The New Rules
Claire Doherty is Director at Arnolfini, having moved in 2017 from being founder Director of Situations. In this case study on the theme of ‘leading to create greater impact’, Claire outlines how at both organisations she was able to creatively open-up new conversations with stakeholders, breaking through conventional assumptions about art, using the tools and approach of The New Rules.
This case study was sourced by Culture24 as a resource for our conference, The art of leadership.
At Situations, a producing organisation that works exclusively in the public realm across the UK and internationally, we lived and breathed the transformational impact of new forms of public art. But despite the distinctive characteristics of each new place in which we grew a new project or advised on a public art strategy, we kept facing the same set of obstacles – conventional assumptions about what public art should look like, what scale it should be, where it should be ‘sited’ and how long it should last – which would often frustrate a collaborative and productive process of commissioning.
These ideas often fixed the form of public art before it had even been commissioned, limiting the creative potential of artistic responses and the potential impact of the projects themselves. The aspirations of local authorities, community anchor organisations, funders and partners were often thwarted: the process was one of resistance rather than shared purpose.
Our challenge was to find a consistent, tactical approach to open-up thinking before conventional assumptions closed the possibilities down. We needed to change our approach and use a different form of words and techniques that would help reimagine what public art could be across multiple contexts, and yet be legible to a range of stakeholders, avoid academic language and art world jargon, remain playful and irreverent while encouraging ownership and collaboration.
The New Rules
We designed an approach called The New Rules as a method of opening-up new ways of thinking about how we can change a process to produce an outcome that delivers against shared goals, without determining the form of that outcome from the outset.
Our first iteration of The New Rules were The New Rules for Public Art a pocket-sized book of 12 rules for making or commissioning public art. These were an irreverent set of provocations from “it doesn’t have to look like public art” to “build a community, don’t target one”. The rules’ format drew on a decade’s worth of experience. Each illustrated rule was accompanied by an explanation which referenced a particular project or approach.
The New Rules for Public Art formed the basis of a national campaign (Public Art Now) and were released online as a downloadable poster.
Within the first month of publication, 20,000 posters had been downloaded world-wide. We received emails from across North America and Australia to say that city authorities were using The New Rules to help shape their new policies.
Lessons learnt
The New Rules approach enabled us to demonstrate thought leadership across multiple sectors. But the format ensured that we were not replacing one set of orthodoxies with another.
The New Rules approach is impactful because it has a dual function:
- it comments on what isn’t working by signalling that change is necessary
- it imagines things as if they might be different by putting forward new ideas. When authoring the initial New Rules for Public Art, we resolved to avoid too many ‘don’ts’ and that a productive provocation was likely to have more impact
We learnt that a tool such as this could form a very useful basis for the first conversation with potential commissioners, partners, artists, participants and funders, demonstrating a set of working principles and aspirations.
Crucially, The New Rules differed from a manifesto in that it was not set in stone – it was a mechanism for a working relationship, a live working method that would respond to artistic practice rather than becoming an old set of new rules.
Initially, we were concerned that our New Rules might be deemed as arrogant or criticised for what was missing in the sector. But we learnt just to begin, and that by sharing our experience through this form and by inviting responses, we began to see unexpected results.
In some cases, we were unable to change institutionally-embedded assumptions about public art until a new form of public art was produced. If the New Rules gave us the frame in which to push forward new commissioning, this was in no way a substitute for the power of the artistic outcome.
Impact
The international impact was extraordinary. We were commissioned by the City of Melbourne in Australia to produce a version of The New Rules for them and the City of Plymouth in the UK commissioned us to rewrite its public art policy with The Plymouth Principles forming the cornerstone of their cultural strategy.
Manchester Museum used the format to develop their own Rules for a Playful Museum.
The format seemed to be adaptable to rethink cultural leadership not only in regards to public art.
Taking up the Directorship of Arnolfini in August 2017, I employed the New Rules format to lead the Imagine New Rules campaign – a crowd-sourced campaign to reimagine a 21st century arts house for Bristol. This campaign (and the accompanying podcast series) enabled the organisation to start a dynamic new conversation with the city about its future. This year (2018) is a year of transition for Arnolfini and we have already begun to prototype a number of changes from the 2,000 new rules that we received from visitors last autumn.
Advice for colleagues
Whether it’s an internal mechanism for rethinking your institution or an external campaign for crowd-sourcing ideas, be ready for this approach to tell you what isn’t working. Be open to ideas about how to address this and stay true to your promises. Base your own proposals on your past experiences and trust in that knowledge in meeting others’ expectations.
Resources
Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth
Arnolfini’s Imagine New Rules campaign
The art of leadership
