REPORT: A Warsaw-wide cultural participation study – a summary of the findings
The WCP initiative is based on the need for a better understanding of the styles, needs, preferences and motivations surrounding participation in culture, as well as the barriers to accessing it. The programme involves both city-wide surveys conducted every few years and regular, annual self-assessments by cultural organisations in Warsaw. Our role in this process is to develop research tools and to support cultural organisations and local government in interpreting and using the data to make decisions regarding the shape of the city’s cultural ecosystem.
Researching participation and (non-)participation in culture is equally a study of the city and the people who help shape it. The respondents’ answers highlighted many significant social processes: increasing stratification and polarisation, the potential and challenges arising from the wealth of digital and analogue cultural and artistic productions, subtle barriers to accessing culture, and emerging needs that cultural provision should take into account.
In many respects, Warsaw is currently at a critical juncture of change, driven by both local and global processes that were not present – or were present to a much lesser extent – during the previous participation survey in 2017. Therefore, whilst we are examining changes in trends between the surveys, we treat the results themselves primarily as a point of reference and an invitation for further discussion, rather than as just comparative data. The effects of the pandemic, the digital revolution, rapidly growing multi-ethnicity, parallel cultural spheres operating in languages other than Polish, as well as changes related to Warsaw’s New City Centre, are significantly re-shaping the social, economic and cultural landscape of Warsaw. This is reflected in the survey results.
Analysis of the data reveals how the egalitarian dimension of culture can support Warsaw’s social resilience. We hope that, together with the systematically collated results of self-assessments by cultural organisations, the data on participation will support a culture of knowledge-based decision-making – both at the level of individual organisations’ teams and across the city as a whole.
People involved in the project: