This weekend, Enchanted City, part of Peterborough Arts Festival, transformed some of the city’s iconic buildings. Illustrations and images created collaboratively by artists and local art groups were projected with light and sound as the sunset on an evening of outdoor performances.
Over the next three years, Culture Counts is working with Vivacity, Peterborough Council’s culture and leisure arm, and other partners, as part of a thorough evaluation of the Creative People and Places programme. Enchanted City is the first event from the programme to be evaluated with Culture Counts. The team trained local artists (not directly involved with Enchanted City) in arts evaluation, data collection, and the Culture Counts platform, to assist with capturing public responses to the artwork.
Creative People and Places in Peterborough centralises around local artists and art groups, providing high-quality art and developing creative culture. In a city steeped in storytelling and mythical fascination, evaluating the artistic expression needs to be embedded locally. The Culture Counts platform provides the versatility and sensitivity in capturing this local response with the benefit of using standardised, recognisable metrics, enabling cultural growth through transparent, shareable benchmarks.
As the evaluation progresses through the programme, Culture Counts anticipates some interesting insight into the perceptions and response to the developing artistic culture in Peterborough.
Photo by Steve Johnstone
