Understanding Arts Participation: Towards a Historical and Theoretical Perspective
In this essay, arts researcher Susanne Burns introduces the work she undertook with Fevered Sleep between 2016 and 2020, a process of ‘walking alongside’ the company as we developed our approach to participation, through a programme enabled by the generous support of Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The essay also provides an overview to the historical development of arts participation, and explores various theoretical perspectives and insights into what at times can be a contested field.
Introduction:
This review was produced to support a research project initiated by Fevered Sleep. The review aims to:
Provide a basis for contextualising the research;
Contribute to the understanding of the wider bodies of knowledge and practice which this research is building upon;
Comprise a useful bibliography for the company and their associated artists as we journey through the research programme.
The review will be an ongoing activity throughout the period and will encompass literature from three main sources: policy, practice and academic research.
The research starts with the hypothesis that the work of Fevered Sleep is distinctive in its approach to participation. This distinctiveness - in both the process of making work and the artistic work that is created - generates ‘value’. This ‘value’ impacts on the artists, collaborators, participants and audiences.
The research programme will seek to test this hypothesis by testing the assumptions and asking a series of questions that include:
What is distinctive about Fevered Sleep’s work and processes?
What does ‘participation’ mean in this context?
What are the different forms of participation used?
What is the work actually ‘doing’? What does the art do? Does it change anything? And if so, what?
How does the work affect the people who engage with it?
How does it do that?
How does the work widen participation and reach?
What is the depth of engagement?
The work will concretise the embodied and render visible the things that are otherwise hidden. It will help to articulate the artistic, philosophical and political dimensions of the work.
What is in a name?
The first thing to address when talking about this practice is the language issue. Language matters – it shapes and reflects how we think.
What does the term ‘participation’ or indeed, ‘participatory arts’ mean? There’s a wide variety of practice that exists under the banner of participatory arts, and, in addition, different people use different language to describe really similar practice and ideas.
The ‘practice’ with which we are concerned is called many different things - Socially Engaged Arts Practice, Relational Art, Dialogical Art, Community Arts, Collectivism, Participatory Arts – to name but a few. This reflects recognition of the varied contexts, artforms, approaches and methodologies that are at play. The nuances, complexities and subtleties are perhaps why we have so many terms and descriptors for variations of participatory arts practice.
However, the common thread is that artists who locate themselves within these practices engage with people, work collaboratively and connect with a variety of voices in the creation of work.
Fundamentally, Participatory Art involves an artist working with at least one other person to take part in a process that the artist has instigated. It therefore covers the full range of artforms and cross-cuts many different artistic practices and different approaches that artists take to working with people.
How did we get here? - A historical perspective
The set of practices with which we are concerned stems from the mid 1960’s. Francois Matarasso (2013) argues that the term ‘participatory art’ is in fact a kind of replacement term for ‘community arts’ which fell out of favour in the early 1990’s, and although still occasionally used, has widely fallen out of usage amongst practitioners.
“The path from community arts to participatory art, whilst seen as merely pragmatic by those who made it, marked and allowed a transition from the politicised and collectivity action of the seventies towards the depoliticised, individual focused arts programmes supported by public funds today.”
— Matarasso, 2013
Whilst accepting that this is an over simplification – “There was non political community arts work in the 1970’s and there is challenging socially-engaged arts work now.” - Matarasso draws attention to the overall way in which the arts in the UK appear to have been drawn along with the ideological tide of the times and reminds us of the history and the theory of the practice.
The term ‘community arts’ came into use in the UK in the late 60’s and early 70’s to describe a complex set of practices developed by young artists seeking to reinvigorate an art world that was seen as elitist (McGrath, 1981). It was rooted in the artistic, social and political experimentation of the late 60’s. It grew quickly and by 1974, the Association of Community Artists submitted a list of 149 groups to a working party set up by ACE. Many of the original movers had a clear left wing political agenda – Red Ladder, Welfare State and 7:84 to name but three. At a time when the experimentation of the 1960’s was confronted with resistance from a cultural establishment which recognised the challenge to its authority (Hewison, 1995), the politicised work of the community arts pioneers was incredibly wrapped up in grassroots community activism and was inextricably linked with the broader community development movement. The community development movement was defined by the United Nations as:
“...a movement to promote better living for the whole community with active participation and if possible on the initiative of the community.”
This emphasis on whole communities and not individuals stresses active participation to achieve change and also stresses the importance of self determination by that community. This practice became embedded in the UK and community artists found a natural home. The work included a wide range of artistic interventions and gave space to traditional music and dance as well as popular forms, murals, theatre, dance, processions, printing, writing and festivals.
Part of the dismissal of ‘community arts’ is tied up with ascendant neo-liberalism and the wish to disassociate with the very term ‘community’, which was used by the Thatcher government in widely unpopular social policy decisions such as the ‘Community Charge’ (also known as the Poll Tax). The dismissal of the term can also be associated with its overtly instrumentalist aims. It came to be associated with patronising initiatives aimed at ‘social minorities’ or ‘the socially disadvantaged’ and with an entire lack of focus on artistic excellence (Witts, 1998). The new language of ‘participatory art’ was therefore more neutral but it also denoted a change and shift in the practice.
Although participatory art may have its origins within community arts, participatory art differs in that it has an increased focus on the two-way relationship between the participants – individual and the practitioner - echoing the structure of co-production. The examination and explanation of this relationship comes up in much of the literature on participatory arts (Matarasso, 2013, Kester, 2004, 2011). Projects focused less on ‘community’ and more on groups of people seen as sharing common problems and in turn the problems were often dealt with apolitically – for example, addressing well-being rather than the causes of health inequality. Any change was personal, impact on the individual became the measure of success.
The work, its methods, processes and ideas have become part of mainstream arts provision and access to the arts has improved exponentially. However, there has arguably been a cost and that is in collective action. The radical was displaced by the personal – a concept explored recently by Adam Curtis in Hypernormalisation. The growth of the arts infrastructure – largely enabled by the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994 - enabled shiny new buildings to come into being often in areas of economic regeneration.
The path was set for participatory arts to meet the need for increased ‘engagement’ in the expanding cultural offer being presented. For them to address the needs of an increasingly unequal society and for them to address the agendas of other public agencies.
A contested field of practice?
Thus, this wide range of ‘practices’ has evolved over 50 years and perhaps because of the nuanced nature of the work the area of arts participation is often a hotly contested field of practice.
Importantly, as suggested above, the notions of ‘engagement’ and ‘participation’ have become blurred with the latter serving the former. In policy terms, the two concepts of engagement and participation have almost merged with funders sometimes seeing one as leading to the other and others seeing them as integrally linked to access and equality of opportunity.
For example, Arts Council England defines ‘engagement’ as including both arts attendance and participation, and respondents to the Taking Part survey are asked if they have participated in a given list of arts activities or have attended events such as live music performances or plays. And yet the two things are very different experiences and involve very different processes.
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Arts Access and Participation fund exists to “widen access to and deepen participation in the arts. It will not be enough simply to increase numbers: our emphasis is on addressing inequalities of opportunity.”
So we might say that engagement is more passive and often related to widening reach, the development of new audiences and the removal of barriers that may prohibit engagement, whilst participation is more active and may generate co-production and ownership of the art with which the participant is engaging.
A shift from ‘community’ to ‘place’?
When Arts Council England launched the Creative People and Places (CPP) flagship programme in 2012, the fund was intended to focus on parts of the country where involvement in the arts is significantly below the national average. There are now 21 independent Creative People and Places projects across the country. ACE stated that “everyone has the right to experience and be inspired by art and culture, so we want to transform the opportunities open to people in those places. This may be due to lack of opportunities to attend and participate, or because of socio-economic factors, issues with physical accessibility or a limited offer of activities.”
The CPP partnerships allow local people to shape the art they want to see in their area. The intention is that people involved in the projects are empowered to experiment with new and different approaches to develop inspiring, sustainable art programmes that will engage audiences in those communities. SO, CPP projects are meant to be about more people choosing, creating and taking part in brilliant art experiences in the places where they live.
This interpretation of participation – where the people living in a place shape the work they want to make and see has links to the earlier work of New Labour which began its administration with a commitment to bring democracy to culture. Jancovitch (2011) argues that Labour's vision has resulted in little change to the basis upon which arts institutions receive regular funding, or the social composition of those who participate in the arts in Britain today – who remain predominantly white and middle class. Public consultation through The arts debate provides evidence that the arts are still perceived as elitist, and policy too insular and self-reflective. The report clearly identified the public's desire for not only greater transparency in decision-making processes but also involvement in the decisions themselves, in order to democratise the arts. Jancovich explores the extent to which participatory decision-making schemes affect cultural democracy and the subsequent impact on artistic policy and practice and suggests that we see a continued emphasis on access to mainstream culture rather than on cultural democracy.
A Spectrum of Practices?
Thus, the practice we are concerned with is varied, diverse and nuanced.
It is possible to define a spectrum of participatory arts practice that could help us to understand the differences between different practices. At one end of the spectrum lie projects whose purpose is to facilitate a creative enquiry for a set of participants, at the other end lie projects in which an artist uses a group of people as material for a creative process that they define.
The key elements of difference between either ends of this spectrum therefore seem to be:
The role of participants
Authorship of the work
The ethics of participation (Lowe, 2011)
A somewhat crude way of naming the different ends of this spectrum is to reference the highly entertaining debate between Grant Kester and Claire Bishop about the quality or otherwise of different elements of “collaborative art practice.
For Kester, this practice works as a tool to help people explore the narratives of their lives – the story of who they are - and to communicate that understanding to themselves and to others. It is a way of using the disciplines of arts practice to empower people to reflect on the cultures they are part of, and which have helped to form their identity. It gives people the opportunity to explore their own stories and find their own voice within their cultures. It empowers people to represent themselves rather than being represented by others. It provides playful, reflective, critical spaces in which people undertake a shared creative journey with an artist who inspires them, and who is also learning and developing along the way. This is very different to ‘community arts’ firstly because it is not necessarily working with communities and secondly as it doesn’t necessarily fit with community arts’ self-definition as “that which is rooted in a shared sense of place, tradition or spirit” (deNobriga).
Kester has also been criticised as confusing participation with collaboration. Developing methodologies which facilitate the move from spectatorship towards participatory practices is also viewed as an essential part of audience development (Brown et al, 2011; DCMS, 2007; Maitland, 2006) providing opportunities for greater sustainability in arts provision by promoting long-term change, e.g. in encouraging childhood participation to build audiences for the future (NEA, 2010).
The work of Brown et al for the James Irvine Foundation (2014) addresses some of this tension through the development of a model which sets out five stages of participation - ‘Spectating, Enhanced Engagement, Crowd Sourcing, Co-creation and Audience-as-artist’. These distinctive stages, or rungs, on the ladder of participation are conceptualised in terms of distance between the artist and the gaze or audience of the artist, and the proportional contribution of each to the resulting art works. They are also defined in terms of their intended outcomes: for example, the distinction between public art works which are placed within settings and communities, and socially-engaged works, which aim to engender dialogue with and within social groups via artist and arts-led processes (Wilson 2008).
The Audience Involvement Spectrum is a simple framework developed to describe the different ways participatory arts programs work, and the various entry points for participation from the more passive receptive modes to full participation and shared authorship . This five-stage model illustrates a progression of involvement from “spectating” - in which the audience member plays only a minor role in shaping the artistic experience - to the point at which there is no conventional “audience” at all because every person involved is creating, doing or making art.
Thus, participation can lead to collaboration. A way of looking at this might be to consider the participants role in the final outcome. Do they influence or own the final work?
The Arnstein ladder of participation (1969) is another useful typology comprising of eight levels of participation.
For illustrative purposes the eight types are arranged in a ladder pattern with each rung corresponding to the extent of citizens' power in determining the end product.
This typology has been developed in a number of different contexts to link participation and involvement to levels of engagement as in the following example developed for education.
There is an inherent resistance to developing a single typology or framework which defines the spectrum of practices. Lowe suggests this is due to a lack of consistent and coherent language and terminology, the multifarious practices across art forms, and the changing and developing nature of participatory arts practice and policy (Lowe 2011).
Participatory arts practices are perhaps always about change and will include disruption of some form: for Wilson, the required collaboration and dialogue leads to the “destabilisation of identities, of all parties, as a productive, rather than negative state” (Wilson 2008: 5).
But, perhaps, as the Arnstein model suggests, it is the empowerment of the participant or community through their engagement with art that is the crucial thing and that it is in this space that good arts participation sits?
What makes it good?
ArtWorks: Developing Practice in Participatory settings was a special initiative of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation that took place from 2011 – 2015 and the research carried out through this initiative was extensive. It was workforce/ artist focused and generated learning around key areas of quality and training.
It identified that good arts participation will take place when:
— The participant is central to the process. If organisational imperatives dominate the agenda, the participation will be flawed, short lived and will not endure or empower;
— The artists engaged in delivering the participatory opportunity are skilled up to do so and must be able to do so in a person centred way without pressure of outputs and pre-determined outcomes;
— Organisations leading participatory projects must have the capacity, the understanding and the intention to render their organisations more porous and open to change, to generate co- production and share ownership of their assets. (Burns 2015)
The importance of a shared approach to quality was highlighted throughout the programme of work:
“..quality cannot be attributed solely to the artist and the activity undertaken: in fact quality outcomes stem from a broader process in which a range of decision makers –stakeholders – influence the key conditions necessary to achieve quality. These stakeholders include employers, commissioners and funders, and to some extent participants themselves.”
— Blanche, 2014
The importance of partner organisations as commissioners, collaborators and hosts for participatory arts work is gaining increasing recognition amongst researchers. For example, Seidel et al. (2009) point to the interconnectedness of decision makers - while artists are at the forefront of delivering arts work and interventions with participants, a great many other wider dynamics directly affect the quality of the experience of those who are engaged ‘in the room’. These dynamics are often controlled by partner organisations or employers who are not directly involved in delivering the arts work and who typically have a different relationship to participants than that of the artist interacting creatively with them.
Seidel et al.(2009) characterise three generic groups of decision makers who influence the quality of arts learning experiences: the people in the room delivering or engaged in the project or activity; those just outside the room closely involved in designing and facilitating the project; and decision makers furthest from the room setting organisational standards or parameters and determining resources.
This is important as quality is subjective and particularly so when we consider the expectations and needs of different stakeholders in participatory work. Blanche proposes a holistic approach which enables the different ‘qualities’ of each piece of work to be acknowledged, and recognises that experiences and expectations of quality will vary according to the perspective of those involved with the project.
— Blanche, 2012, Citing Seidel S. ET AL
The why? - Art, Civic Roles and Social Purpose
“It’s entirely possible for art with a social purpose and intention to sit right alongside art which has not purpose other than to be art. They should not threaten each other’s existence. Both are important. And usually within the practice of a single artist.”
— Jubb, 2016
Whenever an artwork is considered controversial it is generally the case that the discussion it provokes needs to happen. That the issues it reveals or highlights need addressing; for example gender inequality, LGBTQ+ concerns or refugees and migration. This points to the civic role and social purpose of the work being made.
An Inquiry into the civic role of arts organisations is currently being held by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
“Arguments for a civic role range from the nature of arts organisations; as charities or in receipt of public money they have to be for public benefit, to the nature of our responsibility as individuals to our society as citizens and how this impacts on our work.”
The inquiry is exploring what is meant by ‘civic role’. “It brings to mind politics, community, rights and
responsibilities. The arts can be used to provoke, to catalyse, to enable and inhibit the way that people engage with the world around them. After reviewing the relevant literature we have taken the civic role of arts organisations to mean: The ways in which arts organisations animate, enhance and enable processes by which people exercise their rights and responsibilities as members of communities.”
The literature on the civic role of arts organisations tackles a variety of themes that are broadly grouped under two main headings: the effect of arts organisations on places and on people.
The inquiry identifies four principal arguments for arts organisations adopting a civic role:
The inherent argument: Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes ‘a right to participate in the cultural life of the community’ and that it is in the duty of every arts organisation to reach out and be an active part of their communities, especially if they receive public funding or protection.
The social justice argument: We live in unequal and divided societies and arts organisations are well placed to articulate this disparity and (furthermore) enable social action by, with and for the disadvantaged to ameliorate the situation.
The intrinsic argument: Arts organisations are uniquely placed to engage in civic matters since they are seen as neutral or third spaces and that people respond to the material of the arts using different values and faculties from those they apply to explicitly political media.
The dutiful argument: In a society in which trust, engagement and investment in traditional civic organisations (such as churches, political parties, etc.) is seemingly declining, arts and cultural organisations represent a last resort (or perhaps preferred agency) through which to mobilise and animate citizens in democratic processes.
In conclusion?
In spite of the concerns of a fragmented, often contested range of approaches, the lack of clarity in definition, the difference between art forms and the policy-driven nature of arts commissioning, there is a clear sense that a developing knowledge base is evolving within the sector from which to develop a deeper understanding to support developing next practice and this is crucial to the work of Fevered Sleep as we move towards an enhanced articulation of what makes the particular practices and processes of the company distinctive.
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