Cultural Democracy

Drawing of people in a wide, diverse network

Dudley faces similar challenges to many places across the UK around barriers limiting who takes part and shapes local cultures and creates cultural value.

However alternative creative futures are possible. We just need take intentional cultural action.

Through a four month process of desk research, mapping and engaged research with local creatives in 2021 we captured a portrait of cultural activity in Dudley. Our analysis of the local and macro cultural landscape told us a story about existing and potential cultural activity and cultural assets. It highlighted evidence of enablers and barriers to cultural democracy, and the need to nurture cultural capabilities across the borough. This is the soil from which Dudley Creates grows. A pre-existing cultural context which we understand, respect and are mindful about. It requires us to pay attention to the relationship between cultural democracy, cultural capabilities and cultural action for the co-created futures we seek.

The existing local picture is one of uneven access to a creative life and imagining in the borough. This results in a limitation upon the types of futures that can be imagined and then manifest here. There is also huge cultural potential if the cultural democracy deficit is reversed and regenerative cultures were nurtured instead. We start from an understanding of the ability of culture and the arts to make the impossible seem possible.

What if… everyone decides what counts as culture, where it happens, who makes it, and who experiences it?

Wall hanging on a subway with colourful wool lettering that reads 'these subways are a real lifeline'

Cardboard speech bubbles from the Radio Public project with text reading 'don't worry it's just an art project', 'I wish someone would talk to me...' and 'on air'

People pointing at a wall hanging of photos of Dudley stitched together and over

A family sharing collages they've created

Year 1: Cultural Strategy in Action

Year 1 of Dudley Creates cultural strategy in action reached 15 different communities, used 25 different creative practices, and took place in 38 different places across the borough, actively reframing spaces as local cultural assets.
Creatives took time to get to know local communities to better understand how projects and creative practices could be co-designed and adapted to help support far greater participation.
Projects were designed to meet and create with people in everyday spaces like markets, gardens, parks and cafes.
Dynamic convening responded to different creative capabilities, literacy levels, and physical ability.
Different ages creatied together and overcame care responsibility barriers to participation.
Cultural activities were co-created with or led by creatives from marginalised groups including: local migrant and refugee communities; Black young adults in Dudley; South Asian women’s group; learning and physically disabled community members; and collaborations with artists/creatives who had previously been isolated through grief and poor health.
Regenerative practices in cultural programme design

We have found that by intentionally adopting more regenerative practices in our programme design, including supporting collaboration, interconnection, diversity - we could nurture wider cultural capabilities.
In 2023 Time Rebel sessions and Seasonal Gatherings were designed to encourage more collaborative and relational practice across different creative forms and knowledges. This enables cultural capabilities by raising consciousness of barriers to cultural democracy and democratising practices valued by different creatives from different communities and backgrounds.
Seasonal Gatherings have been intentionally non-hierarchical, celebrating different cultural activities in equal measure, and are explicit in making open invitations for people to take part and shape specific cultural action, or build new creative collaborations. However, we know there is much more to do to erode barriers to local people feeling permission, agency and capabilities to be part of the evolution of the strategy in action and shape the local cultural landscape. Part of the purpose of a long term strategy is to hold that thread across longer more meaningful periods of societal change.

Navigation Tool: Practices

Collective learning and cultural action with hundreds of people in Dudley borough over a number of years have revealed practices which contribute to a a flourishing cultural ecosystem. Use the Practices Canvases in the Dudley Creates Navigation Guide to reflect on and design your work and projects.