Complexity, uncertainty & scalability: How Assemble’s Granby 4 Streets won 2015 Turner Prize

Did Assemble really play such a big part in Granby 4 Streets?  How 'community-led' was the project?  What was the role of the Community Land Trust?  How did Assemble come to win the Turner Prize 2015?  Who were the private social investors and what did they do to help make the project happen?

he intention here is to blow open the façade behind Granby 4 Streets, Assemble and the Turner Prize 2015 win.

his is a long read and part of my research into art-led regeneration projects that are often far more complex than is often portrayed.

argue that the media and art world picture of Assemble is overly simplistic and masks a far more complex and uncertain set of events that, ultimately, relied on 'mystery' private social investors to force local government to act in support of the project and to lever money from national grant funders.

Assemble Useful Art. Call it Socially Engaged. Everyone’s a (Turner Prize) Winner!

I’m an art historian.  A critical art historian.  Context is as important as text (artwork) to me.  Works of art, whether “art” made by “artists” or “not-art” made by “not-artists”, “fine art” or “craft” or “popular”, object- or process-based, aesthetic or anti-aesthetic, must be carefully considered for the functions they play within and their interactions…Read more Assemble Useful Art. Call it Socially Engaged. Everyone’s a (Turner Prize) Winner!

Do we need to develop institutions to work with communities? Can’t artists work directly with and within communities? A response to #CommunityArts conference at The Black-E

Dotto, Courtesy of The Black-E. I asked the two questions in my title as an immediate response to a panel entitled ‘What kind of organisation do we need to develop to work with communities…?’  The problem seemed obvious; becoming increasingly apparent as the Community Arts?  Learning from the Legacy of Artists’ Social Initiatives conference (part of…Read more Do we need to develop institutions to work with communities? Can’t artists work directly with and within communities? A response to #CommunityArts conference at The Black-E