Looking back at Bath Arts Workshop
In the course of working on A Restless Art, I’ve met many people from what I think of as the
Category: First Generation
Questions I can’t answer
It’s messy, difficult, compromised—but at its best community art can be joyously emancipatory. It shows us that we will only find pathways to a better place if we work together. We need each other. And we need to keep asking questions we can’t answer.
Valleys Kids
Valleys Kids shows how close community art and community development can be, especially when work is rooted and sustained. The
An elegy for ‘The Public’
I only saw The Public from a distance, from the other side of the Midlands, but I liked what I
Cultural democracy and the European Parliament
Today, I got to speak at the European Parliament, at a conference organised by the Progressive Alliance of Socialists &
One for the historians
In my view community arts must still be regarded as an experiment—an experiment in ‘cultural democracy’ of great importance not
Relieved of duty
Today, I turn sixty. Such anniversaries are foreseeable, and this one’s long presence on my personal horizon was a reason
(Other people) thinking about cultural democracy
This is a quick post to let people know that Alison Jeffers’ and Gerri Moriarty’s book about the first 20
Restless Research: Confessions of a Confused Community Art Scholar
If you’ve read some of the material published on this site, I hope you’ll understand why I describe participatory
Why are there so few books about community art?
There are very few books about community art in Britain, despite its 50 year history. The key texts are: 1978, Artists
