Video summaries of Ben Walmsley´s Conference, Maria Vlachou's Conference and Cristina Da Milano Conference in the Expert Degree in Cultural Audiences / Expert Degree in Public's Strategies. University of Deusto.
Ben Walmsley (University of Leeds) - Audience development, engagement and enrichment. OCTOBER, 25TH 2018
On Tuesday 26th March, we had our international CONNECT webinar to discuss some of the action research projects that are being designed and implemented in the different countries where the Twin-track programme is being delivered.
Even though each course is taking place at a national level, we are all part of a bigger picture – the CONNECT project and consortium. Thus, this webinar, along with other project activities (the Turin mobility in Jan19, the mentors’ webinar in May19 and the Bilbao learning mobility and final conference in Dec19), tries to emphasize the international dimension of each course, by bringing together participants from Denmark, Poland, UK, Italy and Spain to discuss about audience development challenges.
The webinar started with a short introduction of the project manager, Macarena Cuenca, and afterwards each of the countries presented one action research project that is being led by a practitioner + student couple. The cases were presented as follows:
Spain: “How to attract young audiences to Sala Cero (Seville)” by Mamen Muñoz & Irene Gómez Italy: “How to make the audience loyal in Triennale Teatro dell'Arte (Milan)” by Silvia Bovio & Valeria La Corte UK: “Prototyping and testing different audience consultation activities in the Imperial War Museum (London)” by Camilla Thomas Denmark: “How pupils from elementary school asses and experience the Salaam Film & Dialog events (Copenhaguen)” by Kari Dreijer Poland: “How to „give back” the Bródno Sculpture Park to the local society in the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw” by Dominika Jagiełło
If you missed it, now you have the opportunity to listen to it!
Last month CONNECT had its winter school. Over 50 students, practitioners and partners got together in Turin to commonly reflect on the Twin Track Program already in motion.
We have crossed half of this project that started in 2017 and it certainly was time to exchange ideas, impressions and feedback from across Europe between all parties involved. The objective was to commonly understand how to improve the experience, contents and format of the program in every country. Share the difficulties and opportunities found in the journey and try to provide constructive solutions for the future.
In order to do that we applied creative approaches and action-learning methodologies to solve complex problems. A longer post illustrating these processes is yet to come next week. By now, enjoy this funny video we did presenting “The Audience Squad: searching for the unknown”. We hope you like it.
To close the second edition of O Público vai ao Teatro, a project of public development that involved three distinct groups — children, adults and teachers — who accompanied the Teatro São Luiz programme over the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, they are offering a meeting between different agents of the artistic sector, as well as agents from other disciplines, around the analysis of the relationships between creation, programming and reception in the framework of the performative arts, trying to discuss the links between these three nodes and systematise policies and involvement strategies.
On the 4th of October 2018, we have launched our training programs Expert Diploma in Cultural Audiences (aimed at postgraduate students) and Expert in Audience Strategy (aimed at practitioners) at the University of Deusto headquarters in Madrid, organized by the Leisure Studies Institute.
This ‘twin-track’ course has been designed within the framework of the European project Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance CONNECT – Connecting Audiences (575807-EPP-1-2016-1-ES-EPPKA2-KA), with the objective to promote an innovative cooperation between universities and enterprises in the cultural sector across Europe, and to bridge the gap between the academic world and cultural sector. The Leisure Studies Institute of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the University of Deusto (ES) is the leader of the project in which different institutions participate: Asimétrica (ES), partner of The Audience Agency (UK); ICCE of Goldsmiths, University of London (UK); Fondazione Fitzcarraldo (IT); MeltingPro (IT); Encatc (BE); Center for Kunst & Interkultur (DK); Department of Culture of The City of Warsaw (PL) and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan (PL). The first edition of this training will be taught simultaneously during the 2018-2019 academic year in five European countries: Spain, Italy, Denmark, Poland, and the United Kingdom.
These training programs address the main challenges faced by cultural management in the changing universe of audience development. They offer the theoretical and practical tools necessary to understand different types of audiences, including the development of strategies and ideas to intervene in the field of culture, which will help to promote and lead far-reaching changes within institutions and organizations from the cultural sector. Hence, the two programs answer the fundamental questions regarding the understanding and management of audiences.
The great benefit of these Expert programs consists of an innovative methodological approach that promotes collaboration between the academic world and the professional sector. Both programs are anchored in a research-action methodology oriented towards audience development. This will be designed and conducted in a collaborative way between students, professionals, and organizations. The aim is to share skill-building activities through the development of leadership competencies, along with practices based on excellence and entrepreneurial attitudes that enable the adaptation to an ever-changing sector. We face then an ambitious pilot project in the field of audience development in the cultural sector, which is in a continuous process of improvement with the aim to shape its offer for the following years.
More information on Expert Diploma in Cultural Audiences: http://audiencias.deusto.es/ More information on Expert in Audience Strategies: http://publicos.deusto.es/
