The Big Picture
Our new project, The Big Picture, has been running for just over a month now, and it feels like a good time to share some of the thinking behind it. So in this post I’m going to focus on why we put the project together the way we did, but in case you need a brief overview of project activity, I’ve put one at the bottom of this post.
The aim of The Big Picture was to find ways to engage people who don’t attend or participate in the arts. People who don’t think the arts are for them. One of our approaches to this is to asses that are the ‘barriers to attendance’ that affect our target audience. This is an established audience development approach that focuses on the things that might be putting people off. Is your offering to expensive, is it difficult to get to, do they feel unwelcome, is your information easy for them to access.
However, barriers are only one factor that might affect whether or not someone wants to get involved. A report published by the DCMS in 2007 called ‘Culture on Demand’ suggests that arts organisations should also take into account the lifestyle and interests and try to tap into their existing cultural lives. In effect, we should start from the premise that everyone has their own cultural life, even if they don’t engage with the established arts infrastructure. If we really want to engage new people, we have to understand their cultural experiences and see where we can make a match with the work we do in our organisations.
This demand-led approach works on the principle that once you have established a good relationship with your target audience you can then work with them to raise their demands for your offering. The crucial thing is to genuinely engage with your target group.
So we started with demographic research to identify what people in our target group do enjoy, how they currently spend their leisure time and what is really important to them. We decided to focus on
Family lives, family experiences and spending time together
and
Local people, pride, history and stories
By working with the BBC and launching a website that encourages people to give us their photos of their day to day life, we have been able to get huge numbers of people involved in taking a photo, sharing it and telling us the stories behind it. In fact we have been overwhelmed with over 12,000 photos in just 4 weeks. We have given people in our region an opportunity to share their lives and they are loving it!
Of course, we are underpinning this with work that really does focus on breaking down barriers. Each venue is undertaking project work with new audiences, and they will be inviting people to see ‘behind the scenes’ at a gallery in an Open Family Weekend at the end of May. We are working with them on increasing their capacity long term to continue to attract these audiences.
The Culture on Demand report also suggests bringing together the large-scale and the very localised, to foster engagement across the community, by balancing association with something high-profile, with very individual experiences. I wish I could say I modelled the project on the report, but the reality is, that reading the report I’m just relieved to see how closely it matches what we’re doing! As part of the The Big Picture we have committed to trying to break to the world record of the largest every photo mosaic. To do this we need 100,000 photos by the end of May. This part of the project really does seem to have captured the imagination of our audiences, who are keen to be part of the world record attempt, and to contribute to a picture of their region.
I will continue to update on the project as it progresses, but please do let us know what you think, and even more important – GET INVOVLED!
The Big Picture Brief Project Outline
This project was developed to make the arts accessible to people who don’t usually think that the arts are for them. We are working in partnership with six of the major art galleries in the region, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, The Herbert, The Ikon, New Art Gallery Walsall, The Potteries in Stoke and Wolverhampton Art Gallery, all of who will be running a series of arts activities over the next few months, and all of whom will be opening their doors for a family weekend at the end of May. As well as these six, other arts and cultural organisations are getting involved with the activity, including, Shire Hall Gallery, Stafford, The Place, Telford, Rural Education & Arts Project, Longdon and Worcester City Council, Parks section.
Acting as a hub for the project is The Big Picture website – a huge gallery of images submitted by people from all over the West Midlands. In June, we hope to put all those photos together to break the world record for the biggest ever photo mosaic. We need 100,000 photos – so if you haven’t submitted yours yet, please do so soon!
Our new project, The Big Picture, has been running for just over a month now, and it feels like a good time to share some of the thinking behind it. So in this post I’m going to focus on why we put the project together the way we did, but in case you need a brief overview of project activity, I’ve put one at the bottom of this post.
The aim of The Big Picture was to find ways to engage people who don’t attend or participate in the arts. People who don’t think the arts are for them. One of our approaches to this is to asses that are the ‘barriers to attendance’ that affect our target audience. This is an established audience development approach that focuses on the things that might be putting people off. Is your offering to expensive, is it difficult to get to, do they feel unwelcome, is your information easy for them to access.
However, barriers are only one factor that might affect whether or not someone wants to get involved. A report published by the DCMS in 2007 called ‘Culture on Demand’ suggests that arts organisations should also take into account the lifestyle and interests and try to tap into their existing cultural lives. In effect, we should start from the premise that everyone has their own cultural life, even if they don’t engage with the established arts infrastructure. If we really want to engage new people, we have to understand their cultural experiences and see where we can make a match with the work we do in our organisations.
This demand-led approach works on the principle that once you have established a good relationship with your target audience you can then work with them to raise their demands for your offering. The crucial thing is to genuinely engage with your target group.
So we started with demographic research to identify what people in our target group do enjoy, how they currently spend their leisure time and what is really important to them. We decided to focus on
Family lives, family experiences and spending time together
and
Local people, pride, history and stories
By working with the BBC and launching a website that encourages people to give us their photos of their day to day life, we have been able to get huge numbers of people involved in taking a photo, sharing it and telling us the stories behind it. In fact we have been overwhelmed with over 12,000 photos in just 4 weeks. We have given people in our region an opportunity to share their lives and they are loving it!
Of course, we are underpinning this with work that really does focus on breaking down barriers. Each venue is undertaking project work with new audiences, and they will be inviting people to see ‘behind the scenes’ at a gallery in an Open Family Weekend at the end of May. We are working with them on increasing their capacity long term to continue to attract these audiences.
The Culture on Demand report also suggests bringing together the large-scale and the very localised, to foster engagement across the community, by balancing association with something high-profile, with very individual experiences. I wish I could say I modelled the project on the report, but the reality is, that reading the report I’m just relieved to see how closely it matches what we’re doing! As part of the The Big Picture we have committed to trying to break to the world record of the largest every photo mosaic. To do this we need 100,000 photos by the end of May. This part of the project really does seem to have captured the imagination of our audiences, who are keen to be part of the world record attempt, and to contribute to a picture of their region.
I will continue to update on the project as it progresses, but please do let us know what you think, and even more important – GET INVOVLED!
The Big Picture Brief Project Outline
This project was developed to make the arts accessible to people who don’t usually think that the arts are for them. We are working in partnership with six of the major art galleries in the region, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, The Herbert, The Ikon, New Art Gallery Walsall, The Potteries in Stoke and Wolverhampton Art Gallery, all of who will be running a series of arts activities over the next few months, and all of whom will be opening their doors for a family weekend at the end of May. As well as these six, other arts and cultural organisations are getting involved with the activity, including, Shire Hall Gallery, Stafford, The Place, Telford, Rural Education & Arts Project, Longdon and Worcester City Council, Parks section.
Acting as a hub for the project is The Big Picture website – a huge gallery of images submitted by people from all over the West Midlands. In June, we hope to put all those photos together to break the world record for the biggest ever photo mosaic. We need 100,000 photos – so if you haven’t submitted yours yet, please do so soon!
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