This is the text from my workshop “Caught doing social work?” which was part of Manifesta 12’s M12 Education Club conference in Palermo on 19th October 2018. The workshop was held in the community centre in the ZEN social housing project. The text was used as mini provocations which led to a really interesting discussion about instrumentalism of the arts and artists, gentrification and artwashing.… READ MORE
I really enjoyed being a part of The Nexus of Art and Geography: practice as research – a day of papers presented as part of the Participatory Geographies Research Group. The sessions were convened and curated by Cara Courage and Anita McKeown. I decided to perform my paper.
Always Outsiders is about playing and experiencing the presence of people, environment, nature. … READ MORE
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Always Outsiders, Stephen Pritchard (2014)
This is the abstract for my forthcoming paper presentation at the Royal Geographical Society 2016 International Conference in London on 2nd September. The session is explores “The Nexus of Art and Geography: practice as research”, is part of the Participatory Geographies Research Group activities and is convened by Cara Courage (University of Brighton, UK) and Anita McKeown (Independent Researcher).… READ MORE
I claim socially engaged art is DEAD. (Whether it ever lived or even existed beyond a category description is, of course, another question.) The Art World is DEAD. So, when the Art World subsumes the category description “socially engaged art” (and “social practice” and many more, for that matter) it must KILL the category description – the words.… READ MORE
I Like America and America Likes Me, Joseph Beuys, 1974
THEY killed it.
Killed another word.
(Three words actually.)
Death by Art.
Slowly.
Slowly, THEY killed some words:
A slow process.
Drowning by “Culture”.
THEY killed socially engaged art.
Socially engaged art was
An EASY target.
Art is always an easy target.… READ MORE
This is my full paper given as a lecture at Northumbria University in Newcastle on Wednesday 27th April 2016. It is the beginnings of an attempt to free radical social practice and activist art interventions from the ragwort-like sprouting of institutionalised and depoliciticised “socially engaged art”. My research considers radical social practice: as praxis as theory and practice. … READ MORE
I’ve just shared my full paper from the Association of American Geographers Conference here but I thought some people might like to see the PowerPoint with notes or rather, I would recommend, the film with me presenting my paper. (I presented it virtually, so this is exactly as the audience saw and heard it at the conference.)… READ MORE
I’ve just presented my paper “Place Guarding: Activist and Social Practice Art – Direct Action Against Gentrification” at the Association of American Geographers Conference 2016 in San Francisco. I wasn’t there. Made use of PowerPoint Mix! The PowerPoint and a nicer quality MP4 version will be available here very shortly. For now, here’s my fully referenced paper with bibliography.… READ MORE
This is the abstract for my paper presentation at the Association of American Geographers Conference 2016 in San Francisco. I’ll be presenting it at a session on 29th March at which Ann Markusen (seminal proponent of creative placemaking) will be the discussant!
I’ll upload full paper and presentation after the conference. … READ MORE
Ken Saro-Wiwa Memorial Bus, large format digital print, part of Doing Nothing is Not an Option, Michael McMillan and Platform London, Peckham Platform, 2015
I was, like Anthony Schrag (and others I know), infuriated by the recent ArtWorks Conversation at BALTIC 39. Anthony has written a little about the pairing of Ilana Mitchell (Wunderbar and other things) and Darren O’Donnell (Mammalian Diving Reflex) today in a piece entitled The Value Rant , but his rant was not at them and not (directly) at ArtWorks or their ‘critical conversations’. … READ MORE