LCEPS and The Power of Partnerships
Recently my colleague Rosanna Cant (Community Partnerships Manager) and I attended the Power of Partnerships event, organised by The Mighty Creatives (East Midlands Bridge) along with other Bridges Festival Bridge and Arts Connect. The event was attended by members of Local Cultural Education Partnerships across the regions.
It was a great to see the impact partnership working is having and I enjoyed being interviewed by some of the young people at the event. With my evidence and data hat on it was useful to hear some of the shared challenges LCEPs are facing around evaluation and chat more about experience of the Collective Outcomes Tool (more info on that here and here).
Community Curation
There were lots of inspiring sessions at the Museums Association this year, but I especially enjoyed the presentations about community curation from The Vagina Museum, Museum of Transology, the Museum of Homelessness and the rukus! archive. The speakers explore the factors that contributed to the creation of their organisations, including activist pressure (people are increasingly demanding to see themselves represented) and decolonisation of collections.
Jess Turtle, a co-founder of the Museum of Homelessness when asked ‘Why a museum?’ said it’s about power – museums are powerhouses and these organisations have a role in taking back and redistributing this power. The MoH was part of the Cultural Space research programme – useful to have a look when considering ‘new approaches to the development of cultural organisations’ physical and virtual spaces in ways that empower organisations and their audiences.’
Language and terminology emerged as a key topic in many sessions I attended – this great resource ‘Words Matter’ from the Research Centre for Material Culture (thanks for sharing Rachael Minott).
Other Resources
- Quantifying social class? Understanding who our audiences are or could be is vital, but questions around social class can be confusing. This Arts Professional article by colleagues explores this. I think the key takeaway for me is being more confident around what may contribute to a person’s self-identification.
- Getting political: top advice from the Cultural Learning Alliance: ‘this post details six different ways that you can help to make the case for the arts and cultural learning in this landscape’
- Guided by Young Voices: This is a great guide from the Roundhouse about how to involve Young Trustees in your organisation
- Get creative inspiration for the new year: Sign up to 64 Million Artists’ January Challenge and receive 31 days of creative challenges. There are packs for libraries and schools too.
Featured in the November edition of The Learning Diaries. Aimed at those working in learning, engagement or participation in the cultural sector, this newsletter will share updates from our team on sector events, ideas from some of our projects and links to new research. To receive The Learning Diaries, visit the sign up page.
