“The Connect Project at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery is about re-visioning and redisplaying the permanent collections through a process of responding to and developing audiences.
Its concept and delivery is a partnership between the
Service and Alchemy, led by Nima Poovaya-Smith.
The capital elements are
coming to completion and the galleries will officially re-open on 16 October 2008. The project has been supported by Bradford Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Arts Council, England, Yorkshire Renaissance, the Wolfson Foundation and other grant giving trusts. The overall costs are £1.97 million.
The Connect concept is a thematic re-hang of the collections using the themes of People, Place and Imagination. These themes unite what are diverse collections of art from across the world.
It is an attempt to take a trans-cultural approach,
building upon the strengths of the collections.
Bradford’s collections are truly
international in scope. The collection of South Asian art is now one of the largest public collections outside London. The print collection, a legacy of the Bradford Print Biennale, also reflects international trends.
Bradford Museums and Galleries have a long track record of consulting and working with different groups when developing exhibitions.
In developing the Connect
Project, Audience Engagement was seen as an integral part of the project and not a bolt on to be considered once the capital work was completed. The service believes that there is much to be gained from working with audiences rather than delivering a product for them.
The gallery had identified a range of cross-cutting target
audiences that it wanted to work with;
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Local people living in urban and rural parts of the District
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Visitors to Lister Park
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Cultural tourists
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Selected primary schools
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Young People aged 11 - 18
At the time of the bid the service had no Audience Development Officer and a miserable marketing budget.
This would change with the appointment of a Hub
funded officer and an associated budget, but it was clear to the project team that neither the Service nor the Council had the capacity to conduct this work.
The
audience development part of the project was costed and put out to tender. Audiences Yorkshire were appointed, being successful in terms of value for money and for the quality of their tender document. The brief was to work with the gallery staff and deliver;
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An Audience Engagement Programme
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A Marketing Plan
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Facilitate the input from target audience groups
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Provide professional advice
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Training for the emerging Young Ambassadors group
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Evaluate the Project
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Aid in planning audience development once the capital works had been completed
The first phase of this work was led by Kate Wafer and Dan Hadley, who worked as part of the Audiences Yorkshire team. This proved to be very successful and was linked to a series of small pilots and a larger exhibition at Cartwright Hall, Prelude which was a major piece of formative evaluation.
This work, which involved focus groups drawn from the key target audiences, was a way for the project team, led by Nima Poovaya-Smith of Alchemy, to test their initial concepts on a range of people whose composition reflected the audiences the gallery wanted to both engage with and make sure that they visited in the future.
The result of this work helped shape the way the galleries were designed.
This
work;
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Tested the comprehension of the three main themes of People, Place and Imagination
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Made the team simplify the number of sub-themes within the selected major themes
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Shaped the use of ‘inter-actives’ within the design
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Shaped the length of the text within the galleries
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Suggested the concept of the ‘Bradford Connection’ within the labelling system
The important conclusion of this work was that it was not tokenistic, the Gallery had a clear vision of what it wished to do and was open enough to test it. The results were that the overall concept was sound and understandable but that some elements needed to be, and were, modified. All the suggestions above have been included in the galleries.
Thanks to the work of Sofia Maskin, the Communities and Outreach Officer at Cartwright Hall the group of Young Ambassadors continued to develop throughout the project.
This informal grouping of around 20 young people has provided
invaluable input into the project. They have given advice, acted as guides and networked with other groups. In return they have hopefully gained a real insight into how cultural organisations work and some new skills.
The Marketing Plan was developed alongside this work and the Audiences Yorkshire team worked closely with the Service’s Audience Development Officer, the Content Development Team and the Learning and Outreach Team. This has informed the build up to the opening and the promotion that will follow it. Audiences Yorkshire
have also supported the marketing of events linked to Connect, including lectures by James Walvin and Diane Howse.
During the last three years we have enjoyed a fruitful relationship with Audiences Yorkshire and the project has benefited from having a supportive but also critical friend. We also hope that Audiences Yorkshire have benefited from working with the Gallery and Alchemy, as they have forged new relationships with Harewood House and the International Creative Forum. As we move towards the opening of the galleries, this relationship will continue in the form of an Evaluation of the project and the need to ensure that the target audiences, of which a sample helped shape the project, come and visit.�
Mark Suggitt Head of Museums, Galleries & Heritage Department of Culture, Tourism & Sport, Bradford Metropolitan District Council