Mapping interpretation practices in contemporary art , Questions!

Scottish Arts Council commissioned a report from consultants 'engage Scotland', which was written by Dr Heather Lynch and called Mapping Interpretation Practices in Contemporary Art (published in May 2006).

The aim of this study was to map current interpretation practices of contemporary art in relation to intellectual access.

Interesting premise to start off with. Isn't this what dance artists keep referring to when confused about the lack of general public interest in contemporary dance? Partly we refer to their emotional, instinctive, intuitive, kinaesthetic interest, but what serious dance artists seem to desire is their intellectual interest.

So how did they go about researching intellectual access (to contemporary arts in general and specifically)? They devised main research questions, in consultation with the Scottish Arts Council and representatives from engage.

These were as follows:
• What is the nature of interpretation practices across a range of venues?
• What are the perceived values of the range of practices employed?
• How is intellectual access considered by venues that exhibit contemporary art?

What I want to point out is the nature of the questions they chose to ask. These are open-ended questions, true research questions seeking a result that is not preformulated, or inherently hypothesized within the phrasing. Okay, they could be clearer, and yes, they are somewhat convoluted (who is really going to use this information? what will it actually inform in the end?). However, these questions and the report's answers are precisely of benefit to me and to other dance professionals in Canada. We need broad strokes, an enlarged understanding of the emerging context for dance. We must ensure we relate this information to our own context, and our own sets of knowledge and expertise, and thereafter it offers significant insight into how we can creatively work to solve our challenges of audience development in our nation, in both urban and rural Canada.

- R