Overview

In this project I am developing 'Emergent Value' as a new and innovative way of understanding the unpredictable ways through which participants find meaning and value in their experiences. This meaning arises out of the specific connections between their lived experiences and the context and content of the work.
Exploring how art becomes meaningful for individuals and discovering what they value and how they value it has great potential for participants and organisations alike. The project will re-centre the participant in the process of gathering complex information on experience and offer a deeper level appreciation of their experiences. This project aims to develop a framework around Emergent Value with associated participant-centred evaluation strategies. The challenge of how we capture arts experiences is particularly pressing at a time when arts funding is rapidly decreasing (see State of the Arts report, 2024) [link to report] and in the context of government agendas that instrumentalise the arts within economic development and social impact agendas. This has led to a situation where arts experiences are increasingly judged through metrics. Current frameworks for establishing value and capturing the impact of arts experiences take an instrumentalist and metrics approach: where a specific aim is set out beforehand and evaluation is targeted at capturing data to show whether that specific aim has been achieved. Whilst such approaches are an important part of capturing the impact of arts experiences, it does not enable a full understanding of all the ways in which experiences become meaningful to participants. Emergent Value is a collaboration with several exciting creative partners.

Research question

The main research question is: How can we understand and capture the Emergent Value of participation in the arts and embed this in impact frameworks? The project will examine the following, interconnected areas:

Explore the relationship between Emergent Value and participant reflection. This will be done by experimenting with different strategies for scaffolding reflection for participants before, during and after their experiences.
Examine the role of facilitating spaces for participant meaning-making following events. This includes exploring how such spaces can enable Emergent Value to develop more consistently.
Develop a range of creative and playful evaluation strategies able to capture Emergent Value. This will enable participants to express more of the complexity of their experiences.

If you’re interested in being a partner on this or future research projects then please get in touch on emergentvalue@bathspa.ac.uk

Project activities

Audience research case studies

I am collaborating with some of the project’s creative partners [link] to capture audience experiences and build up a picture of the main themes within an Emergent Value framework. Some of these case studies examine the role of reflection within meaning-making, whilst those in collaboration with Pudding [link] explore the role facilitated spaces for conversation can have in the development of meaningful experiences.

Playful methods development

As part of the project, I am developing a range of playful, participatory and creative approaches to scaffolding and capturing audience meaning making. Some of these are developed in collaboration with a range of exciting game designers and participatory performance makers. Each will be tested on a project with a meta-evaluation done to explore their efficacy and the learning will be shared at the end of the project in an Evaluation Playbook.

Audience and Sector Advisory Groups

To ensure that audience and practitioner voices are embedded throughout the project, I have set up an Audience advisory group and a Sector advisory group, which meet regularly to discuss key questions that arise within the project.