Parks and Museums as Policy Contact Zones: Dialogues in cultural public space: ‘user’ interests and attitudes towards the Whitworth Park and Art Gallery

The ‘positive externalities’ created by community participation in public spaces have been broadly documented in academic literature. In this sense, public spaces can be portrayed as social spaces where different communities converge and have the potential to strength social cohesion. But even when they are for collective use, public spaces are regulated and managed by the state and they depend on budget allocations in order to exist. By analysing the case of the Whitworth museum and park as cultural public places, the paper focuses on the challenges of promoting their public value to authorities and users alike, and the implications for their future and respective developments. Using a mixed methods research analysis, the authors will look at the histories of practice and programming of parks and their value to cultural policy-making and their relationship to museums and galleries. The findings would offer an understanding of the norms and values of the actors involved in the museum and the park –both public and private- and the role they play in the regulatory and cultural policy process, as a necessary step for improving the way people make their lives through culture.