A research project led by Professor Steven Hooper, University of East Anglia, aimed to enhance knowledge, understanding and appreciation of Polynesian artworks and to bring a largely unknown major art tradition to greater public attention. Drawing mainly on extensive but little-known collections held in UK museums, exhibitions were held at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich (2006), the British Museum (2006/07), London, and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris (2008).
Impacts included:
• Drawing in visitors to the museums and regional areas, and so leading to financial benefits for the museums and for the regional economies, plus developing cultural and social benefits for visitors.
• Providing specific educational and other public events, contributing to knowledge, skills and the quality of life of participants.
• Strengthening international relationships between museums and academics in the UK and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga and elsewhere).
The Norwich and Paris venues presented the most comprehensive exhibitions of Polynesian artefacts ever assembled, attracting 22,000 and 120,000 visitors respectively. The British Museum exhibition, linked to the same research, also received over 120,000 visitors, of which over half were from overseas. The exhibitions included Polynesian artists-in-residence who contributed to linked educational programmes, such as workshops, family events, lunchtime talks, evening lectures, and other events particularly for school children. Since the project’s completion, project PhD student Dr Maia Jessop, has gained a position as post-doctoral researcher on a Cambridge-based ESRC/AHRC sponsored project, and both she and George Nuku (Pacific Encounters artist-in-residence) have acted as consultants on Polynesian displays and exhibitions at the British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, as well as museums in Holland and Belgium.
An international conference was held to coincide with each of the three exhibitions, allowing many Polynesian academics and museum staff to participate. The project highlighted the role of cultural heritage in building bridges between different traditions and societies. Links have been enhanced between the project team, museums and Polynesian groups, involving developing plans for loans, projects and collaborative curatorial training. Among other major outputs of the project was a book/catalogue of the Norwich exhibition, Pacific Encounters: art and divinity in Polynesia 1760-1860, published jointly by the British Museum Press, the University of Hawaii Press and Te Papa Press in New Zealand (2006). A French edition was published in 2008. Both British and French editions have run to reprints.
More recently, project research assistant Karen Jacobs has edited a special issue of The Journal of Museum Ethnography, vol. 21 (March 2009), which was dedicated to the Pacific Encounters exhibition. There has been excellent feedback on this volume, which has been taken by Harvard University to be used as a course text in museum studies. In addition, Professor Hooper’s 2007 Journal of the Polynesian Society special issue, arising from project research, recently received considerable praise in a review by Polynesian scholar Sean Mallon, a Samoan and Head of Pacific Collections at the national museum of New Zealand.
The Leadership Foundation for Higher Education featured Pacific Encounters as one of their five main case studies in a recent publication entitled Conversations and Collaborations: The Leadership of Collaborative Projects between Higher Education and the Arts and Cultural Sector. The case study offers an example of “good practice” and was a very positive appraisal not only of the exhibition project but also of its implications for future partnerships between the Sainsbury Centre and the University of East Anglia: in summer 2008, the Sainsbury Centre “had more projects planned with academic colleagues over the next four years than had taken place in the past 20 years.” (Oakley and Selwood, 2010).
Further project information:
www.sru.uea.ac.uk/polynesia/welcome.htm
Further information:
These short overviews have been produced as an aid to understanding some of the impacts arising from arts and humanities research. The examples are taken from existing AHRC projects, ranging from small awards up to large Research Grants and Centres. They are not exhaustive; impact from research takes many forms. It can occur at any stage of the research process, from its beginning to well after the research itself has finished.
The Research Councils define impact as the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy. This definition accords with the Royal Charters of the Councils and with HM Treasury guidance on the appraisal of economic impact. Impact embraces all the extremely diverse ways in which research-related knowledge and skills benefit individuals, organisations and nations by:
• fostering global economic performance, and specifically the economic competitiveness of the United Kingdom
• increasing the effectiveness of public services and policy, and
• enhancing quality of life, health and creative output
These case studies offer some, but in no way all, of the diversity and variety of those impacts. They are not, however, intended as guidance on completing the Impact Requirements sections on proposals, for which you should refer to the Je-S guidance for Standard Grant proposals and Fellowship proposals.
It should also be remembered that the impacts described here will not necessarily be replicated by undertaking the same activities. The pathways to impact are as diverse and varied as the impacts themselves. These examples can, however, provide some illustration of what can be achieved.