Making a difference through art practice, research and knowledge exchange

Social practice is now very much to the fore in the artworld, though when I started out several decades ago, it was largely treated as if it wasn’t art at all. However this new acceptance also brings with it the danger of simply using social issues as content for art rather than using art to make a difference in the world, and it is the latter that I want to talk about today.

In my teaching I have been largely focused on passing on the understandings and skills involved in the processes of social engagement to achieve just that. At the same time my practice has interfaced with academic research. All my work has been based on the premise that local knowledge can often hold answers to society’s problems, whereas those most in contact with these challenges who might have the insights to inform change can lack access to the skills or resources to bring it about. By taking this approach into interdisciplinary research I have been able to use the arts to address issues in wider global contexts.

In this presentation I will briefly outline the foundations that underpin this practice - including how and where I learned these approaches - in order to pass on these lessons to anyone interested in this field of work.