Use or ornament? The social impact of participation in the arts

Who gets to do what, where, when and how in this cultural practice, and how does this affect people? What are this practice’s relationships to social engagement, communication, social justice, equality and democracy; how might it contribute to or weaken them? If it invites participation, who can participate and on what terms? What is the quality of

for art to serve social imagination, it has to be organised in ways that allow time for it to be absorbed and adapted, so that it becomes an act of co-creation rather than just an act of consumption or an enjoyable way to pass the evening.15 If it is only an object for the passing gaze, then it is, perhaps, bound to fail. Experiences that are share

The question of the significance of participation, though vital to much contemporary work, is one that should be treated with some suspicion. The mere involvement of the actions of audience members is not enough to assume a vital or direct relationship to the work of art …. How the exchange of participation takes place must be carefully framed, so

These subsequent chapters often look at a greater range of art and performance beyond the participatory forms outlined above and in Chapter 1, because they ask how participation in culture is more broadly and fundamentally affected not just by artistic practices but also by policy-making, spatial organization and arts funding.

More qualitative accounts could also shift hearts and minds—and, again, stir imaginative empathy. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the US in the 1930s brought the voices of the poor into the public realm and turned people who might otherwise be invisible, or merely statistics, into living flesh and blood.

The arts play a role in amplifying social imagination that is tangential rather than head on, opening up thought rather than offering visions of a future that then materialises.

to contextualize these socially engaged art and performance practices in broader social and material contexts in order to consider not only what kinds of opportunities for what qualitative experiences of participation the art practices ‘themselves’ offer audiences, but also, importantly, how those opportunities are affected by the practices’ social