Social Artists and Inclusive Cultural Policy

Abstract

This case study provides a critical review of SAFEDI, an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Engagement Fellowship that sought to influence the making of policy relating to access, inclusion and diversity in arts and cultural settings and organisations. During six artist commissions, social artists worked with participants who self-identify as marginalised and with organisations interested in developing more inclusive cultural policies. Central to the SAFEDI fellowship was to see if artistic processes and outputs might become the method and mean by which to translate lived experiences of exclusion, and participants’ visions for better access, to cultural partners and researchers. Evidence collected by an independent evaluator found that all short-term projected outcomes, and a number of medium- and long- term impacts were met by the project end, with the social art practice approach enabling cultural partner leaders to reflect anew on their structures, provisions, intentions, practices and formal policies in relation to their workforce and the audiences they seek to reach.