aceUVi

Once again, discourse on this topic is weighed down by ambiguous terminology
such as ‘artistic excellence’, ‘artistic quality’, ‘creative health’, and ‘cultural
leadership’. Considering the range of language in the literature, we use ‘creative
capacity’ to refer to an organisation’s ability to conceptualise and present excellent
programmes that engage participants in culturally valuable, impactful experiences.
Looking across the literature, several elements of an organisation’s ‘creative
capacity’ can be discerned in two categories – core elements that do not vary from
organisation to organisation, and conditional elements that may or may not apply
to a given organisation, depending on its mission and programmatic focus:
Core elements of ‘creative capacity’
• Clarity of intent, risk-taking – the extent to which the organisation is able
to articulate clear goals and desired outcomes for its programmes (Bailey
2009b, Lord et al 2012), and an institutional policy on risk-taking (Ellis 2002,
Radbourne 2013)
• Community relevance – the capacity of an organisation to diagnose its constituents’
needs, interests and aspirations, and to reflect this information through
its unique institutional lens and respond authentically (Bunting and Knell
2014, Brown et al 2014, Bunting 2010, Bailey 2009a)
• Excellence in curating and capacity to innovate – the quality of an organisation’s
process of selecting and developing imaginative programmes (Boerner
2004, Castañer and Campos 2002)
• Technical proficiency, skill and artistry – quality in the sense of ‘excellence in
craft’ (Boerner 2004; Hannah et al 2003), and an organisation’s commitment to
developing artists at all levels of proficiency (Bailey 2009a)
• Capacity to engage audiences – an organisation’s capacity to assist audiences
and participants in contextualising the work and making meaning from it
(Brown and Ratzkin 2011, Bailey 2009a, McCarthy et al 2004)
• Critical feedback and commitment to continuous improvement – the extent
to which an organisation welcomes critical feedback from programme participants
and incorporates this information into its thinking about programming
(Bailey 2009a, Lord et al 2012)
Conditional elements of ‘creative capacity’
• Supportive networks – an organisation’s network of reciprocal relationships
with artists, scholars, vendors, peer organisations, community partners, and
others both inside and outside of its sector or field, which serve to support the
Executive Summary 22
UNDERSTANDING the value and impacts of cultural experiences