Impact case study database
Call and Response: Prompting changes in policy and practice in art institutions through participatory art projects
1. Summary of the impact
Harold Offeh’s non-hierarchical approach to participatory arts and ‘call-and-response’ curation of Tate’s 2013 Summer School provoked what Tate Schools and Teachers Curator Leanne Turvey described as ‘ a massive wake-up call’, leading to changes in policy and practice in Tate’s Learning teams. According to Turvey, Offeh’s work ‘ transformed our team practice, from recruitment of staff, to how we programme, who we work with, how we can diversify what artists we share, which artists we work with… [and] the way we describe what our programme aims are…our goal is that all young people find themselves in everything they see at Tate.’
2. Underpinning research
Harold Offeh employs various practice-as-research methods – performance, video, photography, participatory and social engagement – to produce novel open-ended dialogues that emphasise process over product, in contrast to traditional forms of outcome-driven art.
Working with young people and adults in gallery contexts including Tate Modern (3.1; 3.2), Peckham Platform (3.3; 3.4) and Site Gallery (3.5), Offeh has developed innovative approaches to participatory and social art research, creating contexts of sociality and community as grounds for learning. In order to address complex issues – historical memory, identity, race, power and authority – Offeh designs sensitive, multi-faceted interventions such as re-enactments and workshops, creating an equal relationship between artist and participants. The aim is to engender constructive dialogue and develop critical reflection through collaboratively produced responses, prompting new thinking amongst participants about how to address societal challenges. Characterised by a call-and-response approach to dialogue – a form of communication rooted in African diaspora and other cultures – Offeh’s curatorial and artistic interventions prompt participants to take active roles and become creative producers and critical thinkers in their own right.
Through research and development undertaken for ‘Down at the Bamboo Club’ at Picture This in Bristol, Offeh identified re-enactment and curation as effective ways of achieving a non-hierarchical relationship between artist and participants in social art and participatory projects. (3.6) His use of curation and re-enactment (the ‘call’) is the basis of shared learning experiences in social art projects and their consequent collaborative outcomes (the ‘response’). Offeh’s foregrounding of collaboration, co-operation and participation in social art practice resulted in three separate commissions from the cultural organisation Peckham Platform. (3.3; 3.4) For example, for the social art research project ‘Futurama’, Offeh curated an exhibition of designed objects, video and images. This exhibition was the ‘call’: a departure point and catalyst for the participants’ ‘response’, leading to them collectively re-imagining and re-designing their local urban setting, creating street seating and lighting made in collaboration with the design team Glass Hill. Founding Director of Peckham Platform, Emily Druiff explains how Offeh ‘ brings a kind of bonding between a group through the methods that he’s using’. Indeed, Offeh’s work is seen by Peckham Platform as a ‘ benchmark’, an essential point of reference for all work they commission.
Similarly, for the exhibition and social art project ‘Cutting Shapes’ at Site Gallery (part of the AHRC Connected Communities Festival), Offeh curated an exhibition of video works complementing the project’s themes of youth, identity and internet cultures. This exhibition was ‘the call’, followed by a series of participatory events during which Offeh worked with participants on a series of ‘responses’. Thus, a non-hierarchical space for shared learning was created, with Offeh occupying the role of participant and host/lead artist simultaneously.
By occupying multiple positions – engaging with participants at various levels of immersion, from host artist to peer and participant – Offeh can observe from different perspectives the impact of the activity, which serves as a model for a society in which identity is not so rigidly defined by the roles and vocations of its citizens. This has a political dimension at time when many vocations and jobs are, at best, precarious signifiers of a person’s value.
3. References to the research
3.1 Offeh, H. (2012-13) Live Art Salon, Exhibition, live art performance and participatory art project commissioned by Tate Learning for Tate Modern, London, 9th March 2012 (Live performance).
3.2 Offeh, H. (2013) Call and Response Dinner, Exhibition, live event and participatory project commissioned by Tate Modern, London, 29th July 2013 (Live event).
3.3 Offeh, H. (2010) Futurama, Curated exhibition, social art project and street furniture designs commissioned by Peckham Platform through their community-led co-commissioning process, London, 17th September – 27th November 2010.
3.4 Offeh, H. (2016) Platform Press House, Exhibition, social art project, film, live art, sound art, publications, commissioned by Peckham Platform through their community-led co-commissioning process, London, 2nd June – 31st July 2016.
3.5 Offeh, H. (2015) Cutting Shapes, Curated exhibition, social art project, performances and films, commissioned by Site Gallery, Sheffield, as part of the AHRC Connected Communities Festival with support from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, 16th June – 18th July 2015.
3.6 Offeh, H. (2008-20) Down at the Bamboo Club, Exhibition, film, participation, re-enactment and commissioning for Picture This, Bristol, in collaboration with The Georgian House, Wesley’s New Room and the Bristol Black Archives.
4. Details of the impact
Instigating change within Tate’s S&T programme through raising awareness
Having commissioned Offeh’s ‘Live Art Salon’ and ‘Call and Response Dinner’, Tate’s Schools and Teachers (S&T) team commissioned Offeh to curate their 2013 Summer School, a learning platform attended by 30 teachers and artist-educators. Offeh’s project was the catalyst which ‘… set in motion a series of changes’, in S&T, Curator Leanne Turvey stating that it raised awareness of the lack of diversity amongst S&T’s staff and audiences, who ‘ were unable to talk about anything around race at all’. (5.1) An S&T report states: ‘ Summer School 2013 highlighted a significant lack of take- up from BAME teachers, made all the more stark by the fact that many of the artists contributing to the school were black and all the participants white. This circumstance has reinforced our resolve to address the issue.’ (5.2)
Initiating new research and training within S&T
This new awareness prompted an internal review; S&T approached Professor Uvanney Maylor to conduct research with Tate Learning on three areas for improvement identified following Offeh’s project:
‘a need to attract more diverse candidates to the team.
a need to ensure we are inviting and attracting a more diverse range of teachers into the programme
the need to support and explore difficult conversations about race and cultural difference – both in the gallery and in the classroom.’ (5.2)
New practice-as-research on race and language has been undertaken at Tate and in 2016 a new Collaborative Doctoral Partnership was formed ‘… to improve access to and participation in programme activity by BAME teachers, [raising] awareness of race and cultural difference with teachers more widely.’ (5.2) Since Offeh’s project, S&T have undertaken additional training from specialists: Gendered Intelligence, Rape Crisis and Xtend UK.
New programming and resources to explore race and cultural difference
To address the third area, S&T began programming more practitioners concerned with relevant issues, including Evan Ifekoya and Professor Maylor’s ‘Art and Language’ Study Day for 30 teachers (2015) (5.3); and ‘Reconstructing the Black Image: An evening with Gordon de la Mothe’ (2016), to ‘ improve the experience of Black and minority ethnic students.’ (5.2) These events were supported by new online and print resources on race and language at Tate Modern and Britain. (5.4; 5.5)
New S&T Audience Action Plan
In 2014, to address the first and second areas, S&T developed an Audience Action Plan ‘ to increase BAME artists and teachers to access the programme,’ committing to undertake further, ‘ demographic research to ascertain BAME representation within the arts/learning at university level, trainee and qualified teachers’ and within gallery education; implement diversity training for the Schools and Teachers team; action a recruitment policy to research and attract applications from BAME candidates with a view to diversifying workforce; broaden diversity of artists commissioned and recruited to the programme’. (5.2) Thus, all S&T areas – communications, recruitment, staff retention – were reviewed to avoid unintended exclusion of individuals.
Staff recruitment changes
S&T reviewed all areas of recruitment practice, including: advertising, language, unconscious bias, staff support, retention and BAME staff experience. (5.2) Consequently, a Recruitment Working Group was formed and a new action plan devised to promote diversity across all areas of recruitment – this is now policy across all six teams in Tate’s Learning department. (5.1) A new Terms of Reference document (5.6) and a Commitments Document were created establishing principles for positive action – now part of the induction pack for all Learning staff. Its first section states: ‘ ACT NOW We will employ more BAME, non-binary, queer, trans** and disabled artists’. (5.7)
Changes to recruitment for workshop artists
S&T ‘ totally changed the way that we recruit new artists into the programme’ (5.9), [taking] positive action to encourage applications from black, ethnic minority, and disabled applicants as these groups are currently underrepresented in the cultural sector.’ (5.2) Since 2016, working with HR, the diversity manager, and Tate’s BAME network, S&T have used a nomination process to recruit workshop artists, ‘ to better welcome, support and include BAME and disabled artists when at Tate.’ (5.2) Due to increased recruitment of BAME and disabled artists, 150,000 teachers and students (5.9) now work directly with, or receive resources created by, a more diverse range of practitioners. Curator Amy McKelvie says this has enriched the experience of hundreds of thousands of teacher/student-visitors, expanding ideas of what art is and who can be an artist. (5.9)
Reflecting on the impact of Offeh’s 2013 Summer School on Tate’s S&T’s policies, Turvey said: ‘ it really has transformed our team practice, from recruitment of staff, to how we programme, who we work with, how we can diversify what artists we share, which artists we work with … he did have a real impact.’ (5.1) In 2019 Offeh’s contribution to society was recognised with a £60,000 Paul Hamlyn Visual Arts Award. (5.9)
5. Sources to corroborate the impact
5.1 Interview transcript: Turvey, L. (2020) Interview with Leanne Turvey, Schools and Teachers Programme Curator, Tate. Interviewed by Z. Worth for Leeds Beckett University, 29 March.
5.2 Internal Report: Tate Learning Schools and Teachers Team (2018) Narrative of development of a re-focusing of the Schools and Teachers programme to foster a more inclusive invitation to people from BAME backgrounds, London: Tate Britain & Tate Modern.
5.3 Details of Study Day: Tate Learning (2015) Art and Language, London: Tate Britain, 20 March, [Study Day convened by Evan Ifekoya and Professor Uvanney Maylor].
5.4 Student Resources: Ifekoya, E. (2015) Learning Resources, ‘B is for Black’ and ‘O is for Ori’, Tate Britain, London: Tate.
5.5 Teachers’ Resource: Ifekoya, E. (2016) Learning Resources, ‘Key Words’, Tate Britain, London: Tate.
5.6 Internal document: Tate Learning, (2017) Terms of Reference, London: Tate Britain & Tate Modern.
5.7 Staff induction document: Tate Learning, (2017) Commitments, London: Tate Britain & Tate Modern.
5.8 Interview transcript: McKelvie, A. (2020) Interview with Amy McKelvie, Schools and Teachers Programme Curator, Tate. Interviewed by Z. Worth for Leeds Beckett University, 12 June.
5.9 Paul Hamlyn Foundation announces Harold Offeh as £60,000 Visual Arts Award winner in 2019: https://www.phf.org.uk/artist/harold-offeh/