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a community setting such as a prison or a school, or in an art studio for at-risk
youth The Australia Council, for example, refers to an organisation’s commitment
to developing artists at all levels of proficiency as a contributor to artistic
vibrancy.
Capacity to engage audiences and participants
This component of creative capacity speaks to the organisation’s ability to contextualise
and animate the work, and to help audiences and participants make
meaning from it. The Australia Council identifies ‘audience engagement and
stimulation’ as an element of artistic vibrancy (Bailey 2009a, 4). While much of
this review examines approaches to measuring the extent to which audiences
are engaged or stimulated, here, ‘audience engagement’ is framed in organisational
terms. In their model of the audience experience, Radbourne et al identify
‘knowledge’ as being ‘concerned with the audience’s need for information to
enable a better understanding or perspective of the performance with which they
are engaging’ (2010a, 361). Some creative works are more engaging than others,
so engagement is not solely the product of educational and interpretive efforts
that happen around the work, but also a reflection of the work itself (or a curator’s
re-conception of the work). In fact, engagement has become a significant focus of
practice in the arts sector, both as a means of fostering loyalty and repeat attendance,
and as a means of magnifying impact (McCarthy et al 2004; Brown and
Ratzkin 2011).
Critical feedback and commitment to continuous improvement
Earlier sections of this paper discuss approaches to gaining feedback from
audiences and visitors about the impacts of their experiences. Here, critical
feedback—in some form or another—is identified as a key element of creative
capacity. Most notably, the adoption of formal mechanisms to receive and act
upon feedback from peers, audiences, community members and other stakeholders
that has been emphasised by the Australia Council. In addition to providing
organisations with useful information, various researchers have argued that the
process of providing feedback can be a growth experience for audiences, in that
they learn to formulate critical reactions to creative work. Bunting and Knell
suggest that ‘the act of giving feedback may add to the value of a cultural experience
because it creates an opportunity for people to reflect on and make sense of
a performance or exhibition’ (Bunting and Knell 2014, 67; see also Reason 2013,
104). Drawing from the arts education literature, Lord et al identify ‘a culture of
reflective practice’ as a core element of quality, as well as ‘training, development
and being a learning organisation’ (2012, 18).
CREATIVE CAPACITY OF AN ORGANISATION 120
UNDERSTANDING the value and impacts of cultural experiences