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3.1.3 Arts for social innovation
In the current socioeconomic context, characterised by a rapidly changing
environment and the increasing importance of intangible values, arts and culture have
become powerful drivers of innovation and development. The notion of culture-
based creativity stems from those art and cultural activities and productions that go
beyond artistic achievements or “creative content” and feed innovation, business
strategies, new technologies or social goals and also feed skills and visions. (KEA 2009).
It is very much linked to the ability of artists and creative professionals to think
laterally, call on emotions, communicate with individuals, and work across disciplines
and challenge traditional approaches in search of new visions, solutions and concepts.
A good example that illustrates this is artistic interventions in (public or private)
organisations: art, artists or artistic processes are used to achieve organisational
objectives such as professional training, the resolution of conflicts, and the
(re)development of products or services, or the building of a new organisational
identity
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. Closely linked to culture-based creativity, the concept of creative spillovers
is being more and more used to refer to processes in which interactions between
artists, creative professionals and industries and/or cultural organisations contribute
to economic and/or social innovation in other sectors of the economy or society
(Kern 2014).
This way, personal, cultural and creative skills together with technical abilities and
social relations stimulate innovative solutions in scientific, technological, economic and
social spheres.
Finding innovative ways to deal with social challenges through artistic intervention is
one of the main traits of social innovation.The latter is best described by “new ideas
(products, services and models) that simultaneously meet social needs and create
new social relationships or collaborations” (Murray, Caulier-Grice and Mulgan 2010).
Innovative participatory approaches have been experimented at local level as an
opportunity to give new dynamism to cities’ plans by involving citizens in the decision-
making process.
Incorporating artistic elements in existing social interventions can help to develop
new approaches and improve service delivery in the city. An interesting case for this
is the “Culture à l’hôpital” collaboration between cultural organisations and health
institutions in order to implement cultural strategies for hospitals in France. Artistic
workshops were held, involving both patients and caretakers and not only did they
lead to better relationships between the latter but also to question existing
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The term “artistic interventions” is used by Berthoin Antal to designate “the wide range of short and
long term forms of bringing people, processes, and products from the world of the arts into organizations”
(Berthoin Antal 2009). Her different pieces of research, notably within the frame of the European project
Creative Clash (), document artistic interventions in organisations and show how these benefit from them.
Artistic interventions may be also applied to territories, as it is the case of the New Patrons programme
(“Les nouveaux mécènes”) developed by Fondation de France.The programme supports and promotes
artistic interventions —in the form of artworks— in public spaces that are initiated by the local communities
and address specific issues identified by them.The success of the programme has led to its extension beyond
the boundaries of France, covering other countries such as Belgium, Spain, Germany and Italy.
