The arts are sprouting them, but are they worth anything? Dea Birkett, director of Kids in Museums which has just produced its latest, wonders

We all love a good manifesto. The 11 point Futurist Manifesto, published in 1909, the first arts manifesto of the 20th century, called for the demolition of museums and libraries, but its centenary was still celebrated this year as if it had paved the way for every arts initiative since. Manifestos are credited with having clout beyond that of any mere document or proposal. Just the name is enough to conjure up visions of revolutionary change.

I’ve noticed that, as the political parties clamber to construct their own manifestos, the arts world is also drawing them up by the dozen. The National Campaign for the Arts’ Arts Manifesto, the Manifesto for Children’s Arts, the Northern Ireland Manifesto for Children’s Arts, Manifesto for Participation in the Arts and Crafts … It seems there are so many of them, organisations are struggling to find a new name for each. To fit in with this trend, we’ve also been busy producing our own 2010 Kids in Museums Manifesto – 20 ways to make a museum family friendly – compiled from visitors’ comments. (See page 4)

There are some really good examples of arts manifestos, I hope ours included. The Music Manifesto, for example, with its key five aims, demonstrates how something simple can have real force. However, I’ve also noticed that many manifestos are so in little more than name. That doesn’t mean that they don’t meet the dictionary definition – a public written declaration of the intentions or motives of a party. It means they don’t work. And the reason they don’t is because they’re nothing more than yet another report on the arts, thinly disguised as something else.

I believe the heart of a useful manifesto is brevity. It can’t only be called it, it must be it, and that means it must be a call to action that can be easily summarized. We keep our Kids in Museums Manifesto to one side of one sheet of paper. I have yet to come across a shorter one, although I’m sure there is. But longer ones – I’ve found plenty, and the more you write, the less gets read. If you write one page, everyone reads it. If you write two pages, hardly anyone even reads the first page. I learnt this over years as a journalist. I’ve noticed, since I’ve strayed into the world of the arts, that arts organisations like to have big, fat publications, not single sheets of paper. How can people rally around essays?

In addition to brevity, there must be clarity and clear purpose. It’s no good having a manifesto with aims that boil down to nothing more than “enabling more people to have access to the arts” or “placing the arts at the core of improving people’s life opportunities”. Or, even worse, things like “expanding the cultural offer”. These may be rallying cries – but to do what exactly? It’s rather ironic that so many manifestos call for accessibility in totally inaccessible language. Phrases like that have no real meaning and no clear aim. It’s what I call a Motherhood and Apple Pie Manifesto - asking people to sign up to what everyone wants to happen anyway. A manifesto must have things in it that people object to, otherwise there is nothing to implement. It also must have an outcome that is measureable. There’s no real way of assessing when and if any of the above are achieved.

I think the reason so many manifestos are written is that the idea sounds simple. Just write a list of points. But being clear and precise is far more difficult than any amount of waffle. If the arts sector wants things to be done, and just not talked about, they need to get a little better at being brief and being clear. In these times, we need rallying cries. But we also need to understand what they are.

To order your copy of the new 2010 Kids in Museums Manifesto, just email manifesto@kidsinmuseums.org.uk.
To download a pdf of the Kids in Museums Manifesto, go to www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk