Within years, the title of this course has evolved from Audience Development to Participation into Culture, and then towards public engagement. It always indicates a process. Although it refers as an active course of action (“doing” as in audience development/building) mostly referred as marketing toolkits and guidelines, it has to be about people, understanding their needs, desires and motivations.
People First
Whether you call them audiences, consumers, customers of spectators, audience Development is all about people. We start with understanding decision making mechanisms/ the distinction of taste with reference to Bourdieu and Hall. We acknowledge the backgrounds of each being as well as situating self within an environmental /momentary context at the moment of design making. We start with ourselves by building on our own mental maps.
Work Readiness and Network
Some of students, who completed this course, were later employed by the organisations that they researched for. It is also an important chance to meet and sustain connections with cultural actors of the sector.
Hands on Approach
Students prepare an audience development plan for an organisation of their choice. I aid them through the process and the development of their critical thinking by providing them with bi-weekly feedback. Over 12 years of teaching, we have mapped the audiences of Istanbul via more than 100 organisations audience profiles.
Public Engagement in the Arts Report
This years long sectoral research and enquiry have contributed in my writing of 6th Cultural Policy Report for IKSV.
In 2013, I took 24 final year students out of the university setting to collect the desires and dreams of 485 high school students. The student-devised assessment allowed them to decide on an appropriate medium to share the collected data, they chose to publicly broadcast the sentences of the students by turning them into songs. Thanks to former students in the music scene, one pop singer, one rap singer and a psychedelic rock group accepted to transform the words into lyrics and record the songs. They also produced a music video for the rap song at the university’s studio, which they also learnt to rap and co-operate with the students from the music production and visual communication design programmes. I supervised them throughout the production and organisation of the showcase, and ensured that my students developed effective communication and collaboration skills and created connections in the School of Communication and the music industry. This experience built such confidence that many of them are now thriving in the industry: they established their own labels, started their own festivals or programming agencies.
Managing Organisations in Culture and Creative Industries
Facing Challenges
Managing organisations is not free from crises and challenges! Especially in the CCI, there is more due to newness and lack of understanding and policies of support for the sector. In this module, I concentrate on not only raising awareness on such complexity in which arts and cultural production fits, but also building resilience and confidence in my students by equipping them with new and alternative ways of embracing such dynamism.
Food for Thought
I aim to develop the students’ understanding of study requirements and academic literacies, keep them more engaged with the reading material and give them a platform to demonstrate their knowledge and capabilities, I pay special attention to introduce them various types and kinds of organisations and also cultural managers and leaders.
In 2023, Culture, Policy and Management MA students at City had the privilege to welcome Bengi Unsal, director of The Institute of Contemporary Arts as a guest speaker for our leadership week.
Bengi has become the director of ICA at a very challenging times. We heard her career journey where each step turned into a leadership skill, how she unapologetically self-thought there is no limit and always keept on with a positive attitute .
