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Community arts and power
One way of understanding community art – using that term very loosely – is through its relationship with power. Any form of artistic work that, in one way or another, hopes to bring about change cannot avoid responding to existing structures of power and the institutions that organise them socially. Government and policy; state agencies;…
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A hippo among fish: thinking about children and music
What’s really striking is the confidence with which these children are making music together – because, make no mistake, that is what they are doing. Themes invented by individual children are being developed by the class and their teacher into real pieces of music. The names (‘Cho – co – la – de – fon –…
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Participatory arts, older people and living with dementia – Guest blog
Since 2010, the Baring Foundation has focused on improving older people’s quality of life through opportunities to participate in the arts. The Foundation is small and so its work aims to influence policy and practice through projects, partnerships and publications. It has supported a very wide range of work in the past six years, which is documented on…
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Traditional music, young people and community in the Scottish Highlands
‘The fèis is very important to me because I am not very musical. I don’t play any instruments or sing, so coming to the fèis makes me see how brilliant all the different musical instruments sound, and to be lucky to meet so many talented people. I love having a go on instruments such as…
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A restless art – A talk about participatory art
On 17 November 2016, I was invited to give a talk at the Arts Council of Wales Conference in Cardiff. Here are my notes for the talk, together with web links to all the projects mentioned: note though that the spoken version was naturally rather different. Click here to download a PDF of the notes, or here to watch the…
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In unstable times, we need a restless art.
Why describe participation as a ‘restless’ art? My original reason was simply that the practice of professional artists involving others in their work has meant such different things over the years. It has grown exponentially since the emergence of community art in the 1960s and been interpreted differently in changing times, conditions, theories and cultures. A whole world separates a contemporary…
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François Matarasso 