional examples
of artists using the web to create artistic content
include composer Eric Whitacres Virtual Choir.
What are the artistic possibilities of the web
beyond marketing and information sharing?
How might your organization use the interactivity
of the web as an artistic tool that supports your
mission, provides an outlet for creativity and
broadens your impact?
CONTINUED: CASE STUDY VIRTUAL ACTIVATION: PIONEERING THE NEW FRONTIER OF ACTIVE ARTS
social media platforms, they built an ever-expanding
theatricalized online community that blurred the line
between ction and reality. Then, during the real-time
performance, Fatebook users came together, wandering
through a labyrinth of screens and performance pockets
throughout the theater space. Audience members
curated their own theatrical experience, choosing when
and where to watch the content and which of the 13
main characters to follow and engage with. Since the
launch in July 2009, more than 16,000 people have
participated in Fatebook online while 1,200 people have
participated in the live performance parties.
MacLaughlins experience using the Internet as a
theatrical medium empowered him and his team to
further explore the artistic possibilities of the web
beyond information dissemination and marketing. NPL
is pioneering new theatrical ways of social networking,
using the tools of the web as a means of artistic
expression. Building upon Fatebook, New Paradise
Laboratories has now devised FRAME, a re-imagined
institutional website that is an online platform for user-
generated artistic content. Launched in July 2011 and
accessed through New Paradise Laboratories existing
URL, newparadiselaboratories.org, FRAME uses a
rotating corps of virtual curator-performers to create
malleable content that can be shared, mixed, remixed
and mutated by anybody. In this way, the organization
is creating web-based ctional narratives that can
interweave with their realspace performance work.
The point of entry into the online identity of New
Paradise Laboratories is an artistic encounter rather
than a marketing or informational encounter. New
Paradise Laboratories is building a way for artists
and the public to interact over time in a curated
public/private space, feeding a steady stream of
creativity and inspiration.
Photo by JJ Tiziou
Bal Moderne at the Watch This Space Festival in London, August 2011. Watch This Space
BAL MODERNE, BRUSSELS
Dance artists and organizations are tapping into
a heightened interest in dance through interesting
new public dance events. While the United States
has many public dance programs like the Ordway
Summer Dance Series in St. Paul and the Dance
Downtown series at the Music Center; Performing
Arts Center of Los Angeles County, European dance
events are taking up the charge to inspire a moving
public on a grand scale.
The Bal Moderne commissions contemporary
dance choreographers to create short and simple
choreographies to teach to crowds of 100 or 30,000.
Inspired by the personal fulllment of mastering
dance steps in an unintimidating environment,
and by the joyful unity of dancing together that
contributes to the struggle against apathy and
isolation, Bal Moderne organizers take the call for
concentrated fun very seriously.
i

Bal Moderne and the Big Dance are
making dance a part of peoples lives
by using professional choreographers,
dancers and dance teachers to produce
large-scale public dance projects in which
anyone can learn and dance together.
The choreographies are simultaneously
fun and interesting, unintimidating but
challenging, personally fullling and
collectively inspiring. These programs
teach people how to execute dance
steps, and, more profoundly, they bring
communities together in collective acts
of kinetic energy.
PUBLIC DANCE
EVENTS: ACTIVATING
THE MOVING
SPIRIT AND SOCIAL
CAMARADERIE
i
Bal Moderne website.
THE BIG DANCE 2012, LONDON
The city of London recently announced Big Dance
2012, a follow-up to the successful 2010 event. This
large-scale, nine-day dance initiative will draw on the
talents of numerous dance artists and organizations
to instigate public dancing throughout London and
the entire United Kingdom. With centralized
web-based marketing support, dance projects big
and small will be independently produced by a host
of organizations and artists. The event is supported
through government grants and private foundations.
The central organizing bodies of Bal Moderne
and Big Dance act as facilitation platforms from
which public dance projects can blossom. They are
intentionally designed to allow for an organic scale
of impact. In 2000, each of the 19 neighborhoods in
Brussels organized a Bal. In London, organizers can
post their projects on the website and upload video
and dance stories. The popularity of both of these
programs stems from a history of participatory arts
practice in Europe and an appreciation for collective
creative expression.
IMPLICATIONS
The atmosphere of the Bal and the Big Dance is
fun, spontaneous and inclusive of all and yet still
maintains a sense of artistry and rigor. Does your
community have any public dance events? What
dance traditions speak to your community, and
how might those traditions align with your artistic
work? How might a new dance tradition be started
in your community?
CONTINUED: CASE STUDY PUBLIC DANCE EVENTS: ACTIVATING THE MOVING SPIRIT AND SOCIAL CAMARADERIE
SLEEP NO MORE, PUNCHDRUNK,
LONDON AND NEW YORK
More performing artists are exploring ways to give
their audience agency and creative control in the
performance experience by designing elements of choice
and participant expression into the structure of their
work. British theatre company PunchDrunks hugely
successful production of Sleep No More, a site-specic
Hitchcock-Shakespeare mash-up now playing to critical
acclaim in New York City
i
, activates audiences to
choose their path as they encounter different characters
and performance vignettes while walking through the
performance site (e.g., an old hotel, a vacant school).
The Windmill Theatre Company and The Border
Project in Adelaide, Australia have developed a
handheld Wii-like controller that audience members can
use to manipulate the stage action in their production of
Escape from Peligro Island. Taking the idea of co-creation
even further, in 2006 Headlong Dance Theater created
CELL, a performance tour in which performers guided
a single audience/participant through performance
encounters in city streets. More recently, New York
city-based theater director Gyda Arber created
Red Cloud Rising, a theatricalized scavenger hunt/
adventure game through downtown Manhattan.
These performance events activate
a profound level of interaction between
audience and artist, involving the
audience in the creative process.
The outcome of these performances
is dependent on what the
participants contribute.
CO-CREATION:
CURATING
UNPREDICTABLE
OUTCOMES THROUGH
PARTICIPATION
i
Read a New York Times review of the New York production for more information. The production won a 2010-11 Drama Desk award for Unique Theatrical Experience.
Some Assembly Required at the August Wilson Center for African American History
Photo Credit: Martha Rial
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED,
ATTACK THEATRE, PITTSBURGH
While the gamication of theater is a relatively new
performance phenomenon, artists like Attack Theatre
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have been developing
innovative techniques to activate high levels of
participation from their audiences for a number of
years. Focusing on the quality of participation rather
than the quantity, these artists create intimate pieces
that rely on participants to complete the work.
In 1995, Attack Theatre developed Some Assembly
Required for an exhibit at the Carnegie Museum
of Art and created the structure for a customizable,
site-specic dance experience that can be presented in
any museum or gallery space with the participation
of up to 50 people. In this process/performance, the
participants assemble a dance piece in 90 minutes,
focusing on two to three works of art in the gallery.
Attack Theatre artists take the participants through
a line of aesthetic questioning about the physical,
qualitative detail in the visual art object of interest.
Together, the participants and artists decide where
and how those qualities can be transposed into a
short choreography.
Having hard-wired participatory arts practice into
their artistic and organizational philosophy, the
leadership of Attack Theatre is always asking,
Does the audience have a voice, and do they
feel a part of the work?
i
The company has built
participatory strategies into its marketing and
development work, as well as, including a successful
micro-giving campaign called I ____ Attack
Theatre: Fill in our blank. The company is
currently developing a Matrix of Effectiveness
to evaluate its work artistically and organizationally.
Extemporaneous Response is one of the three
dimensions of this assessment model, measuring
the extent to which the work demands involvement
in the moment.
IMPLICATIONS
In co-creative experiences like these, the artists
cede creative control as an inherent part of their
own artistic process. They make the creative
process not only transparent, but malleable.
The unpredictable nature of these events requires
exibility (i.e., allowing for a range of artistic
outcomes) as well as intense preparation. How
might your organization empower audiences to
make choices, shape their own experience, and
contribute to the collective experience? What
aspects of your creative process can be opened
up to the public?
CONTINUED: CASE STUDY CO-CREATION: CURATING UNPREDICTABLE OUTCOMES THROUGH PARTICIPATION
i
Personal interview with Attack Theatre Associate Director Rebecca Himberger, August 5, 2011.
Photo by JJ Tiziou, CELL, Headlong Dance Theater
Orchestras and chamber music groups
are responding to demand for more
participatory arts experiences by inviting
community members to play, sing and
create their own music events, both
live and digital.
COMMUNITY
MUSIC-MAKING:
BRINGING TOGETHER
PROFESSIONALS AND
AMATEURS
ALL WE DO IS PLAY,
PACIFIC SYMPHONY,
ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
In a highly competitive and demographically diverse
marketplace, the Pacic Symphony, based in Orange
County, California, sought a community engagement
strategy to broaden public awareness of the orchestra
and contribute toward audience development goals.
A three-pronged strategy was launched in 2010
under the name All We Do Is Play. The suite of
three programs includes: OC Can You Play, a public
performance event, OC Can You Play with Us, a
Pro-Am concert in which community members play
alongside the Pacic Symphony, and OC Can You
Sing, an amateur singing contest conducted online
via uploaded video, in which the nalists perform
onstage with the orchestra at a pops concert.
In celebration of the orchestras Year of the Piano
in 2010-2011, the OC Can You Play event was the
brainchild of Kelly Dylla, the orchestras director of
audience engagement, and inspired by artist Luke
Jerrams Play Me, Im Yours project in New York City
and London. Twenty brightly-painted pianos were
placed in public spaces around the community for
anyone to play. The orchestra invited community
Photo Credit: Posted to Facebook
IMPLICATIONS
As orchestras work to forge deeper connections
with their communities, participatory programs
are on the rise. The Baltimore Symphonys widely
publicized Rusty Musicians program, begun in
2010, will continue into 2011. More than 600
amateur musicians jumped at the chance to play
onstage with the orchestra. Similarly, the San
Francisco Symphonys new Community of Music
Makers program, organized as part of its centennial
celebration, will include an amateur orchestra, an
amateur chorus and a chamber music program.
A workshop for singers in June 2011 sold out
almost instantly and generated registration
fees to help offset costs. While these and other
programs aim to activate latent interest in playing
music, the Chicago Symphony Orchestras Citizen
Musician program goes a step further in facilitating
connections between musicians (at all levels
of prociency) and community causes such as
neighborhood revitalization. Another approach to
strengthening ties to the broader community of
artists is the St. Paul Chamber Orchestras recent
announcement of a formal alliance with the Greater
Twin Cities Youth Symphonies.
Driving these programs is a subtle but fundamental
shift in self-perception from a producer of
professional quality arts programs to a facilitator
of creative exchange and aesthetic growth, and
a growing awareness of the civic leadership role
that arts organizations can and must play in their
communities. How might you use participatory
programs to forge stronger bonds with
your community?
members to create and publicize their own music
events, and upload videos of themselves playing
the pianos. The goal was to explore the intersection
between music performance and public art, and
illustrate the essential role that music plays in
everyday life.
With a small budget and enthusiastic organizational
support, Dylla pursued strategic partnerships in order
to make the project happen. Pianos were donated by
Yamaha and Kawai and then painted by local artists.
Various community parks, beaches, shopping centers,
malls, theatres and senior centers agreed to keep the
pianos secure and encourage public playing. More
than 80 piano events were created by community
members ranging from an homage to John Cages
4'33" to an original music video by a local band.
More than 1,500 people viewed the OC Can You Play
video contest on the orchestras website, and the
event nearly doubled the organizations normal level
of Facebook activity. Media coverage was extremely
favorable. Afterwards, the orchestra auctioned off 18
of the 20 pianos on the website BiddingForGood.com.
With only a week to publicize the auctions, almost all
of the program costs were recouped.
CONTINUED: CASE STUDY COMMUNITY MUSIC-MAKING: BRINGING TOGETHER PROFESSIONALS AND AMATEURS
Celebrating the communitys commitment
to reduce, reuse and recycle, this
annual competition features 15 teams
of community members competing in a
timed sculpt-off using recycled materials.
ENGAGING CIVIC
VALUES: BUILDING
COMMUNITY VITALITY
AND PUBLIC SUPPORT
FOR THE ARTS
JUNK2GENIUS, DAVIS ART CENTER,
DAVIS, CALIFORNIA
Spectators gather to watch as irrigation tubing, old
light bulbs and air lters become bicycles, mermaids
and other happy little trash creatures. In this annual
community event, teams of 10 to 15 artisan gladiators
receive a box of recycled materials and race against
the clock to create a work of art. Each team can
sh in a junk pile for materials, but they have to
work fast, because when the bell sounds, a judging
panel of well-known local artists names the winner
of the Trophy du Trash, and spectators vote on a
Peoples Choice Award.
The sculptures are then on public display in the
Davis Art Center Tsao Gallery as the Junk2Genius
exhibit for two weeks. Sculpting teams range from
local businesses, dinner clubs, schools and soccer
teams, as well as individuals, most of whom do
not consider themselves artists but come together
regardless to create amazingly inventive, complex
structures from the most unlikely of materials.
Junk2Genius began as a board-driven fundraising
event for the Davis Art Center in an effort to
reinvigorate the 50-year-old arts institution, but has
Photo Credit: Shannon Schureman
become a agship event for the development of more
intergenerational, community-based programming
for the organization. Collaborating with another area
arts nonprot, ReCREATE, to source the material
and staff the event, the Art Center recruits local
businesses and area schools to sponsor sculpting
teams. The event is open to the public and takes
place on the lawn outside of the Art Center adjacent
to a local park and attracts close to 300 spectators
who picnic while they watch the sculpting and vote
for their favorite sculpture. In an effort to broaden
impact, a do-it-yourself Junk2Genius station will be
added in 2011, where anyone can create personal
masterpieces out of junk.
While the Art Center has a rich history of fostering
creativity in ceramics and visual art, many in the
community perceived it as a place for kids to take
art classes. Junk2Genius has increased the Centers
relevancy in the community by making new
connections to core values such as environmental
stewardship and civic responsibility, while remaining
squarely on-mission. The program generates a
surplus through business sponsorships, concessions
sales and individual participation fees.
IMPLICATIONS
Junk2Genius is successful because it taps into
important civic values. Similarly, SOMArts in San
Francisco hosts Feast of Words, a monthly potluck
for creative writers that celebrates the multi-cultural
neighborhood through food and written word.
Taking a different artistic route, Marin Symphony
commissioned composer Rob Kapilow to create
the Golden Gate Opus, soliciting community
stories and feedback to create a work celebrating
the anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge. What
unique aspects of your community might your
organization celebrate through participatory
programming? Like the Davis Art Center, how might
you leverage partnerships in your community to
reach new audiences and deepen community ties?
CONTINUED: CASE STUDY ENGAGING CIVIC VALUES: BUILDING COMMUNITY VITALITY AND PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR THE ARTS
A growing number of local and regional
arts agencies are expanding their support
for the arts beyond grantmaking and
technical assistance. By activating
community networks, these agencies are
nding new ways to catalyze, mobilize
and facilitate creativity and art-making in
their communities through participatory
arts programs and events.
PARTICIPATORY ARTS
NETWORKS: ACHIEVING
ADVOCACY OUTCOMES
ARTSWAVE, CINCINNATI, OHIO
In Cincinnati, ArtsWave (formerly known as
The Fine Arts Fund) has undergone a major
transformation over the last three years, broadening
its mission beyond United Way style fundraising
to mobilizing creativity in the entire region. The Arts
Ripple Effect, a study commissioned by ArtsWave,
revealed that the value of the arts lies in bringing
people together and contributing to the vibrancy of
communities. Putting those ndings into practice,
ArtsWave created the Annual TaDa, a participatory
public art event designed to broaden public support
of the arts through the act of creating and integrating
art into the fabric of the community.
For 2010, Margy Waller, ArtsWave vice president
of strategic communications and research, and her
team created Paint the Street. Through a series of
community meetings, partners were identied and
two teams of visual artists collaboratively mapped
out a street mural covering six blocks of 12th Street
in downtown Cincinnati. In a 12-hour period
on September 26, 2010, more than 1,500 people
grabbed paintbrushes and jointly created a brightly
colored, playful street mural. High-quality video
documentation of the event helped to communicate
the impact to a larger constituency.
Photo Credit: Scott Beseler
IMPLICATIONS
These types of crowd-sourced art-making
programs and events are often collaborations
between municipal or regional arts agencies,
arts organizations, funders, businesses and other
community organizations. Other examples include:
The Neighbourhood Arts Network in Toronto,
Canada, a membership organization of more
than 350 artists and organizations that
supports community-engaged art-making.
The Cambridge Arts Council in Massachusetts,
which is currently partnering with local
organizations to create Breathe Cambridge,
a multi-year public art-making experience
for youth.
ArtTakePart.org, a project of Voluntary Arts
Ireland and Culture Northern Ireland, that
is an online search facility guiding people to
the many active arts activities they can enjoy
across Northern Ireland.
People United, a program of the Canterbury
Innovation Centre at the University of Kent
(United Kingdom) is a creative laboratory
that explores how the arts can inspire kindness
and social change. The program commissions
artists to create imaginative new work.
These organizations are building connections
between the arts and other community priorities,
and increasing the visibility and relevance of the
arts by sharing resources. Most of these programs
involve a strong virtual presence. While individual
arts organizations may serve as catalysts for
participatory arts programs, they need not carry
the sole burden of nancing, producing or
promoting these programs.
ArtsWave also fosters active participation through its
interactive website. iSpyArt is a public competition
to identify and photograph art in the community.
ArtsWave calls it a digital game celebrating the art-all-
around-us. Each month, ArtsWave commissions
a new show, typically around a theme such as Moving
Art or Surprise Art. Community members can
upload photos from their computer or use a special
iSpyArt iPhone app. The user-generated content then
becomes a curated online community art gallery.
CONTINUED: CASE STUDY PARTICIPATORY ARTS NETWORKS: ACHIEVING ADVOCACY OUTCOMES
References and Endnotes
1
Gauntlett, David, Making is Connecting: The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0,
2011, Polity Press.
2
Samuel Jones, the British scholar, writes about issues of class, creativity and the history of creative expression in
Expressive Lives, 2009, published by Demos.
3
Henry Jenkins 2006 White Paper Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st
Century denes the key elements, opportunities and challenges of participatory culture.
4
Other researchers use the term reexive engagement to describe arts pedagogy.
5
Other writers use the term receptive participation to describe spectating.
6
Bill Ivey writes extensively about the shifting sands of arts participation in America in his book, Arts, Inc., and argues
for a greater focus on the expressive life.
7
New media scholars describe this phenomenon in different ways. Lawrence Lessig describes the shift from Read-Only
culture to Read-Write culture. Joe Karaganis articulates the difference as a shift from one-to-many to many-to-
many transmission. In Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World, Don Tapscott describes a new pedagogical
approach to teaching, transitioning from a broadcast style to a collaborative peer-to-peer style of teaching and learning.
8
While technology has increased cultural access in many ways, studies like Encouraging Digital Access to Culture from
the United Kingdoms Department of Culture, Media and Sport remind us that there are populations excluded from digital
access. Neilson forecasts that one in two Americans will have a smartphone by Christmas 2011.
9
The interactivity and personalization of arts experiences was a focus of Creative New Zealands 21st Century Arts
Conference in July 2011. Morris Hargreaves McIntyre, a leading consultancy in the United Kingdom, writes persuasively
about interactivity and personalization in This Time Its Personal.
10
Alexa Arena, a Vice President with Forest City in San Francisco, has written on the participation economy.
11
The breakdown between professional and amateur artists is explored in several chapters of Engaging Art: The Next Great
Transformation of Americas Cultural Life, co-edited by Steven J. Tepper and Bill Ivey (2007). See Chapter 7, Artistic
Expression in an Age of Participatory Culture: How and Why Young People Create by Henry Jenkins and Vanessa
Bertozzi. A helpful summary of the collected essays can be found at ArtsJournal.com.
12
In their seminal 2002 study, Informal Arts: Finding Cohesion, Capacity and other Cultural Benets in Unexpected Places,
Alaka Wali, Rebecca Severson and Mario Longoni state, Informal arts are an important reservoir of social capital,
signicant for life-long learning, building civic engagement and strengthening communities. Other studies by Garth
Taylor, Pia Moriarty and Carl Grodach highlight the vitality of informal arts practices. More recently, Partners for Livable
Communities published Culture Connects All: Rethinking Audiences in Times of Demographic Change, an analysis of
the effects of changing demographics on patterns of cultural participation, with a focus on immigrant populations and
older adults.
13
See http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=home.
14
The 74 percent gure is drawn from Beyond attendance: A multi-modal understanding of arts participation, National
Endowment for the Arts Research Report #54, by Jennifer Novak-Leonard and Alan S. Brown (2011, page 77).
15
For a helpful analysis of the shifting frame of value around the arts, see The Arts Ripple Effect: A Research-Based Strategy
to Build Shared Responsibility for the Arts, produced by the Topos Partnership for the Fine Arts Fund (now ArtsWave) in
Cincinnati.
16
In describing the strategic value of participation, Nina Simon, author of The Participatory Museum, writes, Participatory
projects can change an institutions image in the eyes of local communities, increase involvement in fundraising, and
make new partnership opportunities possible. (2010, page 197).
17
This diagram is adapted from Creative Community Index: Measuring Progress Toward a Vibrant Silicon Valley, by John
Kreidler and Philip J. Trounstine (San Jose, CA: Cultural Initiatives Silicon Valley, 2005). The authors dene cultural
literacy as uency in traditions, aesthetics, manners, customs, language and the arts, and the ability to apply critical
thinking and creativity to these elements. They dene participatory cultural practice as engagement of individuals
and groups in cultural activities in a nonprofessional setting. The authors original model took the shape of a pyramid,
suggesting a linear relationship between the three levels of the ecology.
18
Signicant improvements are planned for the National Endowment for the Arts 2012 Survey of Public Participation in
the Arts. Arts Council England and the Australia Council for the Arts have also adopted an expanded framework in their
respective national studies.
19
Several studies point to the dominance of the home as a setting for arts experiences, especially for families with young
children. See The Arts Activities of Dallas Independent School District Students, commissioned by Big Thought (2008).
20
SFJAZZ, presenter of a wide range of music artists in the Bay Area, has studied its audiences at different venues for the
past four years, including focus groups with young adults age 18 to 24.
21
An excellent example of a purpose-built space for collaborative creative interaction is 4833 rph, a 1600 sq. foot portion
of the Hyde Park Art Center, near Chicago. This multipurpose area hosts curated community programs but also serves as
an art library and resource center, exhibition space, meeting room and general community space.
22
Several recent studies delve into digital arts participation. In Beyond Live: Digital Innovation in the Performing Arts,
authors Hasan Bakhshi, Juan Mateos-Garcia and David Throsby discuss how digital technologies have produced seismic
changes in consumer expectations and behavior, and how social media platforms are becoming more important as venues
for the discovery and discussion of creative content. Jonathan Drori assesses digital content opportunities in the cultural
sector in Encouraging Digital Access to Culture. In 2011, the Australia Council for the Arts released a pair of studies that
take stock of online engagement: Arts Audiences Online and Arts Organisations Online, and developed Connecting://arts
audience online, a website resource for the Australian arts groups.
23
Researchers approach community vitality with a variety of methodologies in various communities. Taylor and Wali have
focused on Chicago neighborhoods, while Moriarty, Alvarez, Borrup, Kreidler and Troustine have focused on Silicon Valley.
Stern and Seifert synthesize much of the regionally-focused research and advocate for a cultural cluster perspective
in From Creative Economy to Creative Society. In 2010, the National Endowment for the Arts published Creative
Placemaking by Anne Markusen and Anne Gadwa, a white paper for the Mayors Institute on City Design that discusses
the integration of art and civic life. Pia Moriarty discusses issues of demographic change, immigration and participatory
arts practice in Participatory Arts: The Stranger Brings the Gift, commissioned by The San Francisco Foundation and
Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund through support from The Wallace Foundation, 2008.
24
Of Holdens many papers on culture, Democratic Culture: Opening Up the Arts to Everyone, written in 2008 for Demos,
is most germane to this discussion. He refers to three spheres of culture: publicly funded culture, commercial culture, and
homemade culture which extends from the historic objects and activities of folk art, through to the post-modern punk
garage band and the YouTube upload.
25
The Wallace Foundation commissioned Gifts of the Muse, which can be downloaded for free in electronic format.
26
The Arts Education Partnership maintains an online library of publications, some of which discuss the benets of
arts learning.
27
Jerald, Craig D., Dening a 21st Century Education, The Center for Public Education, 2009.
28
The 2008 Cultural Engagement Index report, commissioned by Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, explores the
relationship between aggregate measures of cultural engagement and specic forms of civic engagement, including voting,
attending religious services, having a library card, etc.
29
Based on the idea that arts and civic engagement go hand in hand, the city of San Jose has developed:
Cultural Connection: City of San Joses Cultural Plan for 2011-2020.
30
Philadelphia Cultural Engagement Index, a longitudinal study of patterns of cultural engagement commissioned by
the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance; research conducted by WolfBrown.
31
NEA Research Report #54, Beyond attendance: A multi-modal understanding of arts participation, by Jennifer
Novak-Leonard and Alan S. Brown, 2011, page 59.
32
How Dance Audiences Engage: Summary Report from a National Survey of Dance Audiences, 2011, commissioned by
Dance/USA with funding support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The James Irvine Foundation; research
conducted by WolfBrown. Forty-two dance presenters and companies participated in the study. Across the aggregated
base of ticket buyers, one in ve are Active or Serious Dancers (people who regularly take dance lessons, perform in
front of live audiences or choreograph), and two in ve are Social Dancers (people who dance socially, either regularly
or occasionally).
33
In a 2002 Knight Foundation study of ticket buyers across 15 orchestras, three-quarters of respondents, on average,
reported having some experience playing a musical instrument or singing at any point in the past. See Classical Music
Consumer Segmentation Study, 2002, commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, conducted by
Audience Insight LLC.
34
Intrinsic Impact: How Audiences and Visitors are Transformed by Cultural Experiences in Liverpool, 2011, commissioned
by the Liverpool Arts Regeneration Consortium, research conducted by Baker Richards and WolfBrown.
35
In the Dance/USA study, for example, the average age of respondents who were classied as Active or Serious Dancers
was 43, compared to an average age of 50 for respondents who were classied as Social Dancers. This compares to an
average age of 56 for all other respondents (i.e., not dancers).
36
This was a major nding of The James Irvine Foundation 2008 study, Cultural Engagement in Californias Inland Regions,
which investigated patterns of cultural engagement in the San Joaquin Valley and the Inland Empire.
37
Nick Rabkin discusses the relationship between arts education and adult participation in National Endowment for the Arts
Research Report #52, Arts Education in America: What the Declines Mean for Arts Participation.
38
One of New Yorks hottest tickets in 2010 was Gatz, a staged reading of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, an
Elevator Repair Service production presented by the Public Theatre, with a run time of six hours and 30 minutes.
39
The Music Center/Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles Countys Active Arts program is widely regarded as a
breakthrough in participatory arts programming.
40
We are indebted to numerous colleagues in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia for sourcing examples of
active arts programs, and especially to bloggers Ian David Moss and Thomas Cott for their assistance. We regret the
omission of many, many excellent programs that will surface after this paper is released.
41
Sometimes the line is blurry, however. Consider the theatregoer who reads a script aloud with friends before attending a
performance. Most certainly, this is an expressive act and would count as participatory arts practice. But, it may also
serve as a form of enhanced engagement if the reading of the script serves to boost the audience members enjoyment
of an upcoming performance. Contrast this to reading a synopsis of an upcoming play or opera, or viewing an online video
of an artist talking about an upcoming exhibition. These are receptive, not expressive acts, and therefore would not count
as participatory arts practice.
42
Established performing artists like Liz Lerman, Bill T. Jones, Moises Kaufman and Anna Deveare Smith have been
sourcing performance material from the public for decades.
43
A number of university performing arts presenters, with funding support through the Association of Performing Arts
Presenters Creative Campus Innovations Grant Program (funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation) are working
with artists on a range of co-creation projects. Some of these projects involve student and faculty input into newly
commissioned work.
44
Hannah Rudman speaks about organizational porosity, co-creation and technology in this recorded video message to
Project Audience in 2009.
45
The Five Modes of Arts Participation framework originated in The Values Study: Rediscovering the Meaning and Value of
Arts Participation, commissioned by the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, 2004.
46
Eric Whitacres Virtual Choir is an example of crowd-sourcing artistic content in the interpretive mode (i.e., thousands of
singers recorded themselves performing a vocal part, which became part of a larger artistic work).
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