Rebecca Farley presentation to ICCHS Research Postgraduate Conference 2012. Over the last thirty years NewcastleGateshead has established an international reputation for public art commissioning. While ambitious claims continue to be made about the societal and environmental impact of public art, particularly in terms of regeneration and placemaking agendas, what we might call the ‘aesthetic encounter’ between audiences and public artworks is often missing from the discussion. As Harriet Senie noted in her work in New York City the audience for public art remains largely “an imaginary construct”. Using NewcastleGateshead as a case study my research project aims to go some way to fill this gap, taking a primarily qualitative approach to investigate audience engagement with contemporary public art in the city, both with individual artworks and through the conceptual and interpretational framework of the wider public art ‘collection’. This presentation will outline some of the key questions that I aim to address through this project and introduce a discussion on the mix of appropriate investigative methods that might be employed within the research.

1. Encounters and interactions:
audience engagement with the
NewcastleGateshead public art
collection.
Rebecca Farley
ICCHS Postgraduate Research Conference
11 June 2012

2. Give and Take
2004
River God
1995
Swirle Pavilion
1998
Everchanging
Grainger Town Map
2005
2003
Gateshead Garden Festival
1990 Blacksmiths Needle Tyne Line of Text Flow Escapology
1996 2005 2008
Rolling Moon
1990 Angel of the North Nocturne Four Questions
1999 2006 2009
Pillar Man
2004
Spheres Wor Jackie Rudder Tributary Community in Motion
1990 1991 1996 2005 2007
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

3. My research question
How do audiences encounter and engage with
public artworks in NewcastleGateshead and to
what extent might this activity be framed as an
interaction with a contemporary public art
‘collection’?

4. Three research aims:
1. To examine and describe the City’s
contemporary public art ‘collection’.
2. To investigate the character of audience
engagement with these artworks.
3. To explore the potential of a ‘public art
collection’ as an interpretive framework.

7. “Public art can make a major
contribution to giving a place
character and identity, bringing people
into and through places, generating
civic pride in a neighbourhood and
improving its image.”
British Urban Regeneration Association

8. “Public Art can play an important role in
providing an attractive, high quality
environment and in helping to build a new
community. Public Art can provide a focal
point, enhanced sense of place and
delight for local residents.”
Creativity in the Coalfields, English Partnerships, 2005

9. The public art audience?
“Big sculptures in public spaces are put there, among
other reasons, on the assumption that the people who
pass through those spaces will see the sculpture and in
some way be affected by it….Yet the consistent desire to
define public art never – but never – goes to specific
audiences and asks them anything about that art..”
Massey, D., Rose, G. (2003) Personal Views: Public Art Research Project, The Open
University.

10. The ‘aesthetic’ encounter?
"If we are to understand the interaction between
individual and artwork that produces the aesthetic
experience, we need to know more about the artwork
and the mechanisms through which it engages people,
and we need to know more about the individual people
that encounter that particular work of art at a particular
time in their lives and at a particular time in history.”
Belfiore, E., & Bennett, O. (2007). Determinants of Impact : Towards a Better
Understanding of Encounters with the Arts. Cultural Trends, 16(3), 225-275.

11. To investigate the character of audience
engagement with public artworks
What do I mean by ‘engagement’?
How might this engagement be evidenced?
What data collection methods might I use?

14. “I really like the one outside
Northumbria University. As a
sculpture it’s got real presence.
I don’t know anything about it,
but I like it.”
Gateshead College student

15. “When I read the title it somehow
clicked. I’d never really appreciated it
before, just seen it as rather big and
lumpy. But it made more sense when
I knew what it’s called.”
Friend of the Shipley Art
Gallery

16. Gateshead Cultural Volunteers
“It’s the Speaking Gate”
“Is it in Saltwell Park?”
“No, it’s along the Riverside.”

18. “Were they daring
art students,
organised
pranksters or just
dedicated fans of
the Batman
franchise?”
Source:
www.thepoke.co.uk
"As I'm an atheist I can not say 'Shearer is
God' but he might be an angel," believes
Mark Thurston, who is clearly agnostic
about the definition of atheism.
Source: http://football.guardian.co.uk

19. Evidence of audience engagement
Physical traces
Behaviour
What people say
User generated content

20. Data collection methods
Observation
Visual survey
Interviews
Longitudinal survey
Auto-ethnography

21. Summary
• More to public art than ‘The Angel of the North’
• Big claims made by public art advocates
• But little known about public art audiences
• Range of ways in which people engage with public art
• Shown how these might be evidenced
• Indicated breadth of research methods I might use.

22. Thank you.
Any questions?
Rebecca Farley
ICCHS
r.farley@newcastle.ac.uk
http://rebeccafarley.wordpress.com
Images: © Rebecca Farley, and courtesy of Commissions North / Arts Council England, Gateshead
Council, Newcastle City Council. © The Photographers