François Matarasso

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  • What do you expect?

    Many professional artists believe that working with non-professionals leads to an unavoidable decline in quality. That conviction is so integral to how they think about art that they don’t always realise that they do hold it. I’ve known people who would deny it absolutely, who’d be offended at the very suggestion, and yet who work…

  • A Culture of Possibility Podcast #11: Meeting the Moment with Jan Cohen-Cruz and Rad Pereira 

    A guest post from Arlene Goldbard This post is to introduce you to the 11th episode of François Matarasso’s and my monthly podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.” It will be available on 19 November 2021. You can find it and all episodes at iTunes along with miaaw.net’s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing…

  • A community of many voices

    Many people know El Raval, but they know it in different ways. For tourists, it’s the lively grid of narrow streets beside Barcelona’s famous Rambla, a place of tapas bars, hip shops, and cultural venues like MACBA. For parts of the media, though, it’s a dangerous district, defined by drugs, prostitution and street crime. For…

  • The function and purposes of art

    A few days ago, I happened to see a media article from a senior cultural figure in which they wrote about how participation in art changes lives, improves health and strengthens the economy. This kind of argument began to be made in the 1980s, when the Thatcher government was cutting arts spending. Then the rhetoric…

  • Other People’s Books: some recommendations

    Over past year or two, I’ve had a series of conversations with people about books they’ve been working on. Some have been long, collective processes, others more individual, but all, I think, will interest readers of this blog in one way or another. Several of these projects have now come to fruition, and it’s a…

  • ‘Wish You Were Here’

    A community art project during lockdown In late January 2021, in the depth of winter and the midst of lockdown, a small group of people gathered online to take part in a creative writing workshop. Living in or close to Boston, in Lincolnshire, they were gifted writers with varied backgrounds and careers. The workshop had…