Mikey Martins on audience development, responsibility and the value of volunteers
An interview by Jenny Patschovsky
In our preliminary conversation, you said that what motivates you most in your work is to bring beautiful, innovative, or jaw-dropping creative moments to people. What is your ap-proach to reaching this audience, and who do you reach?
The festival contexts I’ve worked in have been very varied. My first experience was working for Norfolk & Norwich Festival in the East of England, where 80 per cent of the program is ticketed. I got the feeling that this audience had seen a lot of cultural events. They were quite experienced in terms of form and location. So, it depends on where and what you’re programming. If you are working for a festival, what is the history of that festival? What has been programmed before? I’d like to think I have tactics and strategies for programming for all different types of people. But if I’m honest, I think the most interesting audiences for me are the ones that are not so culturally experienced. How do you bring them over the threshold? How do you invite them in? And then once you have them, what are we going to do? Are we just going to dance? Are we just going to smile and clap? Or are we going to say something? All of this relates back to the place and the context in which you are working. The context of time is also very interesting.
When does the relationship building with your audience begin?
It has to do with marketing, and I always like to use circus as an ex-ample, because the thing with circus in a traditional sense is that the show did not begin when the show happened. The show began when the poster went up in the village. So, when does the festival begin? When does the conversation begin? It has to do with marketing and press and how you do that. Let’s say I’m programming a really challenging piece of contemporary circus or contemporary dance, I would never use the word contemporary. It’s dance, it’s circus - the form it takes, the audience doesn’t know yet. There are certain things which I think are important to just be careful with if you’re working with an audience that has not had much experience of that type of work. Be careful not to scare them and be careful not to alienate them by using language which may be normal in the kind of more experienced arts sector. It’s easy to make people feel stupid and I really hate that about the cultural sector. We need to be aware that we use a certain language that for some people can be a real barrier.
Apart from that, what else do you see in your area of responsibility?
Something I really enjoy is how you create narratives within the programming. Because this is also a way of allowing audiences to go deeper. I think of some projects that we were doing in Hull1 around concepts of freedom and empowerment. About mental health and exploitation, criminal exploitation, sexual exploitation, these kinds of horrors that are very real in the world. I would always accom-pany that with a talk or a discussion. For instance, a piece around domestic violence where we had survivors of domestic violence and trafficking and people who work with them talking after a show, which allowed the audience to understand this much more.
How do you present these more complex topics to a large audience?
If you want someone to get to that point, to see that show, and to go to that talk, be careful and check your speed, because that is quite a big leap for somebody that’s never been to an arts event. I think music is quite a key thing to have. A really good music program is an access point for many people, because many people feel easy with that. There’s going to be a stage with bands on it. There’s probably going to be a bar and some refreshments. I’m going to start my festival there and then use that space by dropping things in between music that really make you think.
What do you think about community projects? What role do they play?
In all the festivals I’ve ever worked at, there has been a volunteer workforce, and they’re brilliant because they are ambassadors for the festival. They talk to their peers, their community. So, look after your volunteers. That’s one level of participation.
There’s been this real rise of artists who want to work in particular communities, in particular neighbourhoods, and to make a difference and I think that’s commendable. But artists can be instrumentalized and expected to go and fix problems that arise from governmental cuts. I think that’s where we need to be careful, because I think that’s an area that requires particularly skilled expertise. Art can’t fix society on its own, but art is very good in partnership at amplifying particular narratives, in bringing attention to these things. Some socially engaged work does that in a very strong way and in the UK there’s been a real rise in this kind of work. Now there has been a bit of kickback in a report2 on the Arts Council England that suggests that going too far in terms of community engagement and co-creation with communities stops art being supported for the sake of art. That is dangerous because you’re turning art into something that it is not.
I also want to add something to the term ‘community’. We keep using it and it feels like it’s become a bit homogenised. What do we mean by community? Because it feels like, when it’s kind of led by funding, you mean the poor people that don’t go to the theatre? You mean those people over there? Often the community is a real mixture of all different people. But people like business leaders or the person that’s just opened that new bakery, sometimes they’re not seen as the community. We just need to be careful with our terminology because there are many different aspects of a community. I think the perfect audience is one representing all the different aspects of the community. Then you bring everyone together, and then maybe people will be less scared of the people they think they’re scared of. I think we as an industry need to be a bit smarter and more precise about what we mean by community.
Let us then call them participatory projects. In these projects, what is your role as a curator, how do you navigate through their process?
I think there are, of course, many ways of doing this. To me, it’s important that you’re brave and you’re a bit audacious. You try and look beyond the immediate, obvious solutions, the easy stuff, and you try to find audacious things. My way of doing it is to understand the place I’m in, the people, the history.
The Hull Vigil3 is a good example. People told me, no one will ever do that. No one wants to do that. That’s ridiculous. That’s too poetic. And then when this thing went on general release, it was full. Within two hours, 730 people signed up for a whole year. To stand on top of the highest building in the city and watch the choreography of the city, all on your own. Look out over your city as a watcher, as a vigil, as a way of commemorating. It’s timeless. I think that’s the difference between a mediocre idea and a brilliant idea. So those 730 people do an individual watch over a city, but actually it’s part of a chain. It’s part of a group act. By bringing them together every three months, that also enforces this sense of community, even though you stood alone. It’s an incredible story of a city. But I was told it’s not possible and people won’t do that.
This is what I mean when I said that the context of time is interest-ing. After years of working with different people and communities, as part of the Hull Festival, they were up for everything. There were so many things that happened in this place where people would before say, “the people of Hull, they don’t like it, they’re not into culture or they’re not engaged”. The thing about audience development is to never underestimate the general public. It’s outrageous to think that, because they don’t go to this particular kind of theatre or museum, that they’re not cultured. Everyone has their own culture. So, audacity is key. And I think as a curator, an artistic director, be bold, be brave. Otherwise do something else. It drives me crazy how much stuff you see, which is just the same.
Where would you say you have not succeeded in establishing a good relationship with the audience?
When I was working at Oerol Festival what I found the most challenging and disappointing was the relationship with the local population. It was great in the way they make a lot of money and they serviced the festival. But they see the festival as being a thing which comes over to them and tells them what to think. There’s a misunderstanding where they just think it’s not for them.
One example was how we dealt with a protest which happened to coincide with the festival. It was called the Red Line and was a pro-solidarity with Palestine protest happening in The Hague. This was called the Red Line because it referenced what a Dutch politician said but didn’t do anything about. So, we told our audience that we would facilitate a Red Line protest in solidarity with The Hague. I was worried that if we were to take such a political stance, it would alienate the local people even more. That was a healthy discussion because I realized you’ve got to put your flag where it needs to be. So, we decided to do it, but we also did it because if we don’t facilitate it, it could happen anywhere on the island and it could create chaos and that would have been worse for the festival. It was extraordinary. It was on the beach looking at the sea. It was a beautiful line of a few thousand people and a lot of locals. But we also lost a lot of local people. We lost money. It was an interesting moment, which I’m still reflecting on. Do I think it was a mistake? No, I think the point had to be made. Do I think we could have handled it better? Yeah.
What lesson did you learn from this?
Sometimes you have to sit down with people and have a coffee or a beer and actually explain why you’re doing what you’re doing. One comment that sticks with me is: “a festival should not be political”. So, how’s capitalism going? Of course, art is a political course, and we all need to take stock of that if we’re in positions of responsibility in the arts as programmers and curators.
What I’m seeing at the moment is a lot of audiences turning their backs on cultural events because there’s a polarisation that we don’t need to have. Of course, we believe in what we believe in, but if you want to change the world, you need to have everybody in the room. You can’t do it by just shouting into a silo with people that already know. I fear that is the danger of tokenistic community participation, arrogant programming and pretentious language. A kind of finger wagging idea that we’re going to tell you what to think. We, as organisers have to be a bit careful of that, because otherwise we’re just making the polarisation worse. Festivals and events are fundamentally an opportunity to bring strangers together to have a good time and however you do that, you have an opportunity. Most people in the world don’t have an opportunity to bring thousands of people together to do something positive. I think it’s really important that we try to understand our communities and our audiences and sometimes just check our speed a little bit.
I’m still not sure that the organisation should take a voice, a position, but it felt like that’s what we did in the red line action. It could have potentially been a misunderstanding of the context. I know that there’ll be work to do now to repair those relationships locally. It was clearly a moment of solidarity with thousands of people, but it gave us a feeling of, “oh, great, we did the right thing”. I’m not comfortable with that feeling, because in a way, that’s a misuse of power. It makes me feel good. But does it make everybody over there in Palestine feel okay?
This brings me to a question which I find very difficult to answer. If you are trying to change things or raise awareness of things, or make an impact in society by working with arts and with particular narratives, are you really changing anything? I think that’s the next question that we need to really be honest about.
There’s a fine line between arrogance and confidence and sometimes the cultural sector can veer into a kind of arrogance. That’s why partnerships are fundamental, whether that be with the audience, with the university, with the politicians, or with the police. If you work with creativity with people like that, you see that you start to make differences. If you work with academics, that can prove something. Some of them are the ones that then go to government, and they affect the policy on something. I really encourage partnerships particularly if you want to affect change.
What role do circus performances play in your festival curation?
For me personally it is the most exciting, evolving, accessible, brilliant, crazy, weird art form there is. You’ve got a set of skills that are there and new ones that develop, but there’s a sort of formula of skills and to keep reinventing that, you need to be really imaginative and creative. There’s so much brilliant work out there and that’s just mind blowing. In Circus there’s something modern but classical contemporary at one end of a spectrum and then you have a real kind of punk, experimental work at the other end. In between, there are so many different types of show. It’s so accessible and cool and sexy and dangerous and fun and wonderful.
I was programming a lot of circus into interesting and weird places because I think there’s something about the human form, about the body and architecture. People immediately have a closer relationship with the performer, because it’s something that you can understand. It’s not completely abstract, the physical part. I think I could also say that some elements in some places have gone too far, and it becomes quite pretentious and a bit inaccessible. That’s the danger of circus at the moment. I’m from a street performing background as well as a circus background. We didn’t have support and funding and all those things that are there now. So, as we try to professionalize, as we try to institutionalize, I think we need to be careful not to go too far and not lose people along the way. I remember when we got obsessed with the need for more narratives in circus. But the narrative of human beings helping each other do something extraordinary is in itself a hugely powerful thing. And maybe that’s the essence of circus.
Now taking over the direction of the Carlow Arts Festival, what would you like to implement?
I want to be able to create a balanced program that takes place in the town, but also in nature and around the county, around the area. The only way to do that is to understand the difference between the people living in those different types of places. I’m quite interested in how I can balance a program, interest enough people through smaller projects in the short term. And once they have trust in the festival as a thing, then they’ll start to come together and form those bigger audiences, which we’ll need for the large-scale work in 2 or 3 years’ time. I’m fascinated by the way that the Irish have a very interesting relationship with culture, land, mythology and storytelling. An understanding of ancient history and a positive sense of nationalism. For example, the Irish language is having a real resurgence. It’s something about identity and reclaiming using arts and culture to bring these people together, to sort of feel the land again and actually to say, yeah, that’s where I’m at. So, for instance there will be a show which goes out to a village. That’s never happened before. The festival will start reaching out this year. The relationship building begins. I just want to show people how amazing arts and creativity and cultural events can be, and I want to find a way to bring them together, which informs a kind of community. It’s a lovely challenge. It’s a privilege.
1 He refers to the Freedom Festival in Hull, UK.
2 The so-called Hodge's Review means the Independent Review of Arts Council England led by Baroness Margaret Hodge and published in December 2025. The review acknowledges that “we have been too “prescriptive” and “that we must give our artists and organisations more space to articulate their ambition, and that we need to reduce the administrative burden we have placed on them.” See: Policy paper Arts Council England - an independent review by Baroness Margaret Hodge
3 The Hull Vigil is a monumental work by Australian-Belgian choreographer Joanne Leighton from Paris-based WLDN and was programmed at Freedom Festival in Hull from May 2021 to May 2022. Every day for a year, at sunrise and sunset, a vigil kept watch over Hull from a bespoke structure located on top of the Hull College building.
