9 Dimensions for evaluating how art and creative practice stimulate societal transformations

There is an urgent need to engage with deep leverage points in sustainability transformations—fundamental myths,paradigms, and systems of meaning making—to open new collective horizons for action. Art and creative practice are uniquely suitedto help facilitate change in these deeper transformational leverage points. However, understandings of how creative practices contributeto sustainability transformations are lacking in practice and fragmented across theory and research. This lack of understanding shapeshow creative practices are evaluated and therefore funded and supported, limiting their potential for transformative impact. This paperpresents the 9 Dimensions tool, created to support reflective and evaluative dialogues about links between creative practice andsustainability transformations. It was developed in a transdisciplinary process between the potential users of this tool: researchers,creative practitioners, policy makers, and funders. It also brings disciplinary perspectives on societal change from evaluation theory,sociology, anthropology, psychology, and more in connection with each other and with sustainability transformations, opening newpossibilities for research. The framework consists of three categories of change, and nine dimensions: changing meanings (embodying,learning, and imagining); changing connections (caring, organizing, and inspiring); and changing power (co-creating, empowering,and subverting). We describe how the 9 Dimensions tool was developed, and describe each dimension and the structure of the tool.We report on an application of the 9 Dimensions tool to 20 creative practice projects across the European project Creative Practicesfor Transformational Futures (CreaTures). We discuss user reflections on the potential and challenges of the tool, and discuss insightsgained from the analysis of the 20 projects. Finally, we discuss how the 9 Dimensions can effectively act as a transdisciplinary researchagenda bringing creative practice further in contact with transformation research.