Aesthetic Perspectives Resources
Client: Animating Democracy, a project of Americans for the Arts (2016-2022)
Animating Democracy’s Aesthetic Perspectives: Attributes of Excellence in Arts for Change is a framework to enhance understanding and evaluation of creative work at the intersection of arts and civic engagement, community development, and justice. Laramee Kidd was an early adopter of the framework, providing feedback when the tool was in development and using the framework in her Civic Art as Infrastructure evaluation project. Since then, Laramee Kidd has created several resources for Animating Democracy to help artists, administrators, evaluators and researchers understand the framework and the possibilities for its use.
Evaluator/Researcher Companion (2017) This companion guide is intended for evaluators and researchers to learn how to use the framework to frame questions that help define program purposes and guide assessment of aesthetics in arts and social justice work.
Pittsburgh Artists Working in Community: A Case Study of Aesthetic Perspectives in Action (2019) As Pittsburgh’s Office of Public Art (now Shiftworks Community + Public Arts) supports artists working in the public realm through residencies and cross-sector partnerships, this case study explores how Shiftworks has used Aesthetic Perspectives as an adaptable evaluation tool, a content-rich guide for artist inquiry and exchange, and an organizational aid to guide selection panels to discuss aesthetic qualities and equity. Laramee Kidd developed this case study as an employee of Metris Arts Consulting.
“Aesthetic Perspectives in Evaluation,” Arts U Webinar (2022) This session offers an overview of ways the Aesthetic Perspectives framework can be activated in evaluation of civically and socially engaged arts and culture projects and programs as well as action-based research. These include developing a shared language among artists and stakeholders about the creative work; defining indicators of artistic success; guiding data collection; designing ethnographic and developmental evaluations; and communicating findings and lessons learned.