• Time for Cultural Mediation
  • Foreword by Carmen Mörsch
  • Foreword by Andrew Holland
• 1 What is Cultural Mediation?
  Quick Reads:
  • 1.0 Intro
  • 1.1 “Kulturvermittlung” as collective term in German-speaking regions
  • 1.2 Médiation culturelle
  • 1.3 English terminology
  • 1.4 Italian terminology
  • 1.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 1.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 2 Cultural Mediation for Whom?
  Quick Reads:
  • 2.0 Intro
  • 2.1 Target-group categories
  • 2.2 Critique of target-group thinking
  • 2.3 Other approaches to defining audiences
  • 2.4 Cultural mediation for institutional development and renewal
  • 2.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 2.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 3 What is Transmitted?
  Quick Reads:
  • 3.0 Intro
  • 3.1 Works and productions as subject-matter
  • 3.2 Artistic techniques as subject-matter
  • 3.3 Institutions as subject-matter
  • 3.4 Art as a system as subject matter
  • 3.5 Artistic processes in business
  • 3.6 Artistic processes in social, pedagogic and activist contexts
  • 3.7 Learning methods as subject-matter
  • 3.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 3.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 4 How is Cultural Mediation Carried Out?
  Quick Reads:
  • 4.0 Intro
  • 4.1 Participation level: receptive
  • 4.2 Participation level: interactive
  • 4.3 Participation level: participative
  • 4.4 Participation level: collaborative
  • 4.5 Participation level: demand-based
  • 4.6 Teaching and learning concepts: instructionist
  • 4.7 Teaching and learning concepts: action-oriented
  • 4.8 Teaching and learning concepts: constructivist and social-constructivist
  • 4.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 4.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 5 What Does Cultural Mediation Do?
  Quick Reads:
  • 5.0 Intro
  • 5.1 Affirmative function of cultural mediation
  • 5.2 Reproductive function of cultural mediation
  • 5.3 Deconstructive function of cultural mediation
  • 5.4 Reformative function of cultural mediation
  • 5.5 Transformative function of cultural mediation
  • 5.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 5.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 6 Cultural Mediation: Why (Not)?
  Quick Reads:
  • 6.0 Intro
  • 6.1 Rationale: cultural mediation has an influence on the economy
  • 6.2 Rationale: cultural mediation promotes cognitive performance
  • 6.3 Rationale: Expanding cultural mediation as a matter of fiscal responsibility
  • 6.4 Rationale: Cultural mediation as an instrument for inclusion
  • 6.5 Rationale: The arts as universal educational good
  • 6.6 Rationale: Cultural mediation as means to actively contribute to shaping the arts
  • 6.7 Rationale: Cultural mediation to compensate for social injustice
  • 6.8 Objections to cultural mediation and its promotion
  • 6.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 6.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 7 Who “does” Cultural Mediation?
  Quick Reads:
  • 7.0 Intro
  • 7.1 Occupation: cultural mediator
  • 7.2 Conditions of employment in cultural mediation
  • 7.3 (Swiss) Training options and professional associations of cultural mediators
  • 7.4 Volunteer work in cultural mediation
  • 7.5 Cultural mediation as a research field
  • 7.6 Funding of cultural mediation in Switzerland
  • 7.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 7.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 8 Good Cultural Mediation?
  Quick Reads:
  • 8.0 Intro
  • 8.1 Quality in cultural mediation: current activities
  • 8.2 Critiques of quality management in cultural mediation
  • 8.3 Attempt to define a framework of criteria for evaluating cultural mediation
  • 8.4 Criteria for a primarily affirmative cultural mediation
  • 8.5 Criteria for a primarily reproductive cultural mediation
  • 8.6 Criteria for a primarily deconstructive cultural mediation
  • 8.7 Criteria for a primarily transformative cultural mediation
  • 8.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 8.RL For Reading at Leisure
• 9 Transmitting Cultural Mediation?
  Quick Reads:
  • 9.0 Intro
  • 9.1 Guiding questions for use in the documentation of cultural mediation
  • 9.2 Challenges in transmitting cultural mediation
  • 9.3 Cultural mediation in this publication
  • 9.CP Changing Perspectives
  • 9.RL For Reading at Leisure
• Service
  Case Studies:
  • SC Intro
  • SC.1 Case Study 1
  • SC.2 Case Study 2
  • Glossary
  • Resource Pool
  • Literature and Links
  • List of bookmarks
  • PDF Download
  • Bibliographic information and legal notice

List of bookmarks →

Download text as PDF ↓ Quick Reads

1.3 English terminology

There is no umbrella term in general use in English-speaking countries or regions which corresponds closely to → Kulturvermittlung or → médiation culturelle. In legal English and in the area of social affairs, “mediation” is associated with conflict resolution, “cultural mediation” specifically with interpreting and negotiating activities in the context of migration. While artists and educators increasingly find themselves mediating between artistic and social contexts, there has been no widespread adoption of “cultural mediation” in this context. The term “art mediation” does appear in international English (“Global English” or → Globish ), as a literal translation of “Kunstvermittlung” or “médiation culturelle” – for example, Manifesta, a European biennial of contemporary art, calls its arts education programme “Art Mediation” and the persons who work in it → mediators. However, in this context, “art” generally connotes visual art (and its multi-disciplinary off-shoots) and not other cultural fields of practice.

“Education” is the prevailing term used in institutions in all branches of the arts to identify programmes intended to transmit knowledge and promote engagement with the arts: the terms opera education, gallery education, museum education, dance education and concert education are in common usage. Of late one occasionally sees the word “learning” appearing alongside “education” or even replacing it in this type of context. Many institutions prefer “learning” because people associated it less with the idea of formal instruction and more with the process of knowledge production and acquisition. Both terms, “education” and “learning”, communicate that pedagogical and didactic issues are of central importance for the field of activities, more forcefully than the German “Vermittlung” or the French “médiation” does. However, neither “learning” nor “education” sufficiently describe the work of cultural and social negotiation that is commonplace in the work of arts education outside of exclusive work in the formal education sector nor the possibility for creative expression or commitment to democratization alluded to by the German and French terms.

Areas of overlap between the English terms and marketing, criticism and presentation are less obvious, though in practical terms, the expectations of marketing and education departments frequently coincide. Since the mid 1990s the term “audience development” has been cropping up in connection with education projects and programmes aimed primarily at reaching broader audiences and increasing audience numbers. The emergence of that term is associated with a policy debate about whether and how cultural institutions should become more visitor-oriented. Projects and programmes involving cooperation with schools, social institutions or other organizations in this context are often referred to as “outreach” activities.

One recent phenomenon is the use of “participation” or “participation manager” as a professional field and → job description in cultural institutions. This is symptomatic of the tendency towards active audience involvement in the production of art.

Since the 1960s, the term “community art”, or the analogous “community dance”, “community theatre” or “community music”, has been applied to projects in which artists work with the residents of one part of a city or with one particular interest group within the population, or projects in which amateurs organize and engage in artistic activities. However, unlike the term “participation” introduced by cultural institutions more recently, community art has historically been based on a deliberate policy of dissociating itself from “high culture” and its institutions.

Projects by artists with a strong cultural-mediation dimension are of growing significance, and have been since, again, the 1960s. In the early years, such projects tended to be of the “artist in schools” variety, but over the past five decades artists have developed a wide variety of mixed forms involving artistic, educational and social-activism activities, which, depending on their focus and emphasis, have been termed “new genre public art” (Lacy 1994), “socially engaged art” (Heguera 2011), “relational art” (Borriaud 2002) or “dialogical art” (Kester 2004 and 2011). Although these activities may not be seen by the artists themselves as vectors of “education”, they are often solicited and presented by cultural institutions as part of their educational programmes. As a consequence, these projects alter and expand the understanding of education at these institutions: the dividing line between “art” and “education” is obscured, partly consciously, partly incidentally as part of an evolutionary process.

Given this growth of activity extending beyond what is either discipline specific, or traditionally associated with the field of education, the term “cultural mediation” may offer another set of descriptive potentials for those working in the field of mediation in the English speaking context.