Cultural participation: the USA versus Australia

Within a matter of months, two major research studies have been released on cultural participation. How different are they, and is Australia ahead of the States?
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Last week the American organisation Culture Track released its 2017 participation report. In June this year, the Australia Council for the Arts published its own research on audience engagement, tabling the report Connecting Australians. We thought it might be an interesting exercise to examine them back-to-back.

While the geographic footprint is similar, America’s population is 13 times that of Australia (323.1 million in 2016 compared to 24.13 million). However the survey samples were a little closer: Culture Track surveyed 4,035 respondents nationally, while Connecting Australians represents a national sample of 7,537.

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Gina Fairley is ArtsHub's National Visual Arts Editor. For a decade she worked as a freelance writer and curator across Southeast Asia and was previously the Regional Contributing Editor for Hong Kong based magazines Asian Art News and World Sculpture News. Prior to writing she worked as an arts manager in America and Australia for 14 years, including the regional gallery, biennale and commercial sectors. She is based in Mittagong, regional NSW. Twitter: @ginafairley Instagram: fairleygina