Defining and assessing artistic co-creation: the TRACTION proposal

Abstract

This article presents research developed within the framework of the European project TRACTION, which aims to co-create operas in three different environments incorporating technological elements and with the ultimate objective of generating a social transformation. Through 19 interviews carried out in three different countries (Spain, Ireland, Portugal), a map of indicators that can be used to evaluate artistic co-creation is proposed. The value of the proposal is that the indicators are validated through a focus group with representatives from three diverse co-creation processes—in the Raval neighborhood in Barcelona, in different areas of Ireland, in a prison in Leiria—and serve as a general framework for very diverse environments. Likewise, the work contributes to the debate on the concept of co-creation through a thematic analysis of the definitions provided by the different interviewees. Central topics in the thematic analysis of the definitions are: collaboration, participant profile and role, goal and value, origin and development, and ethical and social aspects.

Artistic co-creation: How art students view co-creation and how it could be integrated in the arts curriculum

“…The four questions were the same ones that were answered by 19 TRACTION stakeholders (Matamala and Soler-Vilageliu, 2022), to allow for a comparison, but the phrasing was adapted to the students. (These stakeholders are hereinafter often referred to as professionals in the comparative analysis.)…”

“…This research is related to the TRACTION 3 project and builds on the study developed by Matamala and Soler-Vilageliu (2022). TRACTION is an H2020 project that aims to research artistic co-creation as a tool for social transformation.…”

Opera co-creation: from collaborative translation to artistic co-creation in audiovisual translation and accessibility

“…The interviews were oral, individual, semi-structured, and took place online in 2020. See Matamala and Soler-Vilageliu (2021) for further procedural details. A thematic analysis of the interviews, carried out with the software Taguette (Rampin, Steeves and DeMott, 2021), allowed us to propose a preliminary list of indicators.…”

“…The indicators related to the process are mainly related to nonprofessional participants and consider the following aspects (Matamala and Soler-Vilageliu, 2021): their profile and how many sessions they attend, paying special attention to the fact that numbers are retained. Their engagement, a term to encompass their active participation, motivation, interest, and enthusiasm, is considered a key indicator, alongside the fact that the different participant profiles, both professionals and non-professionals, can contribute in a balanced way to the co-created performance.…”

“…On the other, the definition and implementation of a community-centred methodology towards engagement through artistic co-creation. An evaluation based on four key aspects (technology, co-creation process, performances, and social impact) has already shed some light on the impact of the co-creation process in opera (Matamala and Soler-Vilageliu, 2021).…”