A Restless Art is about community and participatory art. It’s about what those practices are, how people think about them, why they’re done and what happens as a result.
It’s called ‘a restless art’ because this work is unstable, changing and contested. It involves a range of ideas and practices. It crackles with artistic, political, ethical and philosophical tensions that give it life, energy and creativity. They make it matter in people’s lives.
They’re also what has kept me working in community art for so many years. A Restless Art has been a way to think about my own experience, so there’s some history here. But the history matters if it helps understand and strengthen what people are doing now—and participatory art has never seemed stronger or more vital.
Nor has it seemed more necessary. A new generation of artists is working in new ways, all over the world. I’ve learned about work in Egypt, Turkey, Ukraine, Greece, Morocco and many other places and some of that is reported in the book.
If you care about participatory art, I hope you’ll find things here to inspire, encourage and interest you – and things to argue with. There are also hundreds of blog posts, and the categories will help you find what interests you. There are pages about projects, resources and links, and longer case studies. The book is now out of print but digital copies can be downloaded free here.
François Matarasso 