Creating Data Publics for Governance explores projects from Canada and the United Kingdom (UK) where citizens interact with data through creative and cultural methods to explore understandings and relationships with place.
Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) and Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK)
Under the Knowledge Mobilization Scheme, “Synthesising research on envisioning governance systems that work”.
As decision-making structures for local, regional and national governments increasingly prioritise data and evidence as resources for governance, a critical challenge facing democracies becomes the creation of public spaces in which these data can be considered and debated to enable equitable and effective governance systems.
We frame this challenge as a question of creating data publics – publics that are not only constituted by self-interest or shared identities but forged through citizens’ creative participatory engagement with data.
To address this challenge, our project examines how creative methods are being used in practice to bring such data publics into being.
We analyse examples in which artists, community organisers, and citizens engage data through creative, place-based processes, tracing when and how these methods are employed and how they shape collective forms of participation and decision-making. In doing so, we aim to better understand how creativity functions not only as a mode of expression but as a mechanism for democratic engagement with data.
Our analysis is shaped by the information available on the projects and how this is narrated and through our understandings and interpretations. This analysis is intended to open a conversation and for suggestions and revisions to follow.
Explore the cases
To summarise and synthesis information on the creative methods these projects use in creating data publics, projects have been shared as cases.
Following a scoping review, 15 projects from Canada and 16 projects from the UK were identified for closer exploration. These projects were selected at the meeting point of creative methods and citizen participation in place-based decision-making.
In the below, the projects can be explored using keywords or cases.
Keywords
In our analysis of the cases, we captured the keywords of creative and cultural methods and creative pieces used in the processes of data cycle – interactions, objects, data, models, and knowledge.
These keywords not only include the creative and cultural methods and approaches used, such as activity station, but also the creative pieces (objects or data), such as mural and installation. By doing so, we aim to pinpoint the specificity of how these projects apply creative and cultural methods in their engagement with citizens or residents, and what creative pieces are produced throughout the processes.
The keywords that we identified are listed below. Clicking on each one will take you to a tag page which brings together all the cases where we identified the method:
Keywords
Activity station Artist-in-residence Audio narratives Blog Book-sharing Citizen Jury Co-creation Co-design Collage Community walk Craft Dance Data workshops Drawing Exhibition Film Film interviews Handbook Installation Interviews Mapping Mural Origami Painting Participatory methods Performance art Photography Photography murals Play Poetry Pop-up event Probes Public art Sculpture Sentiment surveys Soundscape Story Surveys Toolkit Video Visualisation Walk / Tour Zines
Cases
Each case is an interactive visualisation using the stages and arrows of Sabina Leonelli’s cycle of knowledge production (from the article ‘what distinguishes data from models?’).
CAN 1 by STEPS Public Art
STEPS Public art strategy plan for Downtown Stratford, Ontario, Canada
CAN 2 by STEPS Public Art
I HeART Main Street
CAN 3 by STEPS Public Art
and ReDefine Arts
Accessible Art and Placemaking
CAN 4 by STEPS Public Art
Inspired Art Impact: A Toolkit for Mainstreet Cultural Tourism
CAN 5 by ReDefine Arts
The Countdown Public Art Project
CAN 6 by Greater Victoria
Placemaking Network
CAN 7
by Walk With Me
CAN 8 by Calgary Municipal
Land Corporation
Touch Traces project from Jack & Jean Leslie RiverWalk Murals
CAN 9 by Calgary Municipal
Land Corporation
Bridge project from Jack & Jean Leslie RiverWalk Murals
CAN 10 Calgary Municipal
Land Corporation
Werklund Centre Transformation (WTC)
CAN 11 Calgary Municipal
Land Corporation
Olympic Plaza Transformation (OPT)
CAN 12 Calgary Municipal
Land Corporation
Tomorrow’s Chinatown: Chinatown Cultural Plan
CAN 13 Led by Dr. Tara Mahoney
Creative Publics
CAN 14 by Deer Crossing The Art Farm
Copper Circle project
CAN 15 by Calgary Arts Development
Northeast Mini Galleries Program: Building Community Pride Through Public Art
UK 1 by Creative Peninsula
The Saltmarsh Project
UK 2 by Whitworth Art Gallery
Age Friendly Programme
UK 3 by Castlefield Gallery
The Ageing in Place Micro-residency Project
UK 4 by Nottingham Contemporary
First Waves
UK 5 by Nottingham Contemporary
Narrow Marsh Residents Group
UK 6 by Measuring Humanity
Art is Everywhere
UK 7 Led by Professor Nick Henry
(Coventry University)
City Change Through Culture: Securing the Place legacy of Coventry City of Culture 2021
UK 8 by The Glass-House
Community Led Design
Cross-pollination: Growing Cross-sector Design Collaboration in Placemaking
UK 9 by Design Innovation and Land Assets (DI&L) Network
Design Innovation and Cultural Resonances (Resonance): Place-based Collaboration
UK 10 led by Professor Nicky Marsh (University of Southampton)
Feeling Towns: Place, Identity
and Local Governance
UK 11 Led by Professor Andrew Wilson (University of Bradford)
People, Heritage, and Place:
Using Heritage to Enhance Community and Well-being in Saltaire, Bradford
UK 12 Led by Dr. Elizabeth Craig-Atkins (University of Sheffield)
Roots and Futures: Scaling Up and Sustaining Co-produced, Place-based Heritage with Underserved Communities
UK 13
by Citizens in Power
UK 14 by Primary
Build Create Play – Contemporary Visual Arts Network England
UK 15
by Homebaked Community Land Trust
UK 16 by GREENGAGE
East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood
Pilot Project
Project Team
Creating Data Publics for Governance is a collaboration between researchers at Simon Fraser University (Canada) and University of Southampton (UK):
- Dr Frédérik Lesage (Principal Investigator; Associate Professor, Simon Fraser University)
- Professor Dan Ashton (Co-Investigator; Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries, University of Southampton)
- Xiaosu Li (Research Assistant, Simon Fraser University)
- Shafira Rezkita Vidyamaharani (Research Assistant, Simon Fraser University)
