Audiences, Engagement, Participation PgCert

This Masters course centers on challenging established notions of engagement and participation in the arts and culture to discover how to lead and manage a more audience-centred approach to arts management and cultural policy. Youll examine how policy makers, cultural organisations, and artists conceptualise the role of audience in contemporary cultures and economies on both a local and global scale. You’ll learn how to research arts audiences and evaluate visitor experiences. This will help you develop your professional practice as well as engage your intellectual curiosity.<br/><br/>The arts have enormous potential to effect positive change in society. However, participation data has uncovered a lack of diversity in the age, ethnicity, education level and socioeconomic background of audiences in the cultural sector, alongside a decline in overall levels of arts engagement. This sits alongside efforts to address accessibility and structural inequality for both audiences and the creative workforce.<br/><br/>This course allows you to respond and contribute to the highly topical debate surrounding strategies to increase engagement and participation, while pursuing your own interests and career ambitions. Through a combination of theoretical analysis and research, you’ll explore the possibility of creating a more genuinely participatory culture while developing your own skills in techniques and practices of engagement.<br/><br/>You’ll explore theoretical concepts such as co-creation and participatory governance, alongside investigation into community and participatory arts practice, the implications of digital engagement, and conceptual design of audience experiences. Through a wide variety of optional modules you can cultivate applied skills in a range of disciplines, such as digital storytelling, creative production and heritage management.<br/><br/>**Flexible study options**<br/><br/>We offer part-time, PGDip and PGCert options for this course, allowing you to study in the way that best suits you.<br/><br/>**Specialist facilities**<br/><br/>Our School is based in stage@leeds, a purpose-built landmark building that sits at the heart of campus. You’ll have access to its two professional standard, publicly licensed theatres: the main space seats 180 and is equipped with the latest technologies, and the theatre studio provides a technically advanced performance research facility.<br/><br/>stage@leeds hosts a range of work by students and visiting theatre companies all year round. Within the building you’ll also find rehearsal rooms, two black-box studios, costume construction and wardrobe stores, a design studio, a scenic workshop, computer aided design facilities and video-editing and sound recording.