The Role of Artists 215

in Sites for Learning

Vivienne Reiss and Emily Pringle

‘Artists excavate the unconscious of our culture and

act as seismographs, recording subtle tremors long
before they are felt more widely in our community’
(Corrin, 1999.)

Abstract

Socially engaged, participatory and educational
arts activities have been recognised by artists as
a legitimate area of creative practice for a consid-
erable time. Current policy initiatives around
social inclusion and life long learning demon-
strate that this government has a keen interest in
the transformative nature of creativity and partic-
ipation in arts activity. This paper explores the
significance of the Arts Council’s Artists in Sites
for Learning Scheme and a related piece of
research within the context of recent cultural
agendas and governmental policy initiatives. The
research examined the ‘forms of engagement’
that occur between artists, participants and
others and concludes that the role the artist
inhabits within this form of creative practice is
multifaceted and highly sophisticated. This
paper also raises key issues concerning the
‘value’ and critical assessment of this form of
practice and the need for appropriate support for
(and evaluation of) it in the future.

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216 Context
Vivienne Reiss Socially engaged, participatory and educational
and Emily Pringle
arts activity has a long history with artists engag-
ing with communities throughout the mid 20th
century. The roots of this cross disciplinary prac-
tice come from literature, performance art,
conceptual art, critical theory and community
arts. As early as the 1930s Marxist intellectuals,
particularly within The Frankfurt School, were
questioning the function of art and redefining
the role of art and audience. Walter Benjamin’s
seminal text The Author as Producer, for example,
argued for a radical, innovative social practice
wherein artists (writers) have an overall responsi-
bility to teach [1]. Subsequently, the work of artists
such as Joseph Beuys and Hans Haacke chal-
lenged the notion of the artist as a privileged
individual operating outside of society. These in
turn informed the development of community
arts agencies during the 1960s, such as the UK
based ‘Artist Placement Group’, which instigated
artist placements and residencies within sites
such as hospitals and workplaces. In the UK,
artists began working within schools in the early
1970s [2] and throughout the 1970s and 1980s
projects involving artists in sites for learning
developed and expanded, supported by a range
of funding initiatives.
Cultural agendas
On a global scale, the right to participate in
cultural activities is enshrined in the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Everyone has the right freely to participate in the
cultural life of the community and enjoy the arts [3].
Within the UK, political interest in the cultural
sector began before New Labour came to power.
The previous Conservative Government had
already begun to establish access initiatives,
including plans for participatory projects and
community development. It had begun to change
the focus of National Lottery funding away from
prestige capital projects to local community-
based initiatives. So to some extent New Labour
inherited a brief that already foregrounded issues
around access to and participation in the arts [4].
However, the policies of this Labour Government
have specifically highlighted the transformative
nature of creativity and the arts, and the impor-
tance of creativity as an essential human
characteristic. As Tony Blair is reported to have
said before his election in 1997:
‘I will tell you why Labour wants to put arts on the
agenda. Because the Labour Party believes that
art and culture enrich the quality of our life.
Because developing the potential of every indi-
vidual is an essential part of our creed, and
potential includes creative potential…..Our future
depends on our creativity [5]’.
Creativity, art and education
A number of relatively recent government-spon-
sored research and policy documents articulate
New Labour’s approach to the arts and the
specific role that artists play within that. The
report from the National Advisory Committee for
Creative and Cultural Education, All Our Futures:
Creativity, Culture and Education [6] makes a series
of detailed recommendations designed to
support the development of creativity in the
formal and informal education sectors. It recom-
mends, among other initiatives, the development
of partnerships between schools and outside
agencies, including creative individuals and
cultural organisations. The authors see the work
of these artists and organisations in education
and the community as having ‘vital roles for them
in achieving the objectives set out in this report’ [7].
However there is little detailed analysis within the
report of how and why these cultural practition-
ers and artists are successful in developing
creativity ([8]. Elsewhere the transforming effects
of artists’ involvement in education have been
championed, although again with little more than
anecdotal evidence in support [9].
Several years later, responding to the NACCCE
report, the Government’s Green Paper Culture
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and Creativity: The next ten years outlines the
setting up of ‘Creative Partnerships’ between
schools, professional cultural organisations and
creative individuals ‘to free the creative potential of
individuals’ [10]. Again, emphasis within this paper
is on the unique skills of creative individuals and
their ability to develop creative skills in others. The
recommendations of this paper have now been
put into practice and the ‘Creative Partnerships’
initiative, co-ordinated by the Arts Council, is
currently in its first phase. Partnerships are being
established between up to 25 schools and a
range of cultural organisations and creative
people in 16 locations across the country.
The contribution of the arts in community
development
The Cabinet Office Social Exclusion Unit Policy
Action Team 10’s Report (PAT10) on arts and sport
[11] looked at the contribution of arts and sports to
neighbourhood renewal (improving health,
employment, crime and education) as well as
building communities and individual pride. In 1999
the Arts Council produced a framework document
on the arts and social exclusion as a response to
PAT10. The framework identifies five strands of
activity for the Arts Council and the then Regional
Arts Boards: profile-raising, the work of regularly
funded organisations, evaluation, multi-agency
working and targeting resources. Subsequent
internal Arts Council papers provide an update on
progress, set out concrete goals and actions and
a timetable for delivery. The intention is to build on
and develop existing arts activities, for, as the initial
response to PAT10 from the Arts Council states:
The arts have a vital role in community develop-
ment – delivering tangible social and economic
benefits such as jobs, improved skills, and learning
opportunities…. The value that the Arts Council will
place on cultural activity aimed at addressing social
exclusion and growing people and communities
is founded on a profound belief in the value of the
arts to inspire, challenge, empower and engage
people [12].
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For many artists and arts organisations 217
comments such as these indicated that the value Vivienne Reiss
and Emily Pringle
of their work was finally being recognised, and
there are an increasing number of funding oppor-
tunities available regionally through European
funding, area-based initiatives and other regenera-
tion schemes. However, a real concern amongst
artists and arts organisations was that they would
be expected to address deep-rooted economic
and social issues [13]. PAT10 emphasises that the
arts are an important part of community develop-
ment, but they are not the only part. Forming
genuine and equal partnerships with communities
and agencies involved in community regeneration
is the only way to make a real long-term impact.
Evaluation and evidence
One of the central issues to have come out of
PAT10 is in proving that the arts can make a differ-
ence and coming up with ‘robust’ evaluation into
the role of the arts in neighbourhood renewal.
This is essential given the importance the current
government places on evidence and the collec-
tion and subsequent analysis of data. At a recent
conference ‘Including the Arts: preventing youth
offending’ Pauline Tambling (Executive Director
of Research and Development at the Arts
Council) stated that PAT10 identified three issues
for the arts system:
First, that we have tended to fund projects like these
through short term funding. Secondly, that we had
failed to gather enough hard evidence of success,
although we had plenty of anecdotal evidence.
And thirdly that this type of work was not recog-
nised or known about – it wasn’t seen as main-
stream arts work, but something different [14].
It follows that, in the context of recent policy
development around social inclusion, future
investment in the arts will be dependent on the
provision of evidence. However there is a broader
agenda regarding the arts, and there are funda-
mental questions to be asked. What is the nature
and value of publicly funded art? Why and how
218 should the arts be evaluated and from whose
Vivienne Reiss perspective should the arts be measured? It has
and Emily Pringle
been argued that the arts should be valued for
their intrinsic worth: ‘A self-contained realm,
which exists in opposition to the material and the
economic’ [15]. But, if the arts are to be evaluated
and measured in terms of their contribution to
wider social and economic agendas, how useful
are current methodologies, which are based
predominantly on scientific methods? Finally, if
these methods are not robust then how does this
affect the validity of evidence[16]?
Access and excellence
Returning to Tambling’s third point she acknowl-
edges that ‘this type of work’ has previously
existed outside the art world and the various insti-
tutional frameworks of commissioning, exhibiting
and critiquing contemporary arts practice. As will
be discussed later in the paper, it is our view that
this ‘type of work’ is a legitimate practice in its
own right. This strand of artistic activity is
informed by the dynamic relationships between
process, product and context, which in turn raise
issues to do with ‘quality’ and ultimately the
‘value’ of the product or artefact for different audi-
ences. But, the conventions of the art world are
such that for a practice that is regarded as
process based ‘there are major issues about how
the final product is valued by an art audience’ [17].
Interestingly, a central concern of the new inte-
grated Arts Council is that it moves beyond the
‘access and excellence’ debate. The argument
being that:
Through increased participation in artistic activity,
people will further appreciate the excellence of
others. Participation, contribution and engagement
is the bridge between access and excellence [18].
The Arts Council’s Corporate Plan due to be
published in March 2003 will set out detailed
investment for the arts over the coming years.
Among others things, new funding streams will
support an extension of ‘Creative Partnerships’ in
order to bring together people of all ages with
high quality arts activities in order to create trans-
forming experiences. Additionally there will be
higher priority given to the individual artist through
a shift in funding and support.
Artists in sites for learning
Within the above political and cultural context we
would like to explore the significance of an Arts
Council scheme and a related piece of research.
The ‘Artist in Education’ grant scheme was
established by the Visual Arts Department at the
Arts Council as a pilot scheme in May 1996,
making funding available for new projects involv-
ing artists as educators. The aim of the scheme
was to promote innovative work by artists work-
ing within a range of cultural and education
contexts and to foster opportunity for new collab-
orations in this field. The intention was to set up a
Scheme that would champion the artist and facil-
itate development of this area of practice. It was
evaluated and re launched in 1997 as the ‘Artists
in Sites for Learning Scheme’ (AiSfL) to reflect
initiatives taking place in both formal and informal
education. Initial applications were predominately
from formal education, and at the time the visual
arts department at the Arts Council was keen to
look at cross phase initiatives.
The AiSfL scheme intended to extend existing
educational practice and promote access, enjoy-
ment, learning and participation in the visual arts.
Successful projects were deemed to be concep-
tually and educationally innovative, since the
scheme aimed to expand the traditional notion of
an ‘artist residency’ where an artist is placed in an
institution to teach techniques or to decorate the
building. Significantly, the application guidelines
made it clear that to be successful projects must
be flexible and collaborative, in order to enable the
participants to have some input and control in the
process and to feel ownership of the project and
the final products. On reflection, it could be argued
that the initial intention to ‘champion the artist’ was
subsequently overshadowed by an emphasis in
the guidelines on ‘outcomes’ for participants.
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 Because of this, and in light of the recent inter-
est in artists’ involvement in formal and informal
education, it seemed timely to explore the role of
artists within socially engaged, participatory and
educational arts activities. A piece of research was
commissioned by the Arts Council in 2001 to
explore the role of artists, their creative practice and
pedagogic approaches, within projects supported
by the AiSfL Scheme. The research began with an
extensive review of relevant literature, which iden-
tified the broadness and complexity of the area
under investigation, but also demonstrated that
there is a lack of detailed research that explores
how and why artists engage with participants and
what it is they do during this process. In light of
these findings, this research had a specific brief to
explore the ‘forms of engagement’ that occur
between artists and participants. The use of the
term ‘forms of engagement’ (which we took to
mean the nature of the knowledge and experiences
that were being shared and developed between
the artists and participants) was an attempt to
acknowledge the complex relationships involved,
in order to gain a greater understanding of this
particular form of creative practice.
‘We did stir things up’: the role of artists in
sites for learning
The research focused on artists and their percep-
tions of the nature of the engagement they have
with participants. The research was also keen to
uncover what informs the approach that the
artists take (ranging from theoretical knowledge
to their own individual training and life experi-
ences) and to understand what the artists aimed
to achieve during these projects. In depth inter-
views were conducted with a number of artists,
each of whom had completed a project funded
through the AiSfL scheme. Subsequent analysis
of this data was undertaken in order to draw out
key themes and patterns. The research identified
a number of issues concerning the nature of
artist-led visual art/education projects.
What emerges is a picture of a particular form
of creative practice that, by definition, embraces
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collaboration, yet at the same time problematises 219
it. For instance, when describing how they Vivienne Reiss
and Emily Pringle
engaged with participants during the projects, the
artists emphasized the non-didactic, dialogic
approach they adopt. Comments such as ‘there
was a lot of discussion’ (Freddie Robins) and ‘in a
workshop it’s more the doing and the discussing’
(TAG) [19]. demonstrate the artists’ commitment
to sharing knowledge and experience through
dialogue. Equally significantly the artists’ do not posi-
tion themselves as infallible experts, but tend to
acknowledge the limits of their knowledge and seek
to work creatively within them. As Liz Ellis states;
‘I thought if I am very straightforward with the
students about what I don’t know and the skills that
I do have to share with them, then that’s quite an
interesting way of working [20].’
In this respect it is clear that the artists do not see
themselves as ‘teachers’, imparting a fixed body
of knowledge or providing ‘right’ answers or
solutions, but to a certain extent function as
co-learners alongside the participants. This
collaborative relationship, between artist and
participants is, however, in no way clear-cut. The
interviewees articulated key issues around the
difficulty of engaging in true collaborative prac-
tice. For one artist, Esther Sayers, a successful
collaboration involves the sharing of practice and
the creation of knowledge that could not exist
unless that sharing had taken place. But, although
emphasising the participatory nature of the AiSFL
project she led, Esther was also aware that there
was a point during the process when power and
control were wholly assumed by the artists:
That was the point at which we took it back and I
think that’s one of the things that we were clear
about from the start. We weren’t trying to make
something where we said we are all artists in that
universal sense. We were coming into it saying
we’re professionals. We want to work with you,
but it’s not automatically going to make you into
an artist [21].
220 She goes on to say that the reason why, after
Vivienne Reiss ‘listening carefully to what people were saying when
and Emily Pringle
they were making it’ they ‘took it back’ was:
‘We were incredibly conscious that we wanted it
to be viewed by an art audience and to do that it
had to conform to some of the conventions of an
artwork in order for it to be looked at seriously in
that way [22].’
As identified earlier, this quotation exemplifies a
recurrent dilemma within these projects; namely
the value placed on the process versus the
finished outcomes. All the artists interviewed
acknowledged that the AiSFL projects constitute
a process of enquiry that bears similarities to their
own creative practice, even if the latter is deemed
by them to be a totally separate activity. As Freddie
Robins says:
‘I like the relationship I build with the students and
I enjoy the journey… it has parallels to developing
one’s own practice, where there is a sense that
you’ve never arrived, you’re always pushing it,
always on a journey [23].’
This process of enquiry and critical engagement
is valid and is valued by the artists as much, if not
more, than the finished products: ‘It’s the honesty
of the search that made the work’ as Richard Neville
states [24]. Enabling the participants to develop
their own ideas, ask questions and critically
engage with the process of making art is what the
artists see as their primary responsibility. Yet the
reception and value given to this form of practice
by funders, critics, educationalists and other
artists, each of whom have their particular agen-
das, does not necessarily reflect this. Hard
‘evidence’ of this process may be difficult to come
by and assessments of ‘quality’ or ‘success’,
either by an art audience or by policy makers, do
not always recognise the complexity and value of
the nature of the engagement between the artists,
participants and the process of learning that
develops during projects [25]. Inevitably how, why
and for whom a project is assessed will have an
impact on the project itself, and in particular, the
artist’s function and their relationship to the partic-
ipants, as well as the balance between process
and product. But as the AiSfL research identified,
this form of practice is neither teaching nor is it
social work. It embraces pedagogy and personal
and social empowerment certainly, but essen-
tially it is a process of participant-centred creative
enquiry and needs to be valued and assessed as
such.
Concluding questions
The AiSfL enquiry was designed as a piece of
qualitative research, which attempted to identify
what meanings certain experiences had for the
artists involved. In part to reflect the largely open-
ended, process-oriented nature of the practice
under investigation the research did not attempt
to provide comprehensive answers or solutions,
but instead raised issues and articulated key
themes. Similarly, the concerns identified here do
not lend themselves to neat conclusions. Instead
we would like to raise a number of questions that
we consider need further debate.
What is the most effective way to develop
this area of practice?
Crucially, where does this area of practice as ‘art’
stand within current debates? What is the nature
of this new aesthetic? Is the arts funding system
able to support a range of very diverse cross disci-
plinary practices, short term and long term?
Is it possible or even desirable to
measure the value of art?
Who defines value? Are there appropriate method-
ologies to evaluate this area of practice in a
meaningful way? If ‘research’ is now evidence
based and more akin to evaluation, where can
open-ended enquiry and search for personal and
creative development reside?
What is the role of the artist in society?
Does the space called ‘art’ give license to exploring
JADE 22.2 ©NSEAD 2003
different and complex agendas and creating
change? What are the professional development
needs of artists working in this area? Are artists
being set up to fail?
The Arts Council will be co-ordinating a series of
symposia in partnerships with a number of
Universities and arts organisations during Spring/
Summer 2003 which will address these ques-
tions. It would be very valuable to get a response
to these questions from readers also see: www.
interrupt-symposium.org
References
1. Benjamin, W. (1934) The Author as Producer
2. Burgess, L. (1995) ‘Human resources: artists,
craftspersons, designers’ in Prentice, R. (ed)
Teaching Art and Design: Addressing Issues,
Identifying Directions.
London: Cassell Education.
3. Arts Council of England (ACE) (2000)
Championing the Arts. London: Arts Council
of England p. 2.
4. Selwood, S. (2002) Measuring Culture
London: Spiked Culture.
www.spiked-online.com
5. Robinson, G. (2000) The Creativity Imperative:
Investing in the arts in the 21st Century.
New Statesman Arts Lecture. London:
Arts Council of England p.2.
6. National Advisory Committee on Creative
and Cultural Education (NACCCE) (1999) All
Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education.
London: DfEE/DCMS
7. Ibid. p.12.
8. Pringle, E. (2002) We Did Stir Things Up:
The role of Artists in Sites for Learning.
London: Arts Council of England p.8.
9.Ibid. p.9.
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10. DCMS (2001) Culture and Creativity: The 221
next ten years. London: HMSO. GLLAM p.10. Vivienne Reiss
and Emily Pringle
11. Policy Action Team 10 (1999) The Arts and
Sport: A Report to the Social Exclusion Unit.
London: DCMS.
12. Arts Council of England (ACE) (1999)
Addressing Social Exclusion: A Framework for
Action. London: Arts Council of England p.1.
13. Shaw, P. (Summer 2002) Home Truths.
Engage Review 11: London, p8–12.
14. Tambling, P(2002) The Arts and Youth
Justice. In Conference report: Including the
Arts: preventing youth offending. Nick Randell
Associates.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Reiss, V. (2002) ‘Introduction’. In Pringle, E.
We Did Stir Things Up: The role of Artists in Sites
for Learning. London: Arts Council of England
p. 6.
18. Arts Council of England (2002) From Policy
to Delivery: This Council’s Ambitions for 2003–6.
London: Arts Council of England p.3.
19. Ibid. p. 98.
20. Ibid. p. 99.
21. Ibid. p.101.
22. Ibid. p.102.
23. Ibid. p.104.
24. Ibid. p. 106.
25. GLLAM (2001) Museums and Social Inclusion.
The GLLAM Report. Leicester: RCMG.