The Australia Council has developed a set of resources on artistic vibrancy and how to measure it. This fills the gap in the research into artistic vibrancy and real-world tests of performance measurement in the arts.
The resources define artistic vibrancy, create new case studies for how arts organisations currently assess their own artistic vibrancy, and provide tools for how to measure it. These include suggestions on how to measure the various dimensions of artistic vibrancy, including an arts company’s community relevance, audience engagement and stimulation, excellence of craft, the freshness of an arts organisation’s approach to the preservation or development of the artform and the development of artists.
The resources provide tools to arts organisations and their boards struggling to find meaningful ways to evaluate their artistic impact, and to funding agencies looking for ways of assessing arts organisations’ artistic merit which go beyond box ticking.
Alan Brown, principal of the international arts consultancy WolfBrown and recent keynote speaker at the 2009 Australian Performing Arts Centre Association Conference, had this to say about the resources.“
I loved the papers on artistic vibrancy, and have been telling people about them ever since I got back from Australia. It’s probably the most important discussion we can have.”