Dandelions & dissent: A review of 'Culture, Democracy and the Right to Make Art: The British Community Arts Movement' edited by Alison Jeffers & Gerri Moriarty
This review was first published in November 2017 for Artworks Alliance. It was the first review of the book which is published by Bloomsbury and can be purchased here. I am publishing it on my blog in the hope of stimulating new discussion around cultural democracy, community arts and everyday art and creativity - an area I'm working on quite a lot at the moment.
Art Gets Over-Excited: A response to the Towards cultural democracy report #culturaldemocracy
This is the second of two blog posts examining recently published reports. The first post focused on the civic role of arts organisations. This post is a response to Towards cultural democracy: Promoting cultural capabilities for everyone and some of the other discussions that developed from its publication.
Unlock the all-inclusive fun of a “new culture” with added “genius in everyone” NOW! (A reply to Stella Duffy's New Year provocation & arts "campaigns" like Fun Palaces)
A new year. A cultural event. Not all cultures. Our culture’s.
Traditionally, at least in our culture, a time of misadvised, soon misplaced resolutions. Most are very personal. The one I want to talk about here is “for everyone”. Yes, that’s right, everyone! It’s an all-inclusive provocation. A call for change, for cultural change.
The call comes from Stella Duffy on behalf of her Fun Palaces campaign. The campaign manifesto claims:
We believe in the genius in everyone, in everyone an artist and everyone a scientist, and that creativity in community can change the world for the better.
We believe we can do this together, locally, with radical fun – and that anyone, anywhere, can make a Fun Palace.
Complexity, uncertainty & scalability: How Assemble's Granby 4 Streets won 2015 Turner Prize
Did Assemble really play such a big part in Granby 4 Streets? How 'community-led' was the project? What was the role of the Community Land Trust? How did Assemble come to win the Turner Prize 2015? Who were the private social investors and what did they do to help make the project happen?
he intention here is to blow open the façade behind Granby 4 Streets, Assemble and the Turner Prize 2015 win.
his is a long read and part of my research into art-led regeneration projects that are often far more complex than is often portrayed.
argue that the media and art world picture of Assemble is overly simplistic and masks a far more complex and uncertain set of events that, ultimately, relied on 'mystery' private social investors to force local government to act in support of the project and to lever money from national grant funders.