François Matarasso

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  • 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…

  • Another Standard: How to judge community art

    How do you judge a work of art? Even asking the question implies a series of judgements and beliefs. The best answer might be why do you need to judge it? Art asks only that you experience it. Perhaps art’s most interesting questions are about us, not itself: how do we respond to a work of art,…

  • The difference between a professional and a non-professional artist – A Postscript

    The other big difference for WBOS is that they are enacting a production created by others – by professionals. They do not have to invent how to stage a scene, or how to make the show come together. They know it works, because others have done it before. Amateurs are not usually looking for originality…