François Matarasso

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  • Hearts and minds

    There has been a fantastic growth in community and participatory art during the past 20 years, across the world. A practice that was once marginal – with the strengths and weaknesses that implies – is arguably now the most creative, energised and popular aspect of the non-commercial arts. But there are several reasons why it might not always feel…

  • La creatividad y coraje: community art in Spain

    ver más abajo para leer este texto en español… A performance about bodies and long lives opened Spain’s annual conference on social inclusion and the performing arts in A Coruña’s Teatro Rosalía Castro this week. Created by Mariantònia Oliver, with older women in Mallorca, including her own mother, ‘Las Muchas’ was moving and joyful. Oliver…

  • ‘Art in Public Space in Egypt’ by Heba El-Cheikh

    Heba El-Cheikh is a creative producer and arts manager based in Cairo who has been working with young people and communities since 2009, initially with The Journey and now with Mahatat for Contemporary Art. We met a few years ago and I’m glad to call her a friend. We’ve talked about the challenges of doing community-oriented…

  • Good enough?

    ‘Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.’ Dr Johnson’s quip, reported by his admiring biographer, is a memorable piece of condescension. It also reflects the response that community and participatory art has often met from…

  • English visionaries: John Fox, Sue Gill and Welfare State

    A few weeks ago, I spent a day with John Fox and Sue Gill at their home on Morecambe Bay. It was one of those lovely February days where the damp of winter seems forgotten in the bright air, not spring yet, but the promise of it. The winter sunlight changed direction as the tide…

  • The difficulty of thinking outside of the box

    Community and participatory art has long roots in Britain. Its practice owes much to ideas that were developed in the 1960s and to policy pressures of the 1980s and 1990s. That long evolution has many strengths – it’s a rich field involving thousands of activists that supports a complex debate about participatory art. There’s probably…