Cultural policy and participatory art practices in Flanders

Abstract

Purpose

In Flanders, the subventions in the cultural sector are mainly divided and decided upon within the framework of the Arts Decree. Within this policy framework, art organizations may choose in their funding applications for “participation” as one of the five possible functions to describe their artistic and cultural practices. However, questions need to be raised about the different interpretations of the notion of participation within this policy framework. The growing trend of evidence-based policy-making implies that participation risks to become a “target” that needs to be achieved instrumentally, which paradoxically ignores the fact that participatory practices within culture and the arts are very often diverse, multi-layered and context-specific practices. Starting from this paradox, the purpose of this paper is to explore how the current policy framework is translated into different “participatory” art practices by art organizations and specifically how cultural practitioners themselves conceptualize it.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the authors discuss the results of a qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with cultural practitioners about how they grapple with the notion of participation within their organizations and practices.

Findings

The results clearly show that practitioners use micro-politics of resistance to deal with different, and often conflicting, conceptualizations of participation in relation to this cultural policy framework.

Research limitations/implications

The implications of the findings are vital for the discussion about cultural policy. These micro-politics of resistance do not only have an impact on the development of individual participatory art practices but also on the broader participatory arts landscape and on how the function of participation is perceived within the renewed policy framework.

Originality/value

The original contribution of this paper is to explore the perspective of practitioners in cultural organizations about the function of participation in the Arts Decree in Flanders and specifically how the notion of participation is operationalized in their practices in relation to this cultural policy framework.

Citation

Rutten, K., Calleeuw, H., Roets, G. and Van Gorp, A. (2019), "Cultural policy and participatory art practices in Flanders", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 32 No. 2, pp. 266-281. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-08-2018-0209