Thoughts on "socially engaged arts practice" symposium and research

Last Monday I went to a symposium at FACT, Liverpool called “Socially Engaged Arts Practice and New Model Visual Arts Organisations”. At the core of this was research led by Lynn Froggett of UCLAN, funded by Arts Council, Northern Rock Foundation and the Gulbenkian Foundation, focused on four key case studies of organisations – FACT, Grizedale Arts, ArtAngel and Centre of Contemporary Art, Glasgow.

What follows is some notes about the research that was presented, with thoughts particularly relating to folly's newly launched BUGs research taskforce, which aims to examine the impact of socially engaged digital arts practice on the digitally excluded. These notes certainly aren't exhaustive, but overall there was a lot of  really interesting, relevant and thought-provoking presentations and debate at the event, and I'm looking forward to reading the full research report. (I've divided my notes into 4 main headings/themes, and it's a bit lengthy, so apologies in advance...)

1) The “Aesthetic Third”

A lot of the research seems to be built around a notion of something called the aesthetic third. I'm looking forward to reading more about this in the report, but basically what I gathered was that this is about understanding the artistic outcomes or products from a collaborative socially engaged practice as symbols:

A product of such activity becomes a cultural form for the experience (the things said and done and emotional qualities of the exchange), symbolised in a visual or performative language. This enables something that exists in the imaginative lives of individuals to be shared and allows artwork to endure amidst all the relationships – maintaining an independent critical, useful and forceful voice.

I think this is interesting, and certainly brings a new perspective to the frustration I often feel when we've commissioned a socially engaged/process-led art project, only to find some sort of tangible (be that a real object or something that exists online) outcome has been produced, and that's what almost everyone involved thinks of as “the art” (and therefore the thing that has value, or in monetary terms the thing the funders see as (and therefore judge as) the return on their investment).

What's important is assigning value to both the process (in other words the experience) and the product. During the project of course, but also afterwards when only the product(s) remain to be considered – how to best retain/articulate value of process too (especially when not all the values are economic).

2) Meeting/subscribing to external agendas

A key point was made right at the very beginning of the day about the current government's happiness agenda and the role art might be expected to play in this, but art isn't about making you happy, it's about making you feel, think etc

There's a parallel here to the thoughts I've been having about folly's engagement with the digital participation agenda (through BUGs, and/or through the socially engaged project delivery we're known for).

We come up against some key difference when comparing our interest in developing digital literacy to the government/industry-led digital participation agenda – one is about challenging, questioning, thinking, the other is cheerleading – the decisions about what is valuable have already been made, the campaign is just about getting on and getting the numbers up...

I think it's fair to say that the top level goal being pushed at the moment is a numbers game - to get more people online, whether that's through better access, teaching basic skills, or (the vaguest of the three) providing motivation. However we fundamentally believe that there is still critical discourse, questions, thinking etc to be done about the whys and why nots, the pros and cons and a deeper sense of what it all means. This is still happening in certain circles, but as far as I can see the public agenda, and delivery of it, increasingly leaves little room for this.

BUGs needs to very carefully present itself in this sphere, to avoid coming across as just offering up “art” for use as a solution to somebody else's agenda, and thus maintain artistic and critical integrity, without alienating the key exponents of that agenda (and hence the potential partnerships, funding and opportunities for artists and projects nationally). There were some key points made about this too at the symposium – about how when “embedding” within a community of interest we must maintain a strength of voice and not be afraid of friction.

It was also suggested that the barriers to participation in contemporary arts are physiological – e.g. it arouses anxiety – but that is precisely what it is there to do, to propose looking at reality in a new way, to make reality strange... therefore anxiety is an essential component. The “aesthetic third” provides a form for these strange, unsettling experiences – and by providing form it detoxifies it?

3) “Personalisation” and social-political stances

Various presenters at the symposium spoke about “personalisation”, an agenda that is apparently being enthusiastically embraced by public services – a means to democratise a community's identity and voice.

But such arts organisations as those identified in the research are driven by a socio-political stance as much as social engagement itself. Is politics missing in personalisation? If it's about freedom to pick, remix etc, conceding to personal preference, does this translate into a means to avoid having a socio-political function – a means to avoid being challenged, avoid critical discourse?

4) Evaluating and making successful cases to decision makers

• Socially engaged practice is at once individual and social, personal and collective, so how can we judge, present, articulate...
• Remember we all don't always have the words to explain our experiences – we all often look for symbolic forms to express ourselves. Methods to evaluate need to be sensitive to this - not just informational research. Problem is that general attitude to such research is that it is soft – interpretive methods are subjective and therefore suspect...
• A problem with the notion of the aesthetic third and this realm of symbolic forms is that the product without an explanation or evidence of the process is often inherently mystifying due to it's role as an art object,  and high in emotional content – often frightening and less easy to manage for decision makers.
• The products provide non-verbal communication of experience – but danger of relying on such metaphors is loss of focus on “usefulness” - just relying on “power of art” – which not as compelling in some quarters as it is in others...
• This is not a big society solution – it is expensive. If you want to transform society you have to do it deeply with a few. But how to convince of this in a difficult financial climate?
• Complexity of this subject and the challenging elements is a  good thing – we don't want a homogenised 5 step plan to “doing socially engaged practice” but we do need something shared and coherent to influence policy, raise awareness, and protect the work that we believe in.
• “Value” as a term - should we reject it? Who ascribes it? Who holds the power to assign/judge value – it's usually not any of the people involved in a socially engaged art project on the ground...

Other interesting notes that don't quite fit into the above:

• Remembering that socially engaged practice isn't necessarily “art to make things better” or “art for the disadvantaged” - it can cause trouble, challenge etc
• Suggestion that not everything needs to be understood as “art” by all the difference groups involved – be that the participants, the funders, whoever.
• Artists sit outside of (e.g.) the social work system – where there is a hierarchy of expertise and therefore responsibility. Artists should neither be required to fit into this system nor replace it.
• The role of the artist and where the power/control sits. What does actually “artist-led” mean – certainly folly uses that term a lot to describe our socially engaged projects to certain audiences – but is it helpful? Or accurate?
• Defending the right not to describe an outcome until it arrives. And how to ensure everyone involved is happy with that approach.
• Long project durations are needed but everyone (inc policy makers) have increasingly short attention spans (c.f. ongoing re-invention of language, keeping up with the seemingly constant changing of the scope of what we're dealing with: community art - participatory art – socially engaged practice – discursive practice - …)
• Is socially engaged practice about artists who want to (directly) engage with people in collaborative, discursive ways, or is it artists who make their living delivering workshops to communities. Is this just two ways of saying the same thing (one focusing on the intent, one on the method). Does each definition work for a different audience?