The Agency for Cultural Affairs & Kyushu University Joint Research Team (2020),
Social Inclusion through Culture and the Arts: A Handbook for Evaluation 
Social Art Lab, affiliated with the Faculty of Design, Kyushu University, Japan

When you hear the word “evaluation”, you might picture interview evaluations or personnel evaluations —a person in authority unilaterally making decisions regardless of the feelings and intentions of the person being evaluated. However, public grants, awards, and commissions should not be evaluated by specific individuals, but by the diverse group of citizens who make up the public. This handbook considers how in a democratic society, diverse citizens are the appreciators of public work and should therefore be the true evaluators of socially inclusive cultural projects.

 

In English, the word “evaluation” means “to find the value of”, and emphasis is placed on discovering the value of something. Evaluation should not only be done ex post facto to deter mine how effective an arts activity was, but to build a better future. It is important that objectives are clarified and that evaluations are carried out in an appropriate manner using standards that meet these objectives.

 

Put that way, evaluation may sound very difficult, but that is not the case. If you read this handbook, we think you will agree that evaluation is something you can do yourself.

 

Mia Nakamura

Lead Researcher, the Agency for Cultural Affairs & Kyushu University Joint Research Team

Associate Professor, Faculty of Design at Kyushu University

The Agency for Cultural Affairs & Kyushu University Joint Research Team (2020),
Social Inclusion through Culture and the Arts: A Handbook for Beginners 
Social Art Lab, affiliated with the Faculty of Design, Kyushu University, Japan

Coexistence with people different from ourselves has become an important, indeed unavoidable, social issue as we confront questions about the nature of sustainability in today’s global society.

 

In the area of culture, too, arts activities for those who have experienced social exclusion and isolation, whether due to disability, old age, poverty, withdrawal from society, or foreign nationality, are becoming widespread. The Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan has been proactively supporting arts activities relating to social inclusion since the launch of the “Third Basic Policy on the Promotion of the Arts and Culture” in 2011. Furthermore, the “Act on the Promotion of Artistic and Cultural Activities by Persons with Disabilities” was promulgated and came into force in 2018.

 

What, though, are the arts that facilitate social inclusion? There are surely people who are wondering “How are these different from regular arts activities?” or “Why social inclusion in the cultural sphere? Doesn’t that come under welfare?” Some people may even ask “Does the government need to support culture?” or “Isn’t this just a fiscal burden?”

 

This handbook has been created to answer such questions. It has been written for prospective readers who are involved with cultural administration, arts organisations, or those who have an interest in arts and society. It is our particular hope that this handbook may serve as a useful reference to those intending to start activities in this field, and the content has been selected for this purpose.

 

This is, however, a handbook and not a manual. It lays out the basic approaches, but not models for taking action. This is because the best practice will differ according to each actual situation. We believe that the mission of this handbook is to encourage dialogue in this field.

 

We will be glad if it can contribute to policymaking and to project planning and management.

 

Mia Nakamura

Lead Researcher, the Agency for Cultural Affairs & Kyushu University Joint Research Team
Associate Professor, Faculty of Design at Kyushu University