This research examines the use of value measurement tools and their impact on public art policy and activity in councils across Aotearoa and England between 2010 and 2022. It interrogates how local authorities approach definitions of value for artwork in the public realm, tools used to understand impacts and outcomes, and ways that evaluation and policy interact to effect public art in a council setting. Gaps in existing academic literature around challenges specific to public art evaluation – temporality, space, breadth of definition and resourcing – have prompted a thesis that contributes new knowledge on public art value measurement.
This project utilises a pragmatic mixed-method approach to examine council public art evaluation, focusing on detailed examination of councils working in public art. Questionnaires with local authorities, interviews with staff and analysis of grey literature, conducted over 2022 and 2023, have provided rich empirical data from which to undertake grounded theory analysis, building new understandings from practice-based experiences shared by participants. This positions the thesis as a response to perspectives in the literature review, providing additional layers of practical experience in dialogue with theoretical critiques that interrogate prevailing attitudes towards evidence-based policy, the unique circumstances of cultural policy, and the practical constraints of local government. This results in an extension of knowledge around public art evaluation, offering new understandings about the experiences of council staff working on the evaluation of public art, complementing academic and practical discourse on cultural value, local government policy making and public art.
This research argues that evaluating public art is a critical aspect of ensuring its ongoing viability in a council setting, given reliance on public funding. There are currently deficits between the forms of evaluation currently taking place and the ambitions of council public art staff for measurement approaches that provide a deeper understanding of their work. ‘Value’ is used in multiple ways by councils to justify their support for public art and deliver instrumental outcomes. Public art policies are strongly connected to evaluation, with councils operating in an evidence-heavy decision-making environment that creates an evidentiary burden for staff. This research project demonstrates that the felt deficiency in available tools to measure public art value is a risk to the ongoing sustainability and support of council public art programmes, which is particularly seen in councils that lack public art policies. In doing so it provides insights into the effects of value measurement tools on public art policy and practice. It also connects to broader discourse on the political power inherent in defining ‘value’, deeper insight into the challenges in operationalising evaluation strategies, and the role of evaluation in cultural policy making.
