François Matarasso

Blog

arestlessart.com/

Profile

arestlessart.com/author/regula

Homepage

regularmarvels.wordpress.com

  • The lawyer, the war criminal and the limits of empathy

    Here is another post drawn from the now-defunct websites, ‘Parliament of Dreams’ and ‘Regular Marvels’. When I closed the sites, I hadn’t anticipated that some of those articles would be referenced in printed books, so I hope that reposting them may help readers to locate them, despite different links. I’d forgotten about this piece until…

  • How can I work with those who (believe) they oppose me?

    One of the threads that began A Selfless Art was an insistent question: What is the value of my work if it does not welcome people who reject its values?   It is a complex challenge that opens other lines of thought, some of which are (currently) blocked, while others seem to be more fruitful. Either…

  • Still waiting…

    “I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.” Georgia O’Keeffe, writing to Russel Vernon Hunter, from Art and Letters, 1990 Actually since last summer…

  • The end of cultural democratisation

    Cultural democratisation – the idea that cultural experiences should be made available to everyone – dates from the post-war period and the establishment of the Welfare State, almost 80 years ago. In its early days, it achieved a lot, through new civic theatres and galleries, arts access programmes, and the opening of higher education (including…

  • Culture is Development

    This text was originally written at the request of Vicki-Ann Ware and published as the Foreword to the Routledge Handbook of Arts and Global Development, edited by Vicki-Ann Ware, Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta, Tim Prentki, Wasim al Kurdi, and Patrick Kabanda, Routledge, 2025 Click here to download this text in PDF format: Culture is Development (2024) What role…

  • Teaching or learning?

    First published on Parliament of Dreams, 24 November 2014 In the third volume of his Essays, Michel de Montaigne writes a line that has since become famous: ‘Je n’enseigne point, je raconte’ It is almost impossible to put this into English. Donald Frame’s standard version – ‘I do not teach, I tell’ – makes telling sound didactic, which is contrary to what Montaigne…