Redistributing Power?: A Poetics of Participation in Contemporary Arts (2018)
By Anne Douglas
Anne Douglas’ review offers a “poetics” of participation in contemporary arts”, locating the turn to participation in contemporary arts within a wider history of 20th and 21st century arts and politics.
She highlights the huge range of work by artists and arts co-operatives who are seeking to make work through participatory forms, and the deep scholarly tensions and debates that surround these practices. She explores through this rich history the debates over whether participation has become instrumentalised; whether the art/life divide should be preserved or eroded; the links between participatory aesthetics and cybernetic ethics; and the capacity for participation to challenge alienation and neoliberalism. Recognising arts practice as a form of research and inquiry into the world, she concludes with a set of powerful reflections on the role of the freedom to improvise and the importance of participation as a moment of care for and empathy with the other.
More information:
Citation: Douglas, Anne. ‘Redistributing Power?: A Poetics of Participation in Contemporary Arts’. Connected Communities Foundation Series. University of Bristol / AHRC Connected Communities, 2018.
Download it here: https://connected-communities.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Contemporary_Arts_SP.pdf.pdf
