I do many things – community art and co-creation projects, writing, research, training, talks, facilitation, policy etc. I live in France and have experience of community cultural projects in many countries.
Why I do what I do
My work in community art stands on the belief that everyone has the right to create art and to share the result, as well as to enjoy and participate what others do. Shaping your own cultural identity – and having it recognised by others – is central to human dignity and growth. If people can’t represent themselves culturally how can they do so in any other way, including politically? If people are only imagined and portrayed by others, how can they be full, free and equal citizens?
And yet, in every society, people’s access to culture is uneven. Those who identify with dominant cultures have no difficulty creating and promoting their values. Others, passively or actively denied cultural resources, platforms and legitimacy, remain on the margins. My work tackles those issues by making art with people, sharing ideas, thinking and writing about it.
Some of what I’ve done
Between 1979 and 1994, I worked on community art with people in estates, towns, hospitals, institutions and prisons. As my interest in the ideas behind this work grew, I became involved with research and its implications. From 1994 to 2003 I undertook a series of studies of arts and culture, often with Comedia, including Use or Ornament? (1997) and ending with Only Connect (2004). At the same time, I continued to work on community art projects in and beyond Europe.
I’ve been privileged to work with many public bodies, foundations and universities, (I’ve been a trustee of NESTA, Arts Council England and the Baring Foundation) but above all with arts and voluntary organisations. My work has taken me to many countries where I’ve learned about community work in other cultures. Between 2010 and 2015, I worked on a self-created project called Regular Marvels, to honour people’s everyday art practice in a series of short books.
In 2019, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation published A Restless Art, How participation won and why it matters, which describes the history, theory and practice of participatory and community art. It’s available in English and Portuguese editions, and I’m working on a French version now.
Between 2020 and 2023, I was a partner in Traction, a European opera co-creation project, leading the opera co-creation work package, writing research papers and developing public resources, including a book on co-creation.
Where I am, and where I’m going
A Restless Art took four years to research, write and re-write; it took 40 years to develop the thinking that shaped it. The path was not always easy but, looking back, I’m struck by how clear and consistent it has been. I’ve never doubted what I do, or why – until recently, when global and personal crises challenged me to rethink fundamentally. I started trying to do that in a book called A Selfless Art, but that is now on hold and I have other priorities.
François Matarasso 