François Matarasso

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  • Why Nicholas Hytner is wrong about how to save the arts in England

    Curtain call of ‘La Gate Perduda’, a community opera I helped with at the Liceu Opera House, Barcelona, October 2022 One starting point for A Selfless Art is my recognition of how much participatory art and co-creation practice now imagines the world as being divided between us and them. Us, the people who know, who…

  • Remembering Steve Lobb, muralist and pioneer of community art

    Yesterday, I received a copy of Geraint Franklin’s Murals and the Community Arts in England 1968–86: A Thematic Study. It’s a fine piece of work that deserves to be expanded into a full-length book. Geraint had spoken to me a couple of years ago, and he’d impressed me with his knowledge and insight. Among others he…

  • Failing to write about uncertainty

    A Restless Art was written from a place of relative confidence, although that confidence ebbed during the four years it took me to write. I set out complacently thinking I had knowledge to share but, as I met more people working in community art, I saw how much I had to learn. In the end, that…

  • Reading optimism

    A Restless Art has been available as a free PDF, as well as in print, since January 2019, for reasons explained on the download page. A couple of days ago I noticed that there’d been about 20 downloads on a single day. That surprised me, so I checked back and worked out that there have…

  • A Selfless Age? From ‘Winter Fires’ to ‘1001 Stories’

    Gwen Sewell and Rosie Wheatland, iPad painting by Mik Godley from Winter Fires (2012) I think about unravelling it, but I don’t, I change my mind.  I think about taking stock of my life, but I don’t, I change my mind.  I think about thinking about it, but I don’t.  I keep on wearing it…

  • What is a ‘selfless’ art?

    To be honest, I don’t yet know. For now, it’s a signpost, pointing in the direction that seems most promising. Whether it becomes a book, something else or perhaps a dead end will become clear only with time, but a title is important because it defines the possibilities and constraints of what I’m doing. Past titles…