Evaluation framework, Connecting Communities: Evaluation of the Gasworks Participatory Artists Residency Programme

During the past two years, we (FOTL – Andrea Francke and Ross Jardine) have been developing an evaluation framework for Gasworks’ Participatory Artist Residency Programme. Over and over in that period, we met a variety of people that were interested in rethinking evaluation practices and who wanted to try to figure out how to do something similar. Like us, they felt that although they had to follow evaluation processes that were demanded by funders, those processes only function to certify that their projects had successfully functioned as some sort of ‘investment’ that had gathered the appropriate returns.

We came into this project thinking that ‘evaluation’ could be appropriated and redefined as a space for thinking and learning together. It became clear that this meant that the way that we evaluate had to be specific to the institution, to the projects, but mainly to the people that were involved in producing, experiencing and evaluating.

This framework is our attempt to share our experiences at Gasworks as a framework that is general and open enough to be adapted for different concerns, needs and conditions. Not less because we wanted to leave behind a framework for Gasworks itself that can continue to develop without us. A main concern for us has been to always resist the temptation to build some sort of institutional need on the basis of our ‘unique expertise’.

• Organisation