© Directors:  Tim Redfern & Dr Justin Varney

Period May- October 2006

Introduction

Pride Legacy Project (PLP) has undertaken to examine the need for a cohesive partnership strategy in London to celebrate and support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer (LGBTQ) programming amongst venues and institutions who seek to develop activities within and about this community.

 

PLP received a research and development grant from Arts Council England for a 12 month project which started in April 2006. This document is the interim report which marks six months of progress through the project.

 

The PLP Organisation

PLP is delivered by the co-directors and founders Tim Redfern and Dr Justin Varney. Mr Redfern is employed by PLP part time (2/7) and provides the hub for the project development of PLP. Dr Varney provides pro-rata consultancy time to the project.

 

PLP established a steering group to help inform the development of the project and draw in additional support in kind from a range of individuals with experience of queer arts, audience development and community engagement. A range of individuals were approached to join the steering group and all but two agreed to join the project. The steering group meets every 2-3 months to review the project progress, outcomes and discuss the next steps, in between meetings members of the steering group have been providing informal mentoring to the project directors.

 

The Steering Group presently consists of:

• Sarah Cretch, Waterloo Arts and Events Network Programme Manager
• Anne Torregiani, Director of Audiences London
• Steve Mannix Executive Director of Shape Arts
• Dr Rupert James Buchanan Smith, writer, journalist and co-founder of House of Homosexual Culture

 

The steering group are reviewing their membership to discuss additional members to help promote wider engagement with the project and provide additional informal support.

 

Project Aim

PLP aims to explore the opportunities available to engage a spectrum of LGBTQ community in a broad range of arts and venues as audience and participants, with a particular focus on venues which have not previously engaged with this audience.

 

Objective 1

To define a concept of an LGBTQ artistic legacy and explore the potential to develop the role of arts venues in local LGBTQ networks around a village theme

 

In the process of this project PLP has developed a view of artistic legacy which recognises the breadth of LGBTQ cultural activity and expression in London and the validity of LGBTQ as a distinct cultural identity. PLP also discovered that although there is a wide range of activity, it is not always recognised or engaged with, and there remain substantial barriers in communicating within this cultural group. This has been recognised as a major hurdle for venues wishing to explore LGBTQ cultural activity.

 

At the outset, PLP engaged with a range of key potential stakeholders and partners to gauge the opportunity to develop a project to build an on-going engagement and legacy between the LHBTQ community, LGBTQ identifying artists and creative and heritage arts venues in London.

 

PLP has undertaken a survey of venues to attempt to map the current engagement with LGBTQ communities and events. The results of this survey will then be considered in the context of existing local LGBT community forums and groups to highlight good practice and the potential for further engagement with local communities.

 

PLP has actively engaged with existing LGBTQ historical projects including LGBT History Month and the Proud Heritage Project to discuss how cultural and artistic heritage is manifested and archived. PLP have recognised that there is a lack of strategic co-ordination between existing archives and venues to record and promote LGBTQ artistic legacy.

 

PLP has engaged with the National Portrait Gallery to support programming of a specific panel discussion around the history of queer representation in its portrait collection. This exploration of that aspect of the collection has led to the NPG working with PLP to develop secondary programmes of LGBTQ relevance around the David Hockney exhibition.

 

PLP recognises that at this point in the project following initial approaches to a wide range of venues, heritage venues have been enthusiastically engaging with the project aims and working with PLP to undertake pilot events and support evaluation and learning development of these projects. The venue survey which was undertaken recently did identify that a wider range of venues are interested in exploring their relationship with LGBTQ community and culture, and the project will explore this further in remaining six months.

 

Objective 2

To secure funding to source the appointment of a project co-ordinator and resource phase one of the project

 

We were successful in securing funding for this Research and Development Project from Arts Council England.  Following securing funding, Mr Tim Redfern was appointed as project co-ordinator (P/T) and office space was brokered with Audiences London.

 

PLP is currently starting to look forward to resource funding for the second phase of the project and build on the experience and learning from the first six months. PLP has had some initial discussions with some potential funders such as the Heritage Lottery Fund.

 

Objective 3

To develop relationships with a small group of key-stake-holder venues and organisations to anchor the Legacy project in current provision and activities

 

PLP established a steering group of key-stakeholders from a range of organisations to anchor the project in the current cultural climate.

 

By basing the project co-ordinator role with Audiences London, the project has developed a symbiotic relationship which has led to PLP exploring with Audiences London a commission to develop an event in 2007 on LGBTQ audience development and engagement.

 

As part of the evaluation of the PLP partnership events, venues have been asked to reflect on the experience of working with PLP to highlight how this has influenced their practice and how well PLP engaged with existing structures and organisational culture.

 

Objective 4

To work with key stakeholders and Audiences London to develop, pilot and implement audience evaluation methodologies for LGBTQ and mixed audiences.

 

PLP has been building a body of knowledge about audience development and evaluation while working with Audiences London. This has included:

• Explored using membership programmes, events and venues brochures to gauge content of LGBTQ programming
• Sourced articles and studies pertaining to key marketing audience development within this sector (Appendix A)
• Attended conference on marketing to the ‘The Pink Pound’
• Engaged in anecdotal discussion with members of the LGBTQ community around attending venues and cultural events.

 

Following this exploration a questionnaire was developed with Audiences London to engage with venues to explore how they were currently programming with LGBTQ artists and audiences and their perceptions around LGBTQ art and culture (Appendix B -Questionnaire).

An electronic invitation to take part was distributed to a 182 creative and heritage arts venues in London, sourced in conjunction with Audiences London and Arts Council England.  The email invitation was distributed in July 2006 and made accessible via the Pride Legacy Project website. An incentive of a £50 Aveda voucher was offered to a random participant who completed the survey by the end of August as an incentive to promote completion[1].  Twenty one venues had responded by the end of August. A follow up personal e-mail/invitation was sent in September from a member of the PLP steering group[2] but to date this has not generated further responses.  The survey remains active to promote further engagement.

 

The PLP steering group met to discuss the poor response rate to the survey and consider the possible reasons for response, non-responses and opportunities to boost response. The group identified the following key points which would need further exploration to validate:

 

Responders

• It may be that those who responded were  LGBTQ themselves and therefore had a personal incentive to respond
• Venues might have responded because they currently have programming aimed at LGBTQ audiences (although several venues who actively target the LGBTQ community did not respond despite repeated reminders).

 

Non-Responders

·         The venue or the individual receiving the invitation may not have understood or been familiar with LGBTQ issues and hence been unsure about filling in the survey

·         Fear of the individual being ‘outed’ or undermined in the workplace by completing the survey

·         Fear that by completing the survey the venue is highlighting a gap in current programming

·         Respondents (venues) deemed to be one step ahead already in terms of integrating LGBTQ awareness to policy/ programming and therefore were not willing to engage with the survey as did not recognise its usefulness to them.

·         The Assimilation myth- a belief that LGBTQ is not an issue any more and that therefore all their programming was already accessible.

·         Did the structure of the questionnaire alienate individuals

·         Experience from Audiences London suggests that a poor response rate may reflect a poor understanding of the project/survey aims

 

Opportunity to boost response

• Contact a selection of responders and non-responders to undertake semi-structured telephone interviews to explore these reasons in more detail.

 

 

PLP will develop, with support from Audiences London, a semi-structured interview format to be used and implemented.

 

The steering group also highlighted some key variables which should be considered when reviewing the responses from venues such as:

• Those which are building based vs. those without physical space
• Sustainability of funding i.e. national institution vs. independent arts forum
• Visibility of senior LGBTQ staff (organisational culture)

 

PLP also developed and piloted audience evaluation with events at the Dana Centre and National Portrait Gallery. This built on the organisations existing audience feedback and was enhanced through support from PLP and Audiences London.

 

These events include

·         Sourcing Sexuality discussion/ talk at Dana Centre

·         Who’s in the box discussion/ talk on sexual stereotypes at Dana Centre

·         Queer Speed Dating event at Dana Centre

·         Queering the Portrait at The National Portrait Gallery

·         A season of events from David Hockney through to Bloomsbury Group at the National Portrait Gallery (from October 2006 to Feb 2007), for which as dedicated season flyer was produced by NPG and targeted marketing plan created in conjunction with Impact Distribution (Appendix C – flyer)

 

PLP are working with Audiences London to analyse the audience feedback from these events and the audience feedback tools to develop a better understanding of good practice which will feed into the final project report.

 

Objective 5

To engage with LGBTQ Youth Groups to explore current awareness to artistic opportunities and the underpinning desire and approach for future opportunities.

 

We have engaged the LGBT Consortium Freestyle and LGBT Youth Council project workers to discuss LGBT youth engagement with the Arts in London.

 

We worked with the production of BENT (Martin Sherman) at Trafalgar Studios to promote a reduced ticket price for youth groups and a facilitated post-performance workshop with the writer, director and cast.  Eleven individuals took up the offer of attending the workshop performance, which was part of a wider teacher orientated workshop, and five attended the post-performance workshop. The workshop highlighted the educational pack which PLP had supported in development with the Ambassadors Theatre Group. Discussions following this, raised awareness of the challenges for LGBTQ youth projects to obtain funding for attending theatre performances and the need for better support for youth workers in engaging with local education authorities to gain resources to engage with the arts. The discussions also highlighted a need to develop a greater awareness and understanding of the importance LGBTQ cultural events and history, and the opportunities to use these events to engage young people in discussion and debates of contemporary and historical issues. Some of the feedback from the event also raised the importance of personal contact to promote engagement.

 

PLP will continue to build on the relationship with Freestyle and the London LGBT Youth Council to explore how these barriers can be addressed in the future.

 

PLP also plans to engage directly with LGBTQ youth group leaders to discuss their current perceptions of engagement with LGBTQ cultural events throughout the year.

 

Objective 6

To engage with disabled, older and ethnic minority groups to explore perceptions of current provisions and expectations or arts venues and opportunities outside of those who have already attended our events to date. 

 

PLP recognises at this stage there is further work needed to address this objective. PLP plans to learn from the experiences of a range of individuals currently working with these communities, these included.

 

• SHAPE Arts Exec Steve Mannix
• Chroma, Shaun Levin
• AGLOW, Nicola Hubberstone
• UK Consortium of People Living with HIV & AIDS,

 

Following these conversations PLP will draw out opportunities for further work and good practice.

 

PLP will review the monitoring data from the NPG and Dana Centre events to review the attendance at these events from minority groups compared with other similar events at these venues.

 

Objective 7 

To explore the representation of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered and new queer voices in programming in London.

 

PLP used the survey of venues to look at the presence of LGBTQ programming in the past three years however this only had a limited response.

 

PLP therefore plans to undertake a structured review of the websites a random selection from the 182 venues and heritage venues approached for the survey to look at the visibility of LGBTQ issues and language on the website, as this often provides the first point of contact for individuals approaching the organisation.

 

Programming relies on the presence of LGBTQ artists and the engagement between venues and artists and artists and venues to promote continuing LGBTQ cultural legacy. Therefore the steering group suggested an informal gathering for artists to discuss their experiences of engaging with venues around LGBTQ culture and identify barriers and opportunities that might be developed further in future projects. It was proposed that PLP source a key ‘name’ (such as Neil Bartlett or Bette Bourne) to invite artists past, present and future to attend.  PLP aims to put this event together in early 2007, in the post venue feedback evaluation phase.

 

8. To explore the LGBTQ communities’ awareness of the Arts and opportunities within the field.

 

Through the discussions with youth group leaders and minority group projects PLP aims to gain some understanding of the wider communities’ awareness of Art opportunities.

 

PLP is going to undertake a structured review of  LGBTQ magazines published in London over a two month period to review the content/editorial and advertising space dedicated to LGBTQ cultural events as a proxy for cultural awareness, however this recognises that not all the LGBTQ community access these publications.

 

Objective 9

To work with key stakeholders to review partnership and cross pollination

approaches [to develop audiences] across LGBTQ London

 

Once PLP has analysed the feedback and experiences from the events held during the research and development project the findings in the final report will highlight good practice and the opportunities for greater partnership working. This will include review of the commissioned development of an Impact distribution run focusing on LGBTQ venues.

 

PLP will engage with a range of national LGBTQ festivals to review the feasibility of cross-pollination between venues either within a specific time period or as an ongoing marking vehicle.

 

Part of the work undertaken through the engagement with venues has explored the need for a continued support project to enable and nurture projects with engaging in LGBTQ programming and audience development. This will inform the development of the future organisational and business development of PLP.

 

Objective 10

To analyse the engagement and feedback in Summer/Autumn 2006 to review the continuation and potential outcome of a future Pride Legacy Project.

 

PLP is working with key partners to gather feedback on the role of PLP in supporting organisations. PLP is aware that there has been a growing level of interest from stakeholders and venues, such as Audiences London and London Metropolitan Archive, in continuing engagement.

 

PLP is aware that engagement with Arts Council Funded venues has been slower to develop and so with the support from the steering group, PLP will directly engage with targeted ACE funded venues to discuss how PLP could support such venues. However several ACE funded venues did respond actively to the questionnaire and PLP will engage with them to identify learning and good practice which could be shared with other organisations.

 

PLP recognises that the developing regulations on goods, services and facilities protecting individuals against discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation will impact on arts and culture venues and aims to look at how future phases of PLP can support organisations in meeting their legal obligations as well as actively engaging with these communities. This may be through:

• Raising venue awareness of LGBTQ Equality rights as integral to diversity [to an ends of inclusivity] planning
• Implementing LGBTQ awareness within artistic and access policies of venues
• Implementing LGBTQ awareness and access within artistic programming of venues
• Access to LGBTQ resources,
• Access to marketing and public relations tools and methodologies
• Access to academics, artists and policy makers