François Matarasso

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  • Whose story is this a chapter of?

    In the past 15 or 20 years, the contemporary art world has become increasingly interested in participation. Artists with established careers now involve people in their projects. Sometimes, as in Antony Gormley’s Field, people provide many hands. In the work of Suzanne Lacy, they may be sharing personal experience or knowledge. Other artists, like the…

  • Radical Vulnerability – The Making of Art Lady

    The remarkable comes in all shapes and sizes. Last week it was an inspired performance of Mozart by prison inmates. Today, it’s one artist’s work with residents of a sheltered housing scheme on the south coast of England. It’s not the project itself that caught my attention – similar work happens across the world –…

  • Slipping into history

    ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’ L.P. Hartley, The Go Between (1953) Part of what interested me, in the years I’ve been thinking about this project, was the history of community arts. I felt that the story of community arts in Britain – particularly the first 25 years – was…

  • Against the odds: Opera in a Portuguese prison

    The old carpentry workshop looks like something from Piranesi’s Carceri, which seems appropriate since it’s in the Youth Prison of Leiria (Portugal). The cavernous hangar is littered with old timber and unused machines: austerity means that no one learns woodwork here any more. But on this wet Saturday afternoon, the place is packed. Two or…

  • ‘Integrate life and work and friendship’

    Integrate life and work and friendship. Don’t tie yourself to institutions. Live cheaply and you’ll remain free. And then, do whatever it is that gets you up in the morning. Those words come from an early manifesto written by Amber Collective in 1968. Guided by those principles, Amber has gone on to produce a remarkable…

  • Participatory art in Portugal

    Two or three years ago, I began to hear about some of the participatory arts projects happening in Portugal and Spain. These are not countries I know well, though I was aware of the upheaval they have experienced in the aftermath of the 2008 crash and the troubles of the Eurozone. What limited government funds…