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FOREWORD
ALAN DAVEY
Chief Executive, Arts Council England
It’s extraordinarily hard to measure and quantify an idea like
value in relation to culture, because the use of the term raises
so many questions – not least, ‘who is asking about value’, and
‘what does value mean’. You can’t tick a box marked profundity.
The Arts Council’s mission is great art and culture for everyone. We want arts and
culture to reach more people, but we also want to increase the depth and quality
of their cultural experience. But do we understand what people actually value
from their experience of arts and culture, and do those ideas of value agree with
those of cultural organisations or of funders
This is important work for the arts and for museums. Cultural organisations want
to know their audiences better and to understand why they like what they like.
We need to go deeper than generalities, whether enthusiasms or criticisms. When
people say things like ‘I loved that book’, or ‘that theatre makes excellent work’, or
‘that band changed my life’ - what does that actually mean Further, politicians
require us to justify taxpayer investment, but how do we capture for them the
power of culture on the individual
These are hard questions, and coloured by subjectivity, but we should not avoid
them if we are to better understand and articulate the essential contribution that
the arts make to all our lives.
In the past, the question of value has been considered by academics through describing
two types of impacts: those where culture makes a contribution to wider
policy areas (such as supporting economic growth, health and education) and
those which are associated with benefits to the individual (like happiness or inspiration).
These differing areas of value have been described as ‘instrumental’ and
‘intrinsic.’
Most people simply don’t think about culture in this way, of course and neither is
this thinking particularly helpful to the Arts Council’s mission and goals. Would it
ever be meaningful to talk about funding an excellent museum that had no effect
on the world around it
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