François Matarasso

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  • We’re making history

    This post was written at the invitation of Alison Jeffers and Gerri Moriarty, whose book, Culture, Democracy and the Right to Make Art: The British Community Arts Movement has just been published. It first appeared on their project website, and minor revisions have been made in this version: texts, like history, are restless. Making history The early years of…

  • Watch your language

    ‘The critique of language cannot evade the fact that our words commit us and that we must be true to them. Wrongly naming a thing is to add to the misery of this world.’ Albert Camus[1] Language is fundamental to what human beings are and do. With it we construct, share and contest different versions…

  • ‘Have I got to go somewhere?’

    ‘Care in the Community’ was a flagship policy of the third Thatcher government at the end of the 1980s. It proposed the replacement of residential hospitals caring for people with mental illness and learning disabilities by small community-based facilities and homes. This was a huge change. Tens of thousands of vulnerable people would have to…

  • Art outside the art world

    In A Native Hill (1968) the American poet Wendell Berry writes about his decision to root his art where he grew up. He recalls a conversation with a senior colleague at New York University who sought to dissuade him from resigning his post and returning home to Henry County, Kentucky: It was clear that he…

  • 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…