Articulating quality

The first time I really started to think about quality in participatory arts was when someone criticised a project I was leading at Welsh National Opera. “Who is this composer you are using? We’ve never heard of him. How do we know he is any good?” I was outraged.

I had chosen my artists extremely carefully and my criteria was not that their work was performed at the Proms, but that they knew how to inspire seven year olds to write music. I knew quality work when I saw it, but I realised that I couldn’t articulate what I was seeing. I had no language, no framework in which to position my decisions.

I knew quality work when I saw it, but I realised that I couldn’t articulate what I was seeing

Talking to colleagues across Wales, I found I was not alone. In fact, there was a big debate going on about how to understand what quality looked like across the participatory arts sector. It led me to bring together a partnership of artists and arts organisations and bid to be part of an ArtWorks special initiative, run by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (PHF) from 2011 to 2014. This action research initiative focused on a number of issues, and an investigation of quality was key among them.

The Arts Council of Wales (ACW) was also wrestling with the issue as it developed a new strategy called Make, Reach, Sustain. I attended a meeting three years ago that brought together ACW advisors, officers, community arts and national organisations to explore how to assess and monitor quality in participatory arts projects. A further meeting followed in 2014 and the outcomes were clear: we needed to create a framework or a toolkit that would help with the articulation problem. There was work to do.

Research and meetings

There were some pieces of published research that informed what we should do next. ArtWorks had generated a large number of reports and Working Paper 8 written by Mary Schwarz looked closely at how the research had furthered our understanding of the quality debate. Creative Scotland had commissioned researcher Rachel Blanche to review existing quality principles and toolkits and her extremely comprehensive study, Developing a foundation for quality guidance, gave us a solid starting point.

Last year ACW commissioned ArtWorks Cymru, now co-funded by ACW and PHF, to develop a quality framework for the participatory arts in Wales. For me it was hugely important that what we created was developed and owned by the people who would eventually use it. So it involved bringing together a working group of organisations, consultants and artists, running a series of focus groups across Wales to test our thinking, and creating an online resource and booklet with a set of tools.

Cross-border exchange

The Welsh sector was not the only group creating quality principles. Arts Council England had already developed a set of quality principles for work with children and young people, which were tested from 2014 onwards, and were part of Blanche’s study.

Scotland began a process to create quality guidance at the same time that we started in Wales, and this allowed us to create an exchange where Chrissie Ruckley from Creative Scotland came to Wales to join one of our working group meetings, and I joined one of its pilot group meetings in Edinburgh.

This exchange was particularly interesting as the final products have turned out to be very different. Creative Scotland has created a reflective toolkit with a clear structure that leads you through planning, delivery and evaluation in a cycle.

Nine quality principles

We created a set of nine principles for participatory arts projects that divide into three areas: intention, activity and people.

• The intention: artistic and professional; relevant and inclusive; inspiring, engaging and challenging.
• The activity: purposeful, active, hands-on and reflective; suitably situated and resourced; collaboratively planned, evaluated and safe.
• The people: participant-centred; focus on participant progression; shared ownership and responsibility across everyone who’s involved.

The quality principles were published in July in Welsh and English. It may seem like the work is done but this is really just the beginning. They now need to come alive, to be truly owned by the sector, and to flex and grow as we find out more about where they are useful. To this end we have issued a call for case studies.

Joined-up conversation

We are also working with ArtWorks Alliance, which has been created to tackle national strategic issues in participatory arts and brings together a range of umbrella organisations from across the UK. The reach it offers will enable a more joined-up conversation about quality, and ultimately I hope it will raise the profile and value of participatory arts.

In the future, I hope I won’t have to explain why the composer who can inspire and guide a child to write music is absolutely the right person for the projects I want to create.

Rhian Hutchings is Partnership Manager at ArtWorks Cymru.
artworks.cymru
Tw: @ArtWorksCymru