Measuring Unmeasurable - Evaluation of Studio Visits and Residencies

Mobility of visual artists is nowadays possible not only thanks to the easiness of travelling but also because of a many grant programmed offered by institutions such as British Council, Trans Artists, Res Artis, AiR Laboratory or Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Nobody doubts that international coopetarion in many cases can initiate a new exhibition, let the artist make new contacts and foster his personnal development. Though it is very hard to tell to what extend participating in a study visit to or a residency affected concrete project and to what extend subsequent stages of artistic career are related to talks, meetings or gallery visits carried during ones stay.

The aim of the presentation is to analyse selected examples of study visits realized by Adam Mickieiwcz Institute and reflexion on possible ways of quantifying its effects. The author presents tools for measuring such events used by other international institutions related to the contemporary art. The speech focuses on describing very pragmatic arguments concerning evaluation of cultural events, although the whole presentation will refer to classical sociological theories proposed by H. Becker (1982), T. DeNora (1995), or I. Wagner (1996).