1. Cultural intermediation:
project and progress
Phil Jones
School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
26 October 2012

2. The project

3. The research problem we
identified
• Florida, DCMS, AHRC etc. all tell us how
important the creative economy is
• If the ‘creative economy’ is significant, then
who is benefiting from it?
• How is the creative economy connected to
different communities?
• What processes of ‘cultural intermediation’
operate to make these connections?

4. Overall aim
To identify means of enhancing the
effectiveness of cultural
intermediation as a mechanism for
connecting different communities
into the broader creative economy

5. Creative vs. cultural
• Slippage between terms ‘creative’ and
‘cultural’ industries
– Tendency to subsume cultural within creative
industries
• ‘Cultural economy’ allows us to think wider
and think about contribution that
museums, galleries etc. can make
– More than simply direct economic output
– Fascinating debates on nature of ‘value’

6. Research Questions
• To develop techniques to capture the value of cultural
intermediation (WP1)
• To examine how cultural intermediation has developed
historically, whose interests it has served and what lessons
this provides for understanding best practice today. (WP2)
• To critically evaluate the role of intermediaries in the
changing governance of cultural economy initiatives and
how different actors undertaking cultural intermediation
operate within the sector (WP3)
• To explore how intermediation connects communities into
the creative economy and how this can be enhanced to
break down the tension between hard-to-reach
communities and inaccessible cultural resources. (WP4)

7. Research Questions
• To design and deliver practice-based interventions with
local stakeholder panels of academics, policy-
makers, community groups and artists to improve the
effectiveness of cultural intermediation. (WP5)
• To contribute to academic, policy and practitioner debates
on the value of cultural intermediation in shaping creative
economy initiatives (WP6)
• To reflexively examine and evaluate the process of
interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary working through
innovative project design and delivery (WP6)
• To produce high-quality academic, policy and artistic
outputs based on best practice in knowledge exchange
(WP0-6)

8. What do we want to get from
project continuity days
• A chance to catch up on the work the team
have been doing
• Looking at how the different strands fit
together
• Review whether we’re on track and how the
project needs to evolve from the original plan
• Identify things we’ve missed, potential
avenues to explore

9. Management Committee
Phil Jones (PI/WP5)
Steering Group Dave O’Brien (WP1) Virtual panel
Mitra Memarzia (AIR) Susan Jones (AN)
Clayton Shaw (Sampad) Ian Grosvenor (WP2) Rachel Smithies (ACE)
Chris Jam (Unity FM) Beth Perry (WP3) Ed Pickering (DCMS)
Yvette Vaughan Jones (Visiting Arts) Paul Long (WP4) Paul Collard (Creative Partnerships)
Manchester International Festival Paul Benneworth (Uni of Twente)
Brighter Sound Tim May (WP6)
Manchester City Council
The Community Development Trust
Ruth Daniel (Un-Convention)
David Tittle (MADE)
Tony Whyton (Uni of Salford)
Kate Mcluskie (Uni of Birmingham)
Cross cutting team
Phil Jones (coordinator)
Dave O’Brien
Birmingham Team Lisa De Propis
Sam Mwaura
Manchester Team
Phil Jones (coordinator) Ian Grosvenor Beth Perry (coordinator)
Saskia Warren Natasha McNabb Karen Smith
Andrew Dubber Yvette Vaughan Jones Paul Heywood
Paul Long Antonia Layard
Tim May
Kerry Wilson
Richard Clay
Birmingham Local Panel Russell Beale Manchester Local Panel
Tom Duffy
Commissioning interventions. Commissioning interventions.
Composition to emerge from Composition to emerge from
activities in WP3 & WP4 activities in WP3 & WP4

10. Intermediation

11. What is ‘cultural
intermediation’?
• Bourdieu’s (1984): intermediaries as agents
who tell communities what cultural
phenomena to passively consume
• Hesmondhalgh (2006) argues that the ways of
thinking through production-mediation-
consumption need to evolve
– Reflects changes in these relations through the
rise of the creative industries

12. Joys of ambiguity
• Ongoing debate about how intermediaries can be
conceptualised
– Lots of room to encompass different
conceptualisations as the project evolves
– Intermediation as ‘shared territory’ (Bakhtin)
• Broader notion of ‘intermediation’ as processes
linking cultural economy to the wider world
– individual artists, public arts venues, creative
industries, agencies/networks supporting the arts, etc.
etc.

13. Intermediation as
connection
• Implicit assumption that connecting more people
to the creative economy will reduce inequality
• Cultural intermediation already exists
• But
– Is cultural intermediation the best way to make
connections?
– Does it function in the most effective fashion?
– Can modes of working be found that improve this
‘connecting’ role?

14. Fellow travellers

15. AHRC Creative Economy call
• University of Birmingham: Connecting
communities in the creative urban economy
• University of Manchester: Understanding
everyday participation and its role in creating
social and cultural value (PI Andy Miles)
• Cardiff University: Understanding the value of
the creative citizen (PI Ian Hargreaves)

16. Communities and Culture
Network (CCNetwork+)
• EPSRC-funded, PI Helen Thornham, Leeds
• “The impacts brought on by the convergence
of digital technology, culture, and practice
raise real questions around how and what
communities and cultures might/could/should
be understood”
• Networking, commissioning action
research, undertaking pilot projects

17. Kings Cultural Institute
• Run out of Kings College London
• Getting artists and researchers to work
together
– Generating new forms of knowledge
– Getting communities involved in arts-based
research practices
• Creative intersections project with the RSA

19. Chicago Cultural Plan
• Driven by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and
Department of Cultural Affairs & Special
Events
• Huge citizen participation exercise
– 8 Town Halls, 20 Neighbourhood
‘conversations’, 50+ other meetings
• Released October 2012
– 36 recommendations, over 200 initiatives

20. Chicago priorities
1. Foster arts education & lifelong learning
2. Attract/retain artists & creative professionals
3. Elevate & expand neighbourhood cultural assets
4. Facilitate neighborhood cultural planning
5. Strengthen capacity of the cultural sector
6. Optimize City policies and regulations
7. Promote the value and impact of culture
8. Strengthen Chicago as a global cultural destination
9. Foster cultural innovation
10. Integrate culture into daily life

21. “...the blizzard of 36 recommendations in the
completed Cultural Plan, with multiple initiatives
listed under each one, makes the document more
of a Christmas wish list than a comprehensible
course of action. Real, tangible ideas share
acreage with grandiose hopes; ideas that could
be launched tomorrow compete for attention
with visions that are not likely to be realized, for
decades, if ever.
Nothing wrong with dreaming big, of
course, but in these hard times — with the city
and the state deeply in the red — only ideas
grounded in reality seem likely to generate
results. ”
Howard Reich, Arts Critic, Chicago Tribune 19/10/12

22. • 18/19 October 2012
• Council Leader taking personal charge of city’s
cultural strategy
• Arts/culture placed at centre of a city agenda
which places inequality as #1 priority
– Economic growth but also
– Place making / community engagement
– Wellbeing
• Continued anxiety over perception of the city

23. White Paper on Growth
• Regional strategy for economic development
• Three themes: Business; People; Place
• Commissioned research for the Creative City
initiative aiming to:
– Secure investment for cultural/creative industries
– Identify key factors driving/constraining growth in
the sector
– Identify key areas for investment in the sector

24. Research for Creative City
Theme Growth Drivers Barriers to growth
A growing & evolving sector Emerging digital industry Decline of major media
Below the radar activity Decline of fashion/jewellery
Size Few barriers to entry Career progression
Excellent venues (SHTH) Decline of major media
Poor mid-scale venues
Location Lower capital costs than Proximity to London (HS2)
London
Planning/development Facilities/incubators Zoning/land assembly not
Developing a ‘buzz’ mapped to needs of sector
PR / Marketing Large, organic sector Lack of local pride
Positive perception in the Lack of creative ID
sector Low profile in media
Under the radar activity

25. Research for Creative City
Theme Growth Drivers Barriers to growth
Networking Existing clusters/networks Geography militates against
e.g. Custard Factory / a central ‘hub’
Jewellery Quarter, plus non- No obvious ‘zones’ to bring
geographic networks activity together
No definitive ‘directory’ of
creative activity
Skills Strong start up culture, high Artisanal rather than
resilience entrepreneurial mindset
Microbusinesses struggle
with skills/training
Access to finance Organisations keen to access Agencies lack understanding
funding in new ways of creative sector
Support insufficiently
responsive

26. Timelines & targets

27. Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4
WP0 Scoping & Theory Building
WP2 Historic
WP3 Governance WP4 Communities WP5 Interventions
WP1 Valuation & Mapping

28. Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4
WP0 Scoping & Theory Building
WP2 Historic
WP3 Governance WP4 Communities WP5 Interventions
WP1 Valuation & Mapping

29. Delivery
• International scoping studies commissioned
(WP0)
• Staff appointed (WP1, 3-5, 6)
• Initial scoping of archives and priority areas
(WP2)
• Working paper on valuation (WP1)
• Data collection & initial analysis for mapping
(WP1)

30. International scoping
studies
• Mapping the Creative Urban Economy
– How has the creative/cultural economy developed historically in this city?
– What are the key features of the creative urban economy in this city?
• Policy and Governance
– What is the policy framework (national/local) in which the creative economy
operates within this city?
– What are the local governance arrangements?
– To what extent are different communities implicated in the
formulation/implementation of policy and governance frameworks?
• Connecting Communities
– To what extent is the city’s wider community engaged with the creative and
cultural economy
– What evidence is there for intermediation processes within the sector locally
beyond encouraging consumption?
– Are there particular examples of intermediation processes as two-way
dialogue?
– In these examples, what were the critical success factors?

31. International scoping
studies
• Chicago – Cultural Policy Center, University of Chicago
• Toronto – Heather McLean, York University
• Guangzhou – Fang Yuan-ping, Centre for Urban and Regional Development
Studies, South China Normal University
• Hobart – ties into a three year ARC project run by Justin
O’Connor, Queensland University of Technology
• Budapest – Emilia Barna Assistant Professor at the Budapest University of
Technology and Economics Institute for Media Education and Research
(BME MOKK)
• Delhi – Raj Isar, Professor of Cultural Policy Studies, American University of
Paris, (author of forthcoming UNESCO Creative Economy Report)
• Sweden , South Africa, France
• TBC
– UAE
– Caracas
– Medellin

32. Staff appointed
• Samuel Mwaura – research assistant on the
mapping project (WP1)
• Saskia Warren – Research Fellow for
Birmingham (WP3-5)
• Karen Smith – Research Fellow for Manchester
(WP3-5)
• Laura Ager – PhD student, role of universities
as cultural intermediaries (WP6)

33. Today’s presentations
• Mapping cultural intermediation
Lisa De Propris, University of Birmingham
• Cultural intermediation in historical perspective
Ian Grosvenor & Natasha Macnab, University of
Birmingham
• Measuring the value of cultural intermediation
Dave O’Brien, City University (Presented by Saskia
Warren)