Abstract

This chapter uses the context of Hull UK City of Culture 2017, to explore the role of volunteers as cultural mediators in their work in inspiring engagement in the visual arts with both fellow residents and visitors to the city. In initially providing literature review insights into volunteering, big society and cultural mediators, it sets the chapter within a wider context of academic insights, which are then applied to the case study of Hull. The chapter also provides empirical insights from assessors of the City of Culture visual arts programme, identifying the proactive role of volunteers in expressing narratives of different aspects of the visual arts to visitors and to community members. Their work with fellow residents in particular can be viewed as a form of social inclusion where residents who previously did not engage in the visual arts were inspired to participate.