This is still an incomplete list of available work, but it is being added regularly. I also have a few print copies of some of the books, so do get in touch if you’d like one.
A Selfless Art
One day, perhaps. For now, here is the book I wrote about co-creating opera for Traction, an experience that has contributed to the rethinking behind A Selfless Art.
A Restless Art
The book
- A Restless Art, How participation won, and why it matters (2019)
- Uma Arte Irrequieta, Reflexões sobre o triunfo e importância da prática participativa (2019)
Case studies
- Amber Film and Photography Collective
- Festival de Música de Setúbal • Português
- Welfare State International • Português
- ‘Bed’, Entelechy Arts • Português
- We’re here because we’re here • Português
- Movimento de Expressão Fotográfica • Português
- The Portland Inn Project • Português
- ‘Men and Girls Dance’, Fevered Sleep • Português
- Fun Palaces
Projects
The number of participatory art projects featured on this site has grown over the years, so this page offers quick links to the help you find them. Click on the links below (they’re in no order at all) to read more.
- SAMP (Portugal) – a music school that works with the whole community, including very sensitive work with the dying and the bereaved.
- Toinen Koti (Finland) – a theatre production by the National Theatre of Finland involving local actors and performers who have sought refuge in the country.
- The Lawnmowers (UK) – an independent theatre company run by and with people with learning disabilities since 1986
- ‘Looking back, Looking Forward’ (England) – a community arts project with mental health service users that I produced in 1990-91, during ‘care in the community’.
- Hazte Banquero (Spain) – a verbatim theatre production exposing political and financial corruption, based on leaked emails, by x-net
- Banlieues Bleues (France) – a jazz festival in Seine-Saint-Denis that has been linking great musicians with young people from the area since 1984
- Cardboard Citizens (UK) – Making forum theatre, supporting homeless people and changing lives since 1991
- ‘Moments of Joy’ (England) – South Yorkshire Housing Association’s self-financed community arts programme developed for and with tenants.
- Dotrščina Virtual Museum (Croatia) – artist-led project working in difficulty conditions to preserve the memory of the victims of fascism between 1941 and 1945
- acta (England) – a long-established community theatre project connecting local and international non-professional performers
- The Fèisean (Scotland) – my research from 1996 into a powerful grass-roots traditional music movement that has grown hugely since the 1980s
- The Cabbage Field (Lithuania) – an artist and community-led project to reclaim a derelict piece of land in Kaunas for the use of local people
- cARTrefu (Wales) – participatory art work with older people living in residential homes, supported by Age Cymru and the Arts Council of Wales.
Creative and community art projects
Creative writing projects (2019-2021)
- 2019 I Remember: Leicester – Inspired by Joe Brainard‘s I Remember, this book of collective memories was co-created through workshops with people supported by local health services and held at Attenborough Arts Centre.
- 2021 Wish You Were Here, a book of stories and poems produced with older people during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns: all the work was done online, and we did not meet face to face until the book launch in September 2021.
Regular Marvels (2010-2015)
Coming soon
Policy documents
The 2020 Rome Charter
Balancing Act, 21 Strategic Dilemmas in Cultural Policy (1999)
Reports
The social impact of participation in the arts (1994-97)
Final report
Working papers
- Northern Lights, The Social Impact of the Fèisean (Gaelic Festivals), François Matarasso, 1996
- How the Arts Measure Up, Australian Research into Social Impact, Deidre Williams, 1997
Journal papers
Academic publishing depends on an unjustifiable business model to exercise a questionable power over intellectual life. It is the mirror image of the publicly funded cultural institutions that community art set out to challenge so many decades ago. Before I understood the parallel, I accepted two or three invitations to publish in such outlets, losing my copyright for no payment. Having no university affiliation, I can’t even read the articles in their published form.
For that reason, I can’t add that work there, but it’s not much of a loss. More recently, under government pressure, academic publishers have begun to make some of their holdings open access. This article, is one of those and I’m happy to include it here.
- 2013 Creative Progression, Reflections on Quality in Participatory Arts, UNESCO Observatory Multi-Disciplinary Journal in the Arts, Volume 3, Issue 3
Working research
Essays
- The Parliament of Dreams: Why Everything Depends on Culture – A text about the value and importance of culture in democracies, 2010.
- The Art of Uncertainty, Management, Leadership and the Arts – An essay about managing creative organisations in the reality of uncertainty, 2010.
- All in This Together, The depoliticisation of community art in Britain, 1970-2011, first published by ICAF in Community Art Power, 2012.
- Playful Adventures: Art and Inclusive Education – First published in Engage Journal 22 under the title ‘The Seriousness of Games’ and revised in 2014.
- Both Sides of the Coin: The distinctive value of arts in health care – Written for Arts and Health Ireland in 2016.
- Everyone an Artist: The Power of an Idea – Joan Littlewood, her unbuilt Fun Palace and an attempt to create it in West Bromwich 40 years later, 2018.
- Cultural Policy in a Post-Political Age, was originally published as part of ‘Opera Co-creation and performance’ for the Traction Project and revised for a MIAAW podcast, 2021.
Conference papers
- The Shoreline and the Sea the revised text of a talk given at the International Congress on Intangible Heritage Policy, in The Netherlands in 2012
- Music. What is it good for?, the revised text of a talk originally given at the Sound Sense music event, ‘Everyone Deserves Music’, at Sage Gateshead, 2014
- Making Nothing Happen, is based on a talk originally given in Berlin for the Tandem programme in 2016, and revised in 2022.
- Music and Social Change,
- Another Angle of Vision,
- Approximate Projections,
- The Authority of the Chorus
François Matarasso 