Towards cultural democracy: promoting cultural capabilities for everyone is the final report of King’s College London's fourth Cultural Enquiry. At the heart of the report is a call for a radical but pragmatic new approach to understanding and enabling cultural opportunity. It is argued that cultural opportunities are comprised of a far broader range of freedoms than access to already existing publicly funded arts – the primary focus of current cultural policy.

Download the full report [PDF, 2.2MB]

The report's summary says:

Towards cultural democracy sheds light on the explosion of cultural creativity that could be happening if the arts, creative industries and everyday creativity were better connected. This would radically increase everyone’s substantive freedom to co-create versions of culture: what the report refers to as cultural capability. It is a new way to understand what cultural opportunity consists of, moving well beyond cultural policy’s over-arching emphasis on enabling access to currently existing publicly funded arts. Cultural capability is the combined freedom to speak, to express, to be heard, to experience, to make, to build, to contest, to create. It is the key idea at the heart of this report, and central to the vision of cultural democracy we present - in which everyone has the substantive freedom to co-create versions of culture.

The report was commissioned by the Cultural Institute at King's and is based on a research collaboration with the Get Creative campaign, July 2015 - October 2016. The report was commissioned by the Cultural Institute at King’s and the authors of the report are: Dr. Nick Wilson, Reader in Creativity, Arts & Cultural Management, Department of Culture, Media & the Creative Industries; Dr. Jonathan Gross, Teaching Fellow and Researcher, Department of Culture, Media & the Creative Industries; Dr. Anna Bull, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Portsmouth (formerly, Researcher, Department of Culture, Media & the Creative Industries).

Robin Simpson, Chief Executive of Voluntary Arts, said:

[This report] argues that cultural opportunities are comprised of a far broader range of freedoms than access to already existing publicly funded arts – the primary focus of current cultural policy. Everyone has cultural capability – by ensuring there are more cultural opportunities for people to realise their own creative potential it would be possible to move towards cultural democracy: “an achievable future in which the substantive freedom to co-create versions of culture is enjoyed by all”.

For more on the report, visit the King's College London website and read the one-page summary.