François Matarasso

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  • ‘‘I didn’t realise I had so much to say until we began this conversation.’

    Click here to download this case study in English (PDF 22MB) Clique aqui para descarregar este caso de estudo em português (PDF 15MB) What do you see? I don’t remember now who told me about a proposed dance project involving men and girls, but I do remember my reaction: that’s a really bad idea. A…

  • Be SpectACTive!

    Be SpectACTive! describes itself as ‘a European project based on audience development, involving some of the most innovative European organizations working on active spectatorship in contemporary performing arts.’ The project includes theatres, festivals foundations, universities and research institutes in the Czech Republic, Croatia, France, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Spain and the UK. The project has just published…

  • What’s in a name?

    When I began thinking about this project, several years ago, I was determined to avoid the marshlands of jargon. Participatory art practices now go under a host of labels, each more refined than the next, but often incomprehensible to people outside the arts. So I decided to use only two terms – participatory art and…

  • The complexities of socially-engaged art practice

    ‘What are our motives? How do we make sure this isn’t just about us as artists and what we want? When am I being a neighbour and when am I being an artist?’ Anna Francis Selling the post-industrial city Stoke-on-Trent is a federation of six English towns that grew up in the 19th century on…

  • ‘Just watch, and listen, and take in their story.’

    Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel sorry. Don’t look away. Just watch, and listen, and take in their story. This Is Not For You Since its emergence as an artistic and political movement in the 1980s, disability arts has been concerned with recognition—the right of people to be seen, heard and respected on the same, equal…

  • ‘It’s not a fixed or ready-made thing’

    Multistory is a small art organisation based in Sandwell, an urban borough west of Birmingham that was once a cradle of the industrial revolution. Today it is a multicultural patchwork of towns, hardworking and proud but which also has substantial economic and social problems. Multistory was established in 2006, but its core team,  Emma Chetcuti…