Supervised by Professor Ben Walmsley and Dr Sarah Feinstein, School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds, and Jude Comyn, Head of Audience Insight, Tate
October 2021 –
Future Roads – photograph taken alongside the Piazza San Marco, where light creates a pathway in the dark for the couple in the frame. Here, they are heading towards a brighter destination in the distance
Photo © Vanessa Violette Arias Bujía
This AHRC-funded research is established as a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with Tate and the University of Leeds, and explores the evolving role of digital governance, institutional policy, and audience engagement strategies within cultural organisations.
The impetus for this project is aligned with a collective responsibility to balance emergent digital innovation, with the societal need for museums and galleries to act as facilitators of positive change. The project examines how cultural institutions approach developing digital transformation strategy, observing the design of innovative, ethical and inclusive online experiences for socio-digital audiences. By assessing institutional decision-making frameworks, responsible digital policy and inclusive engagement models, my research investigates how institutions are incorporating cultural democracy into the digital spaces they create for social media audiences.
My research also considers the governance challenges posed by emerging technologies such as AI, particularly in how digital platforms manage ethics, inclusivity standards, and participatory engagement. Through collaboration with Tate, this study contributes to best practices in responsible digital transformation—bridging academic research with industry needs.
What are your hopes for this research?
Whoever you are, wherever you are, you deserve equal and democratic access to art.
As cultural engagement increasingly shifts online, institutions have a responsibility to foster inclusivity, mitigate digital inequalities, and ensure audience needs are prioritised, in an age of predominant technological connectivity with culture within digital dimensions.
By identifying key policy frameworks and governance structures, this research hopes to inform institutional guidelines on digital responsibility, audience inclusion, and ethical innovation in socio-digital spaces. My ultimate goal is to help shape a future where cultural institutions act as leaders in digital integrity and audience empowerment, with my ultimate aim to get as many people as possible connected.
About Vanessa Arias Bujía
As a digital governance researcher investigating the intersection of digital equality, the evolution of cultural engagement, and organisational policy, her work focuses on socio-digital transformation, responsible technology governance, and ethical audience engagement in the cultural and public sector.
Vanessa’s background also spans visual design, using digital techniques to shape and disseminate multi-sensory form across a variety of mediums. She has developed and led art and wellness workshops internationally, working with children and teachers from Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Ara Hou school in Napier, New Zealand, and co-created art experiences with local communities both online and onsite across Maui, Honolulu, Hong Kong and Galicia. She has also designed digital photographic exhibitions with the Rijkmuseum, Tony Harrison and West Yorkshire Playhouse physical and digital archives.
Twitter @SculptureViolet
Instagram @sculptureviolet