François Matarasso

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  • Anyone can do it

    This guest post was written by Julia Rone, a Bulgarian friend who has been researching social activism in the wake of the financial crisis. She describes how the Spanish activist group, XNET, are prosecuting fraudulent bankers and politicians in the courts and in the theatre. While the legal proceedings continue, ‘Become a Banker’, has been seen by almost…

  • Paying attention

    Yesterday, I sat in a shady garden, watching a blackbird hen splashing about in a bird bath. I was drinking tea with Isabel, a dancer and musician, and Biant, a tabla player and social worker. We’ve been friends for nearly 30 years, but hadn’t seen each other for a while, so I was listening to…

  • Rural touring and cultural democracy

    Rural touring is not a participatory art, but it is participatory culture. Why the distinction? Because in rural touring participation occurs not in the creation of art but in its management – and that, in its way, can be just as important to cultural democracy. I first heard of rural touring 15 years ago, when…

  • Amateurs and professionals

      This text and its photographs are taken from ‘Where We Dream: West Bromwich Operatic Society and the Fine Art of Musical Theatre‘ (François Matarasso, Multistory 2012). The complete book can be downloaded as a PDF: print copies (£5), which include a DVD of Ben Wigley’s film, are available from Multistory.  * The modern system of art…

  • In defence of universalism

    This text written for a workshop under the title  ‘Beyond Us versus Them: The Role of Culture in a Divided Europe‘ held at the Representation of the State of Baden-Württemberg to the European Union, Brussels on 2 May 2017.  • In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo asked ‘Civil war? What does that mean? Is there a foreign…

  • Lycéens à La Dynamo

    (Scroll down for the English text) L’élection présidentielle française, dont le second tour aura lieu le 7 mai, remplit en ce moment les esprits et les média. Comme dans d’autres démocraties occidentales, on demande aux gens de choisir entre des visions du présent et de l’avenir qui sont profondément polarisantes. En me rendant chez Banlieues…