Hunter, Micklem & Ikin - Cultural Democracy in Practice
Hunter, J., Micklem, D. & Ikin, E. (2018) Cultural Democracy in Practice. Arts Council England
In this guide the authors argue that there is a sliding scale of Cultural Democracy, that it’s not a fixed thing but a range of approaches to widening involvement in arts and culture. In many cases formal arts and culture
practices what might be termed the ‘democratisation of culture.’ This assumes that there is a formally recognised definition of what constitutes culture (determined by a relatively small number of people) and that it is the duty of publicly funded arts organisations (who are the gatekeepers) to make it widely available. This democratisation has fuelled some brilliant work to diversify audiences and open up many of institutions to people who often don’t think formal culture is for them.
But the authors are suggesting that true Cultural Democracy is different to this. It describes a simple proposition – that art and culture is unbounded, and encapsulates all kinds of activities – from the personal to the collective, informal and formal, from grime to opera, knitting to line dancing, the West End to fringe to gardening, cooking and everything in between. Cultural Democracy underpins a culture that is debated, designed, made…by, with and for, everyone.
Hunter, Micklem & Ikin “Cultural Democracy in Practice”