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Kalaboration, Major Cross-City Biennale Art Workshops/Festival (2008-2012)

This experiment devised mechanisms for involving people in visual arts who belong to communities normally under represented in such pursuits. In Kalaboration! (2008–12) (http://kalaboration.co.uk/), rather than people going to venues, here the novel approach trialled was the creation of platforms for taking art to the people.

In this model art literally travelled to the local residents, enabling an encounter with it by those who otherwise might not venture into galleries, university art centres or other traditional art environments. It successfully tested art within environments not usually used for the purpose – canals, city streets, shopping malls. In partnership with DRUM Arts Centre (The UK’s premier Black-led Arts Centre) and Rogueplay Theatre (one of the most innovative physical theatre companies), Butler developed a set of arts festival exchange platforms that integrated the University with diverse communities of South Asian artists, black Caribbean artists and disadvantaged youths with regional and international artists. This was done via a themed approach: the 2012 Olympics and the concurrent 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence. Projects included: digital journalist workshops for the public, professional development, music events and the massive “graffiti knitting” collaborative project, Knit 2 Together (http://tinyurl.com/kalaboration-bbc) engaging over 400 individuals who knitted covers for public sculptures and the portal columns of the Birmingham Art & Museum. Its Young People’s Programme supported 74 young people; it also supported of a total 83 artists and 462 participants in the final six months of the programme alone. Audiences for Kalaboration! reached over 2,700,000 (http://tinyurl.com/audience-evidence) and continues to support artists and young people today.

£400K funding came from the London 2012 Inspire Programme, ACE and Birmingham City Council, as well as commercial/non-commercial bodies. Importantly this work was highly successful in achieving the committed involvement of diverse groups, including ethnic minorities and disadvantaged youths demonstrating the model’s validity.