27/09/2023-28/01/2024, work package 2 (Practices)
Arts-based evaluation of Coventry Biennial
The policy cycle is currently failing to effectively capture the lived experience of a variety of stakeholders and citizens, when evaluating social value and impact. Recent social developments since 2020 have accelerated the search for methods that gather meaningful, contextual qualitative data that evidence impact in innovative ways. In response, in my secondment project, based on the case of the Coventry Biennial, I have researched, together with Coventry University colleague Dr Charlie Ingram, an applied-theatre scholar, how arts-based methods of evaluation can contribute to the need for valuing the voices of citizens in evaluation processes. This project tested a recently developed and innovative methodology, ‘Evaluation Performance’, and investigate what “added value” the method can provide, given the need for an expanded set of evaluative practices by policymakers. It provided insights into the value of alternative approaches to capture lived experience and provide unique and affectual evidence bases to evaluate impacts.
We were interested in how alternative strategies might be employed to provide a contextual understanding of the values created by arts organisations. With the Coventry Biennial as a case study, we set out on a journey whereby we wanted to find out what the Biennial valued about itself, and how that manifested from the perspectives of, and between staff, stakeholders, artists and members of the public. We interviewed respondents from these different groups, whose thoughts and experiences on the Coventry Biennial were presented in a piece of headphone verbatim theatre performance. This was an experimental process, and the performance was developed with a short rehearsal period, which took place over three days. Despite the time constraints, the impact of the theatrical presentation of the evaluation of Coventry Biennial confirmed the potential of arts-based evaluations for the effective communication of the values of art. Some of the most relevant stakeholders of Coventry Biennial who attended the performance, the officers of the Arts Council of England and of Coventry City Council, both funders of Coventry Biennial, expressed their appreciation for the effectiveness of the evaluative performance in communicating those experience-related values of the Biennial that remain hidden in conventional forms of evaluation reports. The intention is to foster cooperation with applied arts colleagues and cultural organizations to conduct further experiments of arts-based evaluations and to test their effectiveness in communicating the values of arts and culture to all relevant stakeholders in society.
Ingram, C. and Chiaravalloti, F. 2024. …like a shortcut through the brambles, an Evaluative Performance. Recording of the theatre-based evaluation of Coventry Biennial 2023, Ellen Terry Performance Studio, Coventry (UK), 19 July 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqRiI1TJws8