François Matarasso

Blog

arestlessart.com/

Profile

arestlessart.com/author/regula

Homepage

regularmarvels.wordpress.com

  • A lottery for artists’ funding

    On the long train journey to Barcelona, I read Avram Alpert’s new book, The Good Enough Life. I’m not finished yet—I’m a slow reader, especially when I’m thinking and making notes—but I know it’s one of those books that permanently changes my ideas. I think we can only understand or learn things when we’re ready…

  • An unusual feeling of pride

    I was five hours late getting to the Liceu opera house on Tuesday, hot and tired after a stressful journey. The speeches were over and performance was under way when I was ushered through the wings to a seat on the stage. The auditorium before me was dark. My breath and my pulse slowed to…

  • A selfless art is good enough

    It is hard from within our present condition to even imagine a world […] which kindness and empathy are considered talents as worthy of cultivation as computer coding or making money, and one in which the point of cultivating any talent is to enrich your life and that of others, rather than gain fame, wealth,…

  • A Summer Special – Revisiting ‘Regular Marvels’

    Sally Cottis by Mik Godley, from a photograph by François Matarasso, originally published in Winter Fires, Art, Agency and Old Age (2012) Yesterday, I was talking with a friend about books we’ve written, and what happened to them. Since mine have mostly been published intentionally outside the mainstream, they sink or swim on their own—no…

  • A rare opportunity

    Years of austerity and the resulting sense that our society is falling apart, coupled with the experience of Coronavirus and Lockdown, have thrown into relief the pain caused by the lost opportunities to mourn lives that have been lost, our fear and impotence in the face of climate change, the plight of so many refugees…

  • Trusting the child

    For ten years, a group of artists and educators have set up a summer camp in the centre of Bath and invited children to come and play with them, creatively, exploring nature and humanity’s place within it. The invitation changes according to who is involved, where the activity is happening and what resources are available.…