Beyond metrics: evaluating social impacts of art

This episode of the 'Impact through Culture Change' webinar series was held on Tuesday the 16th May 2023.

In this episode, we welcomed Lesley Brook, Research Projects Coordinator at Otago Polytechnic, Te Pūkenga – New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology. Research is increasingly expected to aim to achieve impact at some point in time, but not all impacts can readily be evidenced by collecting metrics. What kinds of social impacts might result from art research? What kinds of evidence might be available for such impacts? How do we get beyond evidence of quality, or audience enjoyment, to discover what has changed for art audience members? What kinds of evaluation research might be needed to produce such evidence? Lesley Brook discussed these questions in the context of a case study, her own use of Q methodology and semi-structured interviews to evaluate the emotional impacts of an exhibition of artworks by many artists in a range of genres.