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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…
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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…
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‘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…
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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…
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Participation can be more important than art
My talk at last week’s SIMM-posium in Ghent was an opportunity to share some concerns about widely held assumptions in the field. (You can download the paper from the Resources page.) One of those assumptions is that the effects of participation and the effects of art are the same – but they’re not. It’s something I touched on long…
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François Matarasso 