François Matarasso

The negative capabilities of a community artist

It’s a sign of how rich and complex is the practice of co-creation that I still find myself learning about the nature of my role as a community artist after so many decades. In the Traction project, I worked with people who have enormous expertise in music, theatre, visual art, design and technology but, with…

A brief apology during maintenance

This site does not yet do what I would wish it to do — provide simple access to the work I’ve published over the years and a place where I can usefully share the ideas I’m now working on. I could take out my frustration on WordPress for continually changing the way it functions so…

A hopeful return

My dear friend Arlene Goldbard and I have been recording a monthly podcast for over three years now, though I have had to take two longish breaks, most recently over this winter. Fortunately, my role is secondary: Arlene manages things perfectly, writing up each episodes from New Mexico, while Owen Kelly turns recordings into distributable…

Regeneration

After eight months unable to work—the longest caesura of my life—I feel the process of transformation beginning to fulfil its purpose. Thought and energy become fluid again, like mercury. Synapses start to fire. Possibilities reveal themselves.

And she was quite right

‘Bang, you’re dead!’ we said. ‘I got you!’ we said. When we played, it was always war. A bunch of us together, one-on-one, or in solitary fantasies – always war, always death. ‘Don’t play like that,’ our parents said, ‘you could grow up that way.’ Some threat – there was no way we would rather…

Speaking of the master’s house

I’m ambivalent about public speaking, though I’ve been doing it for so long. It’s best when the speaker knows they’re involved in a performance art, in which what is said is generally less important than how. I’ve heard talks by Arthur Miller and Edward de Bono of which I remember not a word or an…