Let’s Create An Artist in Every Community (and let’s create it now)…

I had a conversation with fellow artist Martin Daws back in 2016. He had a great idea. imagine if artists were employed, full-time to work in communities? We worked on it. Martin then wrote a guest blog here in 2017.

This article sets out how we could easily and relatively cheaply employ artists in everyday community and how such a simple, yet radical system would create just the sort of transformative cultural change that is at the heart of Arts Council England’s new 10-year strategy, Let’s Create.

Extracting New Cultural Value From Urban Regeneration: The Intangible Rise of the Social Capital Artist

This article was first published in print in Sluice Magazine and then on their website in 2017. I've decided to publish it on my website because I hope its content still resonates in 2018. It addresses issues of instrumentalism in the arts, artwashing, living creatively and cultural democracy. As I wrote in 2017, I believe "it is still possible to conceive of art as part of living creatively, as part of everyday life, as local cultural democracy, as artistic autonomy." It's time to talk about how...

A Policy for the Arts: “excellence” within the reach of everyone? A contribution to #ArtsPolicy50

It’s been almost 50 years since Jennie Lee published her white paper A Policy for the Arts – The First Steps (1965). It was Britain’s first state arts policy. Some revere it. For others, the white paper ushered in a period of government instrumentalism in the arts, increasing the powerful influence of the Arts Council.…Read more A Policy for the Arts: “excellence” within the reach of everyone? A contribution to #ArtsPolicy50

Quality in participatory arts: fit for whose purpose & in need of qualification?

Doctor Faustus in a magic circle, Woodcut, 1648 I have always been perplexed when people talk of “quality”.  It’s a strangely powerful word, given that it is essentially neutral.  Colloquially, people say things like, “He’s a quality player,” meaning that the person has an excellent footballing attribute (or attributes): goal scoring, tackling, whatever.  In science…Read more Quality in participatory arts: fit for whose purpose & in need of qualification?

THE STATUS QUO WILL NO LONGER DO – three provocations at Arts Council England national office

What a week.  A great week.  A deeply challenging week.  A week which saw me invited to Arts Council England’s HQ in Bloomsbury Street, London, thanks to CidaCo and Anamaria Wills in particular, to present a resilience lab to almost thirty people from arts organisations from Birmingham and South East London.  I co-presented the afternoon…Read more THE STATUS QUO WILL NO LONGER DO – three provocations at Arts Council England national office

THE STATUS QUO WILL NO LONGER DO – three provocations at Arts Council England national office

What a week.  A great week.  A deeply challenging week.  A week which saw me invited to Arts Council England’s HQ in Bloomsbury Street, London, thanks to CidaCo and Anamaria Wills in particular, to present a resilience lab to almost thirty people from arts organisations from Birmingham and South East London.  I co-presented the afternoon…Read more THE STATUS QUO WILL NO LONGER DO – three provocations at Arts Council England national office

We are socially engaged

This is a reblog of a post I wrote for #culturalvalue initiative which was first published on 2nd September 2014. This was Eleonora Belfiore’s introduction… Our regular contributor Stephen Pritchard has kindly agreed to review for The #culturalvalue initiative ‘Evaluation Survey of Artists’, a recent report by ArtWorks, one of the Paul Hamlyn’s Foundation’s Special…Read more We are socially engaged

‘Cultural Value’ and the Economic and Social Impact of the Arts

I attended a workshop at the University of Warwick on 9th July about Co-producing cultural policy.  The day was very, very interesting and frustrating at times.  I was guest blogger.  I wrote this.  It was originally published here: http://coculturalpolicy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/cultural-value-and-economic-and-social.html   A morning of valuing artists, museums as co-producers of ‘social justice’ and cultural value as…Read more ‘Cultural Value’ and the Economic and Social Impact of the Arts

‘Cultural Value’ and the Economic and Social Impact of the Arts

I attended a workshop at the University of Warwick on 9th July about Co-producing cultural policy.  The day was very, very interesting and frustrating at times.  I was guest blogger.  I wrote this.  It was originally published here: http://coculturalpolicy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/cultural-value-and-economic-and-social.html   A morning of valuing artists, museums as co-producers of ‘social justice’ and cultural value as…Read more ‘Cultural Value’ and the Economic and Social Impact of the Arts

Second post : ‘Occupy artists take message to streets’ from BBC (via @illuminator99) # PhDResearch

Second post : 'Occupy artists take message to streets' from BBC (via @illuminator99) # PhDResearchThis link takes you to a really interesting piece by the BBC from 2012 exploring how Occupy use arts as a powerful means of producing counter-hegemonic discourse with big public impact.  Features Illuminator 99%.

Radical counter-hegemonic arts ‘participation’ that critiques instrumentalism by @illuminator99 #PhDResearch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHFwQ4UX0FY I have been a long-time admirer of the amazingly simple, incredibly expressive and exceptionally impactful work of activist arts movement Illuminator 99%. Their work epitomises, for me, the spirit of Occupy and other non-hierarchical counter-hegemonic movements. This video is the first of two I wish to post to (hopefully) stimulate some discussion around arts,…Read more Radical counter-hegemonic arts ‘participation’ that critiques instrumentalism by @illuminator99 #PhDResearch

Cultural policy

This is the fifth post taken from my draft literature review which is part of my on going PhD research centred around the question: Can participatory art support sustainable social change?  Previous posts are below.  This is a rough and ready document I just wanted to put out there.  It will be refined.  Some of…Read more Cultural policy

Art as Social change

This is the fourth post taken from my draft literature review which is part of my ongoing PhD research around the question: Can participatory art support sustainable social change?  The other posts are below.  Please feel free to comment and criticise… Whether art, or any other activity for that matter, can ever change contemporary society,…Read more Art as Social change

Matarasso, Merli and the question of social impact

There is a crucial debate that is often still referred to when questions of art and social change arise. It is essentially a disagreement about the potentialities of participatory art as a mode of effecting social change; predominantly a discussion about policy and methodology – two questions that are at the heart of much of…Read more Matarasso, Merli and the question of social impact

Can participatory art support sustainable social change? A brief introduction to my research…

Participatory art is a growing field. As a practice, it adopts numerous forms and crosses many boundaries. Participatory art is often, but not always, implicated in narratives surrounding personal and social change, either directly through public policy, or indirectly through the statements of individual socially engaged artists. Socially engaged art interventions are often short-term and…Read more Can participatory art support sustainable social change? A brief introduction to my research…