If it’s creative, it doesn’t feel like evaluation: Implications for practice from the Artcasting project

The Artcasting research project, undertaken in 2015-16 in partnership with the ARTIST ROOMS program in the UK, developed a new digital and mobile form of evaluation of arts-based engagement. The project was designed to understand how visitors would respond to creative questions and methods for connecting their experience of artworks to places and times beyond the gallery. It also sought to understand how working with a platform like Artcasting could constitute meaningful evaluation practice. This paper describes some key implications for practice from the project: how inventive methods can help to shed new light on challenging issues; how digital engagement might shift meanings and approaches to co-production; and what can be gained from creative research collaborations between academic and cultural heritage partners.