Cultural Democracy in Practice

This guide from 64 million artists and Arts Council England looks at practical case-studies and ways you can implement cultural democracy in your own organisation or practice.

What is Cultural Democracy?

There are many definitions, but this guide gives some really helpful examples of what cultural democracy is.

• Instead of... defined limits for culture such as visual art, theatre, dance, music etc... you could... recognise that all of that, and much much more (including gardening, cooking, knitting, fashion etc) is part of culture, even if it isn’t funded.
• Instead of... asking your audience or stakeholders for feedback on your ideas... you could... facilitate the ideas of your stakeholders, or co-create together .
• Instead of... employing professional artists to come up with ideas for community programmes... you could... employ professional artists to work with communities to co-create ideas.

Lots of organisations in Northern Ireland have been working with similar strategies and seeing great results. 

If you want to truly involve audiences in programming and shaping what you do, then this guide is a really practical way to start making some changes.