The Art Gallery of Ontario Audit Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Scott Danelesko Melody Gamble Houston Keil-Vine Adam Badzynski
Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Table of Contents
Introduction 4 CSR and Social Sustainability AGO’s Mission and Vision for the Future Analysis of Social Sustainability Framework Culture Support Innovation The Art Gallery of Ontario 12 The Forerunners of Housing Culture AGO vs. AIC: Case Report Defining our Scope and Focus Emerging Trends + Impact Mapping 18 Emerging Trends Impact Map and Analysis Identify and Catalogue the Why Opportunities We Acted Upon and Omitted Design Proposal 25 New Development In-Gallery Context Public Environment Context Digital Regional Context Future Impact Map and Anaylsis Updated Framework for Social Sustainability Regrading Culture Regrading Support Regrading Innovation The Role of the Designer 38 Our Role in All of This
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Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Introduction
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Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
CSR and Social Sustainability
What is CSR? Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a method for corporations to self-assess whether they are upholding their ethical values to society. This is often seen within a company’s mission statement and is echoed within the type of work they do, or in some cases, the type of work they refuse to do. A company’s CSR must be defined so that it is clear to whom and what they are responsible for, and how these responsibilities are influencing the company’s work and ethos. Most importantly, this CSR must yield a net benefit to society.
this last? Social Sustainability addresses these questions by integrating social equity, human rights, and community involvement to develop a structure in which current social criteria are being met while still considering room for growth. Understanding current and future consequences is critical when determining if a company is socially sustainable.
What is Social Responsibility? Providing a product or service to society brings up a number of questions and issues. How does it benefit society? What are the consequences? How is this able to be maintained? How long will
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“We bring people together with art to see, experience and understand the world in new ways.�
Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
AGO’s Mission and Vision for the Future
The Art Gallery of Ontario’s mission statement is seen on the left. It encapsulates the reason they exist while their vision statement is a progressive look towards the future. The vision statement is as follows: “We will become the imaginative centre of our city and province. We will be welcoming to our visitors, inspiring for our audiences and innovative in the ways we gather people together to create community through art. We will become a preferred cultural partner for artistic visionaries from all over the world.”
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Framework of Social Sustainability excessive
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With this in mind, we recognize Culture as the most important of the three sects comprising our framework for corporate social responsibility. Separating Culture into four quadrants, we identify Gallery, Internal, External, and Education as poignant signifiers of the AGO’s influence within international fabric. Internally, the AGO must be - and is - able to propagate a sustainable environment in which employees, volunteers, and management are proud to work and have the desire to both continue and prosper. Externally, this metric is used to quantify the social capital gained by patrons and corporate bodies when they contribute time or capital, with the tension between the two breeding classicism when unbalanced. Gallery is quantified
by their impact on the rest of the gallery spaces in the local environs, graded in tandem with external measurements, just as Education is the metric by which their effect on improving the general knowledge and acceptance of art and culture within the general populous.1
Arts projects transcend social barriers, allowing diverse social groups to interact.
[1] http://canadacouncil.ca/ council/resources/arts-promotion/arts-promo-kit/part2
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Support
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Separate to culture, we identify Support as the second most important component of our sustainability framework, comprised of Public Interest, Curation, Artists, and Self. Within Support, we assess how the AGO continues to sustain itself by measuring out Public Interest trends, in contrast with the level of interest Curation garners. Furthermore, the support of local and international Artists as incumbents and residents allow for an accurate account of relevance of space and subject matter, as does the gallery as Self in how it markets the curation of artists for the public, in this case as a metric in parallel with the ratio between public interest and curation.
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Innovation Go
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Finally, Innovation as a faction by which we can most easily quantify how the AGO is able to continue to uphold the importance of historic art in the community, most easily seen through the lens of transparency. Transparency in each of its programs, partnerships and financials is the first optimal bar set in which the institution can establish trust between itself and the public. Established Goals and Results -results compounded by both goals and innovation itself- are used as signals of sustainability, both allowing accountability to the general populous. Finally, Public Support in finances and programs become accurate responses to the level of trust built between locals, donors and gallery space - a grade that always has room to grow.
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The Art Gallery of Ontario
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The Forerunners of Housing Culture
The Art Gallery of Ontario is Canada’s largest and oldest cultural destination, every year 800,000 visitors explore its permanent collection of more than 80,000 pieces of art from all over the world. They help those visitors engage with artists from the 16th century to now and in 2015 added 1,500 new works for art to their collection. As a gallery with such a substantial collection and roots in the Toronto art community, the AGO is uniquely positioned to connect and engage with people who are looking to explore new, different ideas, and perspectives presented through art. The AGO has continued to expand its reach and relevancy to the greater Toronto community by partnering with the TDSB, SKETCH and Loblaws to produce new programs that support underprivileged communities. These programs are now housed in the recently expanded Weston
Family Learning Centre, which currently acts as AGO’s youth program facility. This space will provide the platform for AGO’s future youth outreach programs. We see the role of the AGO as a curator of art and a presenter of context to better engage its patrons. There is substantial work involved in tracking trends and developments in the Art community, this makes it difficult for the average citizen to keep track of the significance of new art around the world. The AGO plays the unique role of synthesizing these trends and presenting them to the public in a context that makes them meaningful. In the future there is an opportunity to increase the number of different contexts that that the AGO can serve this role for. By doing so the AGO can become more culturally relevant to new demographics of Canadians and tourists in Toronto.
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Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
AGO vs. AIC: Case Report
2,500/day 3,400/day AGO’s visitors/day during Bowie Exhibition
The AGO has been praised for its financial transparency and their strategic long term plan for the gallery. In the last decade they have released annual financial reviews and hosted external auditors. This accountability is crucial for the longevity of a not-for-profit agency and helps encourage trust in the public that their tax dollars are being fairly spent. In the past ten years the AGO has doubled the number of yearly visitors and membership holders. Additionally they have worked with world renowned architects and designers to undertake a major facility renovation and rebranding that has sparked conversation and interest from design and architecture communities. Though the AGO has made amazing strides in facility development and cultural outreach, they have the opportunity to be exponentially more influential and to draw much larger audiences from around the world.
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AIC’s visitors/day during Picasso Exhibition
To see what comparatively large and well funded institutions are capable of, we compared AGO to the Art Institute of Chicago: • In 2013, both institutions hosted comparatively large and exhibitions that were expected to draw larger international audiences. • The AGO had 2500 visitors a day compared to AIC’s 34002. • This resulted in an overall ~800,000 yearly visitors to the AGO and 1.5 million for AIC2. This comparison illustrates the cultural difference betweens Toronto and Chicago’s art scenes and indicates the extent of expansion that is possible for an organization as dedicated and agile as the AGO. This report will detail the different areas and opportunities that the AGO can pursue to continue their growth.
[2] http://www.museus.gov.br/ wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ TheArtNewspaper2013_ ranking.pdf
Art is the framework for cultural growth.
Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Defining Our Scope and Focus
The goal of this audit is to reimagine the Art Gallery of Ontario through the lens of social sustainability and confirm the vision they have for themselves - are they bringing in the numbers they’ve projected? Have they become the social hub for artists and art investors alike? Do they meet expectations in allowing audiences of all walks of life to see and understand art and history in new and enlightening ways, and more specifically - are they propagating socially sustainable culture by communicating the importance of historic collections of art? Through immersive study we have determined that while the AGO is working at optimal levels in over half of the criteria deemed to be properly socially sustainable, the necessity of understanding culture through the history of art
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is too important to allow for any slackening of the line. Adults aged 5565 were the only demographic to register as having the AGO within their top ten favorite attractions in the city, a statistic which supports the idea that historic art exhibitions belong to a high-society sect of the populous. In conjunction with the rise of importance of digital and social media, the AGO seems outwardly to be doing little to endorse a younger audience.3
Understanding culture through the history of art is essential to being socially sustainable.
Considering some of their previous programs like that of the Adopt[3] http://www.fieldday.com/ A-Painting TDSB partnership, it is survey/FIELDDAY_2014ENTclear that the importance of youthful SURVEY_EXECREPORT.pdf
Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
outreach is a valid concern for the direction of the gallery, though the program’s short lifespan seems to contradict this. The similarly short run of the online expedition Collection X, in which the AGO built an online resource for a single exhibition with the intent of keeping up with Web 2.0 trends, proved only to confirm that the follow through with youth through digital resources was a sub level priority. We defined social responsibility as strategy and behaviour that is best able to sustain the understanding of art as history and the ability to continue to keep it relevant in a growing local and international community.
applies to the AGO, its present and potential patrons, and determine the design strategies therein. An evaluation of external interactions using our Social Sustainability framework identified exchanges that have potential, but are proving to be less than optimal. In order to enhance their image and refocus the goal of the gallery, we have made recommendations as to which programs they should refine, and why it is important that they do so. By honing their approach through the the use of emerging trends, we hope to inspire the Art Gallery of Ontario to reinspire again.
Therefore, the first step of our audit was to analyze opportunities to address the segregation of high from low class culture as it
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Emerging Trends + Impact Mapping
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Emerging Trends
Brandstanding: brands taking moral stands to change our relationships from transactional to meaningful.
Content Creators Platform: a platform that cultivates a community to create and share their own original content.
Made to Measure: tailoring strategies to an individual or area’s specific desires.
Virtual Reality: new developments in virtual reality technology allow for new possibilities for the public to engage with.
Human Curation: creating more value in media outlets by catering to the audience. Targeted Rewards: mobile and individualized consumer loyalty program. Slow Living: downshifting lifestyle, structuring behaviour around meaning and fulfillment. Motivated Connections: the connection of individuals for the specific task of supporting a shared goal. Crowdfunding: the practice of supporting the pursuit of research initiatives by raising monetary contributions from many participants. Digital Token: situation specific payment currencies.
Storytelling: it is increasingly important for companies to tell a compelling story to their followers to keep meaningful engagement and loyalty. Multi-Sensory Environment: presently, one-dimensional engagement is considered a standard or below standard, companies must create artifacts and environments that engage the viewer on multiple levels to stay relevant. Public Outreach: a strong public appeal is important to stay at the forefront of individual’s interest towards the company. The Internet of Things and Spaces: inter-connectivity of networked objects and environments allowing reflexive response to signal motivators and controls utilized by the individual. 19
Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Impact Map and Analysis
Our goal with the Impact Map is to better understand how the AGO exists within the art community and the range of its connections. Based upon their mission and vision statements and their strategic goals, we have determined four opportunities that can act as future growth platforms: • Community driven digital platforms • Physical outreach and positioning • Educational context developments • Tailored exhibition of new artists IIn each orbit, we seek to illustrate who is affected, what is their input, and what behaviours or interactions emerge. By identifying these opportunities and considering them as growth platforms, we have understood that context
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and individual’s narratives are essential to creating a meaningful relationship with the AGO. It is through this connection that long term relationships are fostered and the significance of art increases in our lives. We plan to engage with these opportunities and match them with currently emerging trends. To produce a strategy that can be inter-compared with our proposed framework to remain socially sustainable and accelerates AGO’s impact.
Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Digital Platform
Nuit Blanche
Textile Museum of Canada
Teacher Outreach
Collection X Venue for Student Involvement No New Understanding of Art
Youth Council
Google Art Project Adopt-aPainting TSDB
Propogate Culture
Venue Facilities First Thursdays Gala
Technology Partnerships
Corporate Sponsors Searching for Grant Money Steady Supply
Virtual Reality
Education
Student Education Initiative
Community Oriented Event
Weston Family Learning Centre
Grants Staff + Volunteers
Admissions / Memberships
The Organization AGO
Donations + Bequests
Gov. of Ont.
Increased Public Support
Summer Art + Design Camps
Curation Expenses
New + Loyal Ads Security
Collaborative Influence Hidden Moments in Gallery Space
Corporate Collaboration
OCADU
Donations they give
SKETCH Outreach Program
Facility Expansion Government
Sponsors
Food + Gift Shop
Food Suppliers
Retail Brand Space Ultra Specific Community Outreach
CAD and USD
Jewelry Designers
FRANK Restaurant
Unbreak-ahedrons
Facilities
Winterlicious
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Display on the AGO Facade
Community Events
Projection in the Grange Park
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Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Identify and Catalogue the Why
The AGO is Canada’s largest and most visited cultural center in Canada, currently it serves over 800,000 patrons every year. As such, it is - and should be - seeking to engage with a greater and more diverse portion of the population. In order to increase their degree of impact we have identified a number platforms that can be further developed to provide as many outreach points as possible. We have identified Art as the platform that is fundamentally required so that humanity can relate and craft our future culture. However, in order for participants to engage with artists and their work there needs to be a shared context to bridge meaning and relate the significance of the work. As adults age they are exposed to a greater number of contexts, which allows them to more easily engage with a variety of art works and form a deeper connection with their significance. We recognize that this engagement is much more difficult for children, and we believe that it is the socially sustainable role of 22
the AGO to act as the mediator that introduces younger demographics to art in a context that they can appreciate and engage with. We have therefore identified platforms that would allow for this growth and connections to occur: Collection X:Together with the Virtual Museum of Canada the AGO has launched an initiative to provide a digital space for users to share their feelings and have discussions about art. This represents a modest first attempt to create new contexts for users and will be pursued in future strategies. Youth Council: The Youth Council’s mission is to create programing for Youth by Youth, this program has launched many events and exhibitions aimed at connecting with younger demographics. In the future this practice will be extended by allowing consultation with youth in their own environments and mediums.
Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Sketch outreach: In 2015 AGO partnered with SKETCH to collect donated art supplies and help disadvantaged communities create artworks and build community. This partnership presents the future of socially sustainable impacts and should be continued in the future. Adopt a Painting: In 2012 AGO launched a partnership with the TDSB to host canadian artworks in schools and create a ‘visual dialogue’ with students about the importance of artworks. These paintings were incorporated into the curriculum and helped students locate themselves within the art community. First Thursday: One night a month the AGO, opens its doors and hosts a curated experience that allows young adults a chance to explore the AGO with their peers for a fractions of the cost of typical admission. These events were the first instance of AGO allowing patrons to exist en masse in their community and explore the exhibits in a new context. Artist in Residence: The AGO provides studio space and funding for a group of artists. This allows the gallery to be involved in the curation of new talent and to be
an integral part of the community. It is programs like these that allow for contextually significant art to be created. Free after Three: AGO provides free admittance to the Gallery after 3pm for Ontario High School students, though this does not create an approachable context for art it does lower financial barriers to entry and allows a great population to experience the AGO’s permanent collection. Community Gallery: As part of the AGO’s role in curating the large art community, they frequently present exhibitions that in line with the organization’s values but aren’t large enough or developed enough to be shown in the main space. Instead these shows are produced for the community gallery which is housed in the Weston Family Centre. AGO’s People’s Choice: AGO’s first attempt to contact with patrons on social media, encouraged them to take photos of their favorite pieces and cast votes to nominate a people’s choice award. This kind of campaign failed to pair the social media generation with art, but did temporarily increase the AGO’s presence on social media.
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Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Opportunities We Acted Upon and Omitted
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When creating new contexts for patrons to experience art, the demographic with the most opportunity for impact was a youth to young adult audience. By focusing resources on developing strategies, AGO has an opportunity to make a long term investment in their relationship and education. When considering which opportunities are the most actionable, it’s important to consider the culture of the AGO.
Collaboration X: As a digital platform whose purpose is to facilitate conversation, there is an opportunity to create a new context to engage with this younger audience.
For instance, it would not be within their current ethos to switch to a pay what you can model. Even though this opportunity would inevitable lead to decrease in barriers and an increase in yearly visitors. Other programs: Artist in Residence, summer camp, and Nuit Blanche, are operating successfully in their current format and would not offer a high cost-impact result. The growth platforms that would offer the greatest strategic opportunity are:
People’s Choice: This program introduced smartphones into the gallery space and presents the opportunity for patrons to voice their preferences alongside curated exhibits.
Community Gallery: AGO’s willingness to curate smaller contemporary artists, offers the opportunity to expand this program and relate to a greater variety of audiences.
Youth Council: The curation and acknowledgment of developing work creates an environment that can allow younger artists to become connected to the art community and begin to foster relationships and followings of their own.
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Design Proposal
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New Developments
Considering the Art Gallery of Ontario has a proven penchant for poor follow through with social and integrated media representation, we strongly recommend a new direction for the gallery - that of specific context based strategy encompassing new media installations in the building and throughout the city, new partnerships in security for expansive auxiliary gallery openings in adjacent communities, and a strong social media presence spearheaded by a city-spanning interactive platform. Acknowledging emerging trends such as Augmented Reality and Multi-Sensory Environments can quickly help the Art Gallery of Ontario boost not only its visitor capacity, but will allow its namesake to be inherited sooner by the younger generations who depend on the Internet of Things and Spaces.
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Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
In–Gallery Context
For children the fundamental difference between an exhilarating visit to the Science Centre and a trip to the AGO, is the amount of content that is specifically designed to interact with them. The issue for AGO is that, currently, introducing of new artifacts to engage with children would result in a shift in the environment that these great works of art are presented in and could degrade the experience for other patrons. However in the relatively near future there will be a unique opportunity presented by leveraging AR technology and Storytelling, to create a new MultiSensory Experiences tailored for the individual.
other experiences to be built. By engaging with children in a new context, there is opportunity to show the importance of art from a number of new perspectives:
These ‘hidden moments’ will allow the AGO to interact with children in a context that they are natively comfortable with, without disrupting the gallery experience for other patrons. Offering this new experience through a reconceived AGO app will earn mobile device real estate and offer a platform for
Culturally relevant avatars that can act as tour guides and introduce viewers to pieces that they might enjoy or specifically relate to. This customization can come from demographic data generated from the other connected future AGO experiences.
A greater amount of information can be provided to aspiring artists, such as materials and techniques, offering viewers the opportunity to witness the creation of the piece and ask the artists questions A story of the time and place that this piece was created in could be presented, this content could be produced from a historical perspective in partnership with either the ROM or TVO.
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Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Public Environment Context
Public spaces house a variety of different people, with each separate space setting the tone for an environment where culture has the potential to be nurtured. The role of public gathering places is to offer a platform on which people can form their own community and culture within. Using a Content Creators Platform with the opportunity for Motivated Connections, creative culture can be facilitated through the support of public spaces that host moving collections of curated art pieces. A collaboration between the AGO’s permanent collection and locally acclaimed artist’s work will bring together a seamless cultural experience for viewers. This platform will support student based installations, directly feeding the cultural sustainability of existing and future generations of students by emphasizing their impact on the way people perceive community involvement in cultural growth. A partnership with 3M Security creates the opportunity for each of these public locations to house pieces within the confines of unbreakable showcases, allowing for unrestrained access in a wide range of Toronto’s public spaces. 30
Not only will this alleviate the responsibility of highly secured venues, but it will make these stand-alone galleries available to anyone with the motivation to explore, regardless of age, event or societal expectations. In this way, an emphasis will be reassigned to Public Outreach, by giving communities the ability to participate and benefit from the richly supported future of cultural preservation.
Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Digital Regional Context
Reframing the physical world and transporting it into that of the digital is a disarmingly easy way of keeping history relevant, and with the right partnerships, can prove invaluable to the gallery in its abilities to reach out to the networked and interconnected public.
the gallery space, the growth of appeal of both the space the work a thousand fold. This specifically accommodates appreciation of works within the building which already exists, but an element of Human Curation and Content Creator Platform is missing.
First and foremost, the AGO needs to have a stronger presence in social media, harnessing not only the power of app development, but current trends in communication such as snapchat, Instagram and video profiling. NASA caters to a profile base of 9.6M on Instagram, which continues to grow due to their ability to communicate content. For each and every post of foreign galaxy found through impossible to understand astrophysics, an explanation of context follows, filled with content that nearly doubles the size of their post - often in video format. There is no reason that redirection of curation employing video profiling and context based exposition should be ignored if the AGO hopes to grow its modest 28,000 following.
We suggest a partnership with the Jane’s Walk foundation, an auxiliary aspect to the app which will allow for an expanding platform offering a guided city tour with the context and history through historic art pieces and architecture, explained as though they were intentionally curated by the gallery itself. As the app will travel through the city and province, photo identification software can identify landmarks and explain the context of the creation, thereby further influencing the need for curiosity as an onlooker. With a rich repertoire of artifacts in its database, the auxiliary app function can change pedestrian behaviour into gallery patron behaviour.
With the installation of app based software that can help inform patrons and arts fans outside
NASA’s social media is so influencial, AGO’s art and history can, and should be just as immense.
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Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Future Impact Map and Analysis
Our goal with the Impact Map was to better understand how the Art Gallery of Ontario’s various functions influence larger topics. We have catalogued that they are an exceptional frontrunner in housing culture, but can be better at sustaining it. After identifying the most successful endeavours AGO is participating in, we propose a complete reconstruction to streamline the connection they hold. Starting from the outside ring and working inward, we propose potential corporate sponsors to empower the most successful behaviours and consider trends to support these behaviours. Restructuring of values embodies their excellent cultural support and yields a net increase to their social sustainability. 32
Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Digital Platform Venue for Student Involvement
Teacher Outreach
99% Invisible
OCADU
TDSB
New App Development
Human Curation
City of Toronto
Imagination Catalyst Content Creators Platform
Storytelling
Adopt an Artwork
Collaboration X
New Education Context
Layars Oculus Rift
Augmented Reality
Unbreak-ahedrons
AGO
People’s Choice
Youth Council
Public Outreach
Google Hidden Moments in Gallery Space
3M
Multi-Sensory Environments
Connected Society
Tourism Ontario Emerging Artists Starbucks
Display on the AGO Facade
Community Events
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Updated Framework of Social Sustainability excessive
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In n o dopting these three design context proposals, the AGO can accelerate their cultural role and engage with new demographics, without damaging current relationships. This leads to an increase in their social sustainability and tangible progress towards meeting their future strategic goals and vision. Leveraging content creation communities and building experiences
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on digital platforms can help re-shape the AGO’s cultural apprehension with social media and foster a cycle of new content creation. In the future, flexible digital content will allow users with specific needs to be more seamlessly and sustainably designed for.
Corporate Social Responsibilty Report
Regrading Culture Ga lle
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Gallery The AGO is Toronto’s biggest gallery space, with over half the population of patrons registering as coming from within Toronto itself.4 Considering that frequency, a more sustainable focus on the importance of art in culture will involve further and continued partnerships between gallery spaces inside the city and province, including outsourcing new spaces not thought of originally to be practical gallery spaces. Internal With an average consensus of employment standards being met, the Art Gallery of Ontario has only to continue generating volunteer to employment opportunities by affecting the influence of art and history as vocations worth pursuing.5
Education Considering the community space of the Weston Learning Centre and the classes both taught within and available space in which to do so, the AGO is doing well within the community, with notable exception in expanse of social media presence and digital platforming. With guided research and focus in that direction, the gallery can expand its patronship and inflate digital presence to shape popular behaviour into a more curious and inquisitive attitude. External With expansion into relevant social behaviours through digital platforms and consistent pursuit of education, the AGO can effectively change the attitude towards high-class art consumption into that of positive affectation, working - as they should as the City’s most prominent gallery attraction - to close the gap of class system dissonance.
[4] (http://www.ago.net/factsheet) [5] (https://www.glassdoor. ca/Reviews/Art-Gallery-of-Ontario-Reviews-E478621. htm?&countryRedirect=true)
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Regrading Support
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Artists Having no notable pain points in artist residences, incumbents and event organizers, the AGO balances well it’s ability to propagate artist support within the community. Excepting the fact that space is always at a premium and contemporary artists can only fit into the gallery space when they can, all the gallery can do is continue to host new artist exhibitions within the confines of special event presentations as effectively as they have been doing. Curation Parallel to artist support, AGO curation rates well as acquisition finances and event organization continue to be meted out in the year’s budget efficiently. With a relatively equal division between challenging contemporary art events and exhibits and classical historic exhibitions in both permanent collection and events, curation can only further enhance 36
the reputation of the gallery.6
With subtle adaptations in curatorial practice, marketing and strategy, the AGO will be able to redefine its rightful space in cultural relevance.
Self Having identified friction points in present marketing tactics, the AGO can effectively retrain their namesake distribution and align it with more efficient contemporary practices, furthering the change in attitude from pedestrian to patron.
Public Interest Largely determined by curation and self expenditures, public interest is a direct representation of how well the AGO upholds its namesake within the community as well as the importance of art in the lives of the general populous. While public interest accounts for just over a quarter of the gallery’s revenue, this is rendered ineffective when the only age range demographic which considers it among the top ten most relevant is that of the 55+ crowd.7
[6] (http://www.fieldday.com/ survey/FIELDDAY_2014ENTSURVEY_EXECREPORT.pdf) [7] (http://www.ago.net/exhibitions)
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Regrading Innovation Go
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Transparency We identify that AGO’s transparency with their financial statements and current company projection are responsibly upheld. Providing annual updated finances, and having well-known business firms like KPMG audit whether they are truly representing their claims, is why they are already exceptional at their transparency.
Goals We have identified that AGO’s goal-setting and achieving is at an optimal place currently. Projects like the Youth Council and Collaboration X are both great examples of positive goals that are yielding interesting results in the context of innovation. Continuing the nurture their innovation team is critical to staying socially relevant.
Results AGO’s efforts an online presence through social media has not been an extremely successful one. Though they have an app for mobile devices, and multiple programs to exemplify their results, they have yet to yield anything from them. Our proposed designs, like a reimagined Digital Regional Platform can improve their excessive, and fruitless efforts in conveying consistent results to their members and the public.
Public Support To continue to produce effective goals and achieve them, support from the public can immensely influence the success of the project. Currently, it is lacking due to the way large populations within Toronto feel about approaching art. This leads to lower attendance at program initiatives which are meant to spread knowledge about understanding art, not ostracizing large populations because they feel out of place.
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The Role of the Designer
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Our Role in All of This
In the future the role of the designer will be threefold: • Curatorial • Operational • Futurist Designers will be integral to Augmented Reality experiences as curators of both individual’s content and platform maintenance and development. Working hand in hand with educators, AGO employees and Artists, the designer’s role will grow as patrons interact with the app and technological advancements offer deeper more customized experiences.
generations of designers will need to be aware of platform trends and be able to design interaction experiences that are usable by the broadest possible audience. This will create a new set of roles for designers, as they work to naturally evolve the AGO digital voice and craft stories that help engage patrons in the art community. Operationally, as we move forward, accessible arts platforms is seen as a synonymous priority to that of our nation’s cultural development.
When approaching new forms physical outreach and smaller exhibitions, the role of the designer will be to forecast changes in public interest and behaviours. In order to continue to connect with future
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