Report compiled by Dr Gretchen Coombs 

Summary

Creative practitioners are increasingly asked to demonstrate impact of their work, which has led to challenges to understand the complexity of artistic practice and its cultural value. How can we trace impact, and if there is impact, for whom — the creative practitioner, the community, the museum, all of the above? What is the benchmark for success — symbolic shift, demonstrable policy changes, increased funding, more industry partnerships? These questions need to respond to national assessment systems like the Australian Research Council (ARC) Engagement and Impact and the UK’s Research Evaluation Framework (REF). How can creative practices offer innovative methods as tools for tracking impact? 

Creative practices’ value has traditionally been the intrinsic and indeterminate yet in recent years has been measured by its instrumental, or economic value. In light of more socially-engaged practices and the ​“turn towards community,” value takes on a more diffuse meaning. More often than not, the goal is social change, and this involves groups of community stakeholders who are consulted and become invested in the process and outcomes of the art project, and ultimately need to contribute to understanding its impact. Within this process, more and more non-art agencies and government departments — such as health and urban renewal (i.e., placemaking) — are seeking out socially-engaged projects. These shifts reinforce and broaden the scope of instrumentalisation in the arts based on its social use, and therefore compound the complexity of impact assessment because of the number of stakeholders who may or may not have differing definitions of success and impact.

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