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The subject of Public Engagement is hotting up, not least with the news that nationally, the Arts Council is delivering a national campaign to encourage the broadest range of people across England to enjoy artistic experiences.

Engagement is already driving government policy, particularly through the NI10 and NI11 national performance indicators which will be very familiar to a number of local authorities, and also through the Digital Britain agenda, which aims to enable the nation to engage with public services online by 2012.

In our region, we are working with Arts Council England West Midlands to deliver a regionally-focussed engagement campaign alongside this. Key to developing the work is understanding fully what engagement means, both to the potential audiences we want to reach, and to the organisations who should shape the journey our audiences make through arts and cultural experiences.

The AMA’s annual conference this year explored artistic excellence and public engagement and Heather Maitland succinctly answered the question of ‘what is public engagement’ in her recent Arts Professional article (issue 204). The Arts Council defines a threefold explanation of Public Engagement:

1. Attending arts events
2. Participating in arts activities
3. Participating in decision making

It seems that whilst community arts organisations are actually ahead of the game here and are already including members of the public and sharing decision making, many traditional arts and cultural providers do not engage as fully as they might. And this is the crux of public engagement. Many organisations can happily say they’re achieving the first two, but the third shows a democratic approach, significantly closing that gap between artistic vision of organisations and its relevance to an audience. Some organisations already ensure the public can influence their programming, their funding and the way they are marketed. They achieve this through a range of formats from advisory panels and ambassadors, to online consultation and user-generated artistic content for exhibitions and projects. No longer is this simply about marketing, audience development and education, it’s about having a two-way conversation with the very people we want to enjoy arts and culture and actively seeking their influence on decisions.

But who is responsible for instigating this sea change? The balance between artistic freedom and business success has always been a difficult one to reconcile, historically creating a battleground between marketing and artistic objectives. In a recession we need to work hard to justify our relevance and value to the public, both socially and financially. Organisational change comes from the top down, but the influencers in making that change are the marketers, audience developers, educators and outreach workers. Engagement draws us together as we take a 180 degree turn and see the journeys audiences make and where they engage with arts and culture, and perhaps, more importantly, what they define as arts and culture.


In 2009 this is not just an academic argument; there is a real, live opportunity to work together across the West Midlands region to engage with people with an interest in the arts in the Black Country for a year-long regional campaign starting in April 2010. We are holding a meeting in two weeks’ time to find potential partners to work with on a large-scale campaign to increase the number of people in the Black Country taking part in arts and culture – so come along and play your part in public engagement.

Read about how you can be a partner in creating the Black Country public campaign, launching April 2010, in our News section.