How to make impact (without calling it impact)?

ACT at the AoMO Conference

The 2022 edition of the biannual Art of Management & Organization conference in Liverpool (UK) set out to explore the idea and practice of Art as Activism. Imagine a bold, unlikely mix of academics, artists, consultants, and activists trying to bend their heads and bodies around the question of how art can make a change.

As part of the ACT Learning to Impact work package, Arie Lengkeek and Jacco van Uden joined the conference to offer some early insights for collective reflection. As suggested earlier, it is not always easy to talk about impact in the world of arts. To talk about the impact of art. Maybe it is because, as some would argue, impact has “the term impact mostly refers to a negative effect”. Or maybe because impact is (still) often associated with the promise of being able to predict or measure specific effects – an idea many consider to be at odds with what art is and how it works. Or, because the idea of impact is instrumental to a technocratic, neoliberal idea of public funding, legitimizing art subsidies for the sake not of the arts itself, but their contribution to major social challenges. In any case, as a concept impact just does not seem to sit well with how we tend to talk about art.

In the case of ACT, however, reference is made to impact. ACT is about ways in which art can help address the challenges posed by dramatic climate change. If ‘act’ is more than just a well found, cheerful acronym, then we are urged to think of ways in which art can actually make a difference. To change climate change if you like.

We interviewed a dozen of artist or art collectives from all over Europe. We asked them to talk about their work in terms of impact. Yes, there may have been an a priori ‘buy-in’ to the topic as these artists already agreed to discuss impact, but they all seemed very relaxed to explore the impact of their art. While the artists we spoke to would rarely use the word spontaneously, impact was definitely on their mind. Earlier we reported on the (implicit) ‘impact strategies’ the artists devise, and how their perspectives on impact have evolved over the years.

Perhaps one of the most noticeable dilemmas in these impact strategies is how to strike a balance – if that’s what it is – between having direct effect on behavior related to climate change while remaining truthful to the fact that the work you do is artistic work. To acknowledge that as an artist, your work operates in ways very different from that of a scientist, an activist, or a consultant. To realize that art, as we noticed earlier, points to impact in its own distinct way: subtle, indirect, elusive, through gestures, hinting, appealing not only to the ratio, but also to embodied knowledge and understanding… Quite different, in other words, from how impact is normally presented and discussed.

Perhaps this is also where the unease with the use of the word impact originates. To be focused on impact just seems to sit uneasy with how art generally words. To start working with impact already in mind and to subsequently align all efforts with that mindset burdens the artistic process with the kind of goal-oriented thinking that deters everything that is subtle, indirect, elusive, and so on. Art becomes caught up in a means-to-an-end logic where it will fail to live up to the expectations as it cannot and often does not want to predict exactly where and how impact will realized. 

In short, while artists are often keen to discuss the impact of their work and indicate that their artistic practices evolve to become more ‘effective’, they often shy away from the discursive practice that comes with the use of the word impact.

Art as Activism

At the Art of Management & Organization conference, we decided to follow two paths. First: to participate, immerse ourselves in the practices and presentations of the participants, searching and scouting if anyone really engages themselves with the actual impact of their interventions. Second: to share what we learnt on impact in the context of ACT so far, and invite the participants to relate their own stories to the ones we brought from the ACT project. 

Our first path was exciting – Art as Activism is a label that connects well. Lots of examples of wonderful activist art projects generating effect on all sorts of levels, lots of discussions on how art works. Fields of intervention ranged from reclaiming the voice of the people in urban planning, beautiful art installations inviting children from the Balkans to dream about peace, theatre enabling military staff suffering from PTSS to find their voice and listen to each other’s stories, a roller-skate musical to stir up rage on the dismantling of affordable local bus line services in English cities. All stemming from a deep engagement, all leading to an artistic production or a collective process that tried to bring about positive change. But overall, very little reference to the world and the language of impact. As if framing the artistic efforts in terms of impact will be detrimental to the art’s potential impact. Or, to reverse the perspective, as if impact is best served by not talking impact.

Our second path led to a similar conclusion. The examples that we offered, based on the practices of the artists we interviewed, were received with great curiosity and enthusiasm. It was very easy to present this work of others. But it turned out to be very hard to talk impact beyond the specific case study. To formulate what could provide patterns to learn and improve on impact. Here, the evasive nature of impact manifested itself once more. It’s great to discuss art, it remains hard to talk impact. 

A space for collaborative thinking

As ACT is coming to a close, Arie and Jacco will be holding a ‘space for collaborative thinking on impact’. They will be doing so at the What Shall We Build Here Festival. In an open and inviting installation they will bring into play cues they gathered from interviews, discussions, and talks as part of the Learning to Impact activities. Arie and Jacco will interweave these conversations, interviews and encounters with the activities and presentations of (invited) festival guests from London and beyond. For the entire duration of festival, they wish to engage in ‘designing conversations’ with anyone interested in the question: how to make impact (without calling it impact)?

january 2023

more on the 2022 AoMO conference here: AoMO Liverpool 2022

more on the 2023 event will follow soon.