François Matarasso

Buy a print copy

A Restless Art is published by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in English and Portuguese (in a translation by Isabel Lucena). It is available in both printed and digital format, the first at cost price, the second without any charge. To order a printed copy of the book, please follow on of the links below

• Order a copy of A Restless Art in English from Central Books (£10 plus postage).
• Encomende um exemplar de Uma Arte Irrequieta à Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian (€9 + portes).

Download a digital copy

The book is also available as a PDF which can be freely downloaded from this site, together with all my other writing (where I hold the copyright). There’s no need to register or provide an email: just follow the links below.

• Download A Restless Art, How participation won, and why it matters
• Descarregar Uma Arte Irrequieta, Reflexões sobre o triunfo e importância da prática participativa

Why a free download?

Several people have asked why A Restless Art is available as a free download. At one level, it’s just to make it as accessible as possible. I hope that my work is useful to people involved in community art (including students) and putting it online helps get past financial and other barriers. As a PDF, the book can be freely shared. The cost of the print version (£10) is enough to cover production costs and there are no royalties.

But there is another reason. Part of community art’s radicalism was its rejection of art markets and the commodification of culture. In the age of the ‘creative industries and the cultural economy’, I have to admit that project hasn’t gone too well, but the principles remain valid. Actually, it’s even more important to defend non-commercial and uneconomic cultural practices today than it was then. Although I work freelance, my income derives mainly from public or charitable sources, so I regard my work as belonging to everyone, A Creative Commons licence makes it possible to share it freely while keeping it in the public domain.