PROJECT LEADERS
        Collectif Microsillons (HEAD—Genève, HES-SO)
        Olivier Desvoignes et Marianne Guarinot-Huet 
        
        RESEARCH TEAM
        Saskia Bailer (HEAD—Genève, HES-SO)    

        PARTICIPANT·E·S

FUNDING
SNF Swiss National Science Foundation 
HEAD – Genève

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The research team collects data on these projects through interviews, analysis of their documentary materials and discourses, and studies their project evaluations. The aim is to propose and test new tools to support non-for-profit institutions, associations, artists and gallery educators in conducting and evaluating participation projects in the visual arts.The research takes place in a context where notions of inclusion, democratization and institutional transformation are at the heart of debates on the role of museums and art centers. Since 2007, numerous initiatives aimed at ‘audience’ participation have emerged in the art field, often setting out goals of diversity, inclusivity and the reinforcement of active citizenship, in a context where issues of social justice, gender equality, post-coloniality and ecology in cultural institutions are increasingly discussed.

The research therefore asks: What forms and discourses have these collaborations produced, and what effects have they had on institutional practices and on the relationship of the people involved to the institution? What forms of evaluation have been put in place to qualitatively analyze the effects produced by these initiatives? What new iterative evaluation tools could be developed for use by those involved in these projects?The central hypothesis is that the evaluation of cultural participation actions is mainly carried out a posteriori, without the direct involvement of participants, and without allowing for the project to be impacted by an ongoing evaluation during its realization. More broadly, while participatory approaches have been widely adopted, their forms, discourses, and impacts remain insufficiently defined, measured, or critically discussed. Research on public participation in art museums is still limited, often relying on general statements rather than detailed analyses of how such projects function and what social value they generate for the institution and its participants.The project’s objectives are structured on several levels:

1. To generate an overview of all the relevant cultural participation projects involving collaboration, co-creation, or initiatives by non-art specialists in Swiss museums and art centers between 2007 and today.
2. To analyze the forms and discourses they have produced (objectives, emergence processes, modes of collaboration and governance, forms of public presentation, and narratives), as well as their modes of evaluation.
3. To develop and test, together with cultural professionals, new tools and procedures for accompanying and evaluating such projects.
4. To disseminate these tools through a publicly accessible toolbox and through public engagement formats.
    

If you are currently working on (or have previously worked on) co-creation projects between non-art specialists and a Swiss visual arts organization, and would like to propose it as a potential case study, then please reach out to us: microsillons.head@hesge.ch