When you hear ‘cultural’ and ‘data’ in the same sentence it normally means a PDF document with the words ‘cost benefit study’ on the title page, followed by a mass of graphs and tables, most commonly compiled after a project has been delivered so as to justify doing it in the first place.
The cultural sector hates these documents because they reduce ‘culture’ to a dollar value. Public servants hate them because they look like lobbying documents designed to secure funding for projects with no clear public need. Yet the latter keep requesting them, and the former keep producing them, so they’ve come to monopolise the discussion of ‘cultural value.’
Absolute gold-tier analysis and thoughts from Ianto Ware.
I've been chasing my tail trying to get these sentiments articulated for years, and Ianto's just knocked it out of the park, in a thoughtful and data-driven way.
His conclusion based on the analysis that I encourage you to take the time to read:
The traditional PDFs full of graphs bypass the issue because the focus on projects eclipses the analysis of public need. Based on my reading of the data, the most pressing public need is around the production of culture; on the demographic disparities between the 30% of Australians making cultural work and the 3% getting paid for it. If we can't bridge that disparity, I don't think we'll bridge the gaps in attendance, no matter how much subsidy goes into it.
(All emphasis in both quotes are mine)