WIDER PERSPECTIVES

he hidden costs of the

“re-enchantment of art”

Writing in 1991, and building on her previous and more generally initiatives that are “the transition from the art-for-art’s-sake collaborations with refugees in Calais and
critique of modernism’s aesthetics, artist and aimed at fostering arts engagement through assumptions of late modernism, which kept other camps, displaced communities, people
critic Suzi Gablik offered a prediction for the collaboration and participation, have been art as a specialised pursuit devoid of practical f leeing war and torture, and generally
future development of art which has proved increasingly featuring among the range of aims and goals”. those facing unimaginable challenges. he
remarkably acute: activities that receive public inancial support. resulting artworks, often the product of
Historically, this support has been justiied by Yet, I would argue, reality is more complicated an active collaboration between artists and
“If modern aesthetics was inherently a renewed focus, on the part of policy makers, than it appears at irst glance. Whilst the move communities, have been some of the most
isolationist, aimed at disengagement and on the societal beneits of active participation of participatory and socially engaged practice moving and affecting I have ever experienced,
purity, my sense is that what we will be in arts and culture, and the promise that they from its 1970s niche of ‘community arts’ to and audience evaluations seem to suggest my
seeing over the next few decades is art might support wider strategies to foster social the mainstream of national and local arts experience was not unique in this respect.7
that is essentially social and purposeful, cohesion and inclusion. provision is a phenomenon to be celebrated in What follows is indeed a tribute to the
art that rejects the myths of neutrality many respects, it has not come to pass without commitment, dedication and the labour of love
and autonomy. he subtext of social he tactic of using ‘social impact’ as a proxy issues and problems. that these and many other socially engaged
responsibility is missing in our aesthetic for ‘value’ in making the case for arts funding artists feed into their practice, and a token of
models, and the challenge of the future will has proved to be, at best, a double-edged In this essay, I intend to explore some such my appreciation for their generosity with their
be to transcend the disconnectedness and sword;3 yet it is beyond question that seeing issues and problems. Not because I do not see time, experiences and candid conversations.
separation of the aesthetic from the social the delivery of social beneits as a suficiently the value of socially engaged arts practice –
that existed within modernism”.1 compelling rationale to warrant and justify quite the opposite. Many of the observations he strategy that I have referred to as
public subsidy has resulted in socially engaged that will follow have been developed through ‘defensive instrumentalism’ and its concern
he intervening quarter of a century has arts practice now being more visible (if never my experiences researching the practice of – for the delivery of socio-economic beneits
indeed witnessed a remarkable growth in adequately supported) within contemporary and, more recently, working with – socially through the arts as a legitimating tactic,
prominence of what is commonly referred to as arts provision. Elsewhere, I have referred engaged practitioners. Over the past couple has resulted in a focus on the participants in
socially engaged arts practice – participatory to this historical development as “defensive of years, I have had the immense privilege the collaborative endeavour that is socially
in nature, and with a clear intention to act as instrumentalism”: a self-justifying strategy of collaborating (alongside fellow academics engaged arts practice. Consequently, much
intervention in the social and political sphere. to be deployed at a time in which traditional and colleagues from the artist development of the debate, both within the sector and in
In Sophie Hope’s deinition, as “artist-led, rationales for arts funding are seen as no organisation Counterpoints Arts) with several academia, has long focused on the degree
non-object-based encounters, performances, longer holding water with either public or socially engaged artists from a migrant or to which social impacts resulting from
and collaborations with others”.2 Most notably, politicians.4 On the face of it, the current refugee background as part of the Who Are participation might be evaluated, measured
compared to the radical and fringe status this quest for arts with social beneits might We? exhibition that took place at Tate Modern and quantiied, in line with funders’ and
form of artistic practice had when it developed appear as the realisation of Gablik’s vision5 in March 2017, a collaborative endeavour as politicians’ expectations and demands. Time,
as part of the 1960s and 1970s countercultural for “the emergence of a more participatory, part of the Tate Exchange Programme.6 hese resource and energy have all gone into the
movement, socially engaged arts practice, socially interactive framework for art”, and are all artists whose practice has involved critique of current evaluating frameworks

40 Learning in Public Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme 41

 and tools, the quest for better ones, and the in 2017, we worked together on a Learning Lab
assessment of the improvements made in our entitled Unlearning the role of the artist, in which
grasp of how the arts impact participants – or Sajovic reflected on the art of ‘unlearning’
indeed, lack thereof.8 common preconceptions about the role,
function and power of the artist, whilst also
I would like to offer a different, yet posing challenging questions about “the politics
complementary, discussion to those of representing others in an age of global
prevalent in arts and cultural policy circles, displacement”.10 he Learning Lab took the
by focusing attention on the other partner form of a performed auto-ethnography by the
in this collaborative endeavour: artists. As artist followed by contributions from critical
a policy scholar, I am inevitably fascinated respondents, rapporteurs (including myself),
by the policy-making and administrative and open debate with the Lab participants. One
implications that such a shift in perspectives of the key questions the event explored was:
brings with it, and the moral, political
and social justice issues it poses. It is my What support can artists expect from
contention that a better awareness of these is commissioning organisations when using
key to the mission of developing more effective participatory methodologies, knowing that the
ways of working within collaborative and boundary between the artist-as-professional and
participatory arts practice, and enhancing artist-as-friend in process-based participatory work
the opportunities for artists working is f luid, blurred and prone to misinterpretation?11
collaboratively in Europe and beyond.
his is a question that I had already been
Placing the spotlight on artists grappling with for some time, from the
perspective of a cultural policy researcher.
What follows here is a personal reflection I agreed with Sajovic about the highly
borne out of my experience researching problematic nature of its neglect in current
aspects of socially engaged arts practice over policy and sector debates – at least public
the past 15 years, and particularly through an ones, for it had become clear by then that this
emerging collaboration with photographer is in fact a question that practitioners have
and socially engaged artist Eva Sajovic.9 As long been discussing amongst themselves.
part of the collaborative endeavour resulting An emerging collaboration started precisely
in the already mentioned Who Are We? project from this shared unease about the dearth

42 Learning in Public Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme 43

 of public discourse around the contexts and he question of resourcing participatory based approach to the socially engaged arts to the project a disproportionate amount of
the conditions in which socially engaged and socially engaged practice in a way that commission.15 She suggests, moreover, that free labour, in order to be able to deliver a
practice involving vulnerable individuals could provide the community arts movement professionalisation and the reliance on one- successful programme of activities and so as
and communities takes place. his essay is with a chance of sustainability has been off funding grants might be at least in part to fulil the expectations they felt the project
an opportunity to begin to articulate a series a long-standing issue: in 1978, Su Braden, responsible for the less politically radical had created in the participants. he driver was,
of key points which make up both a research in her seminal book Artists and People, had inclination of much contemporary socially clearly, commitment to the communities who
agenda for the future and a space for political already identiied the growth of public engaged arts practice, for “there are funders had placed their trust in them, by allowing their
campaigning for better working conditions for funding as a very mixed blessing, and as to please and careers to protect and so children to be involved in a project exploring
artists working in a participatory practice. a form of intervention that was altering rocking the boat too much might jeopardise and communicating their cultural values, and
the radical nature of the activities being future funding and commissions”.16 She also in spite of previous traumatic experiences of
Like many other cultural labourers, artists carried out, whilst doing nothing to ensure argues that project-based funding does not having their culture exposed for the amusement
share the precariousness, and the exploitative the long term sustainability of the work of sit comfortably with socially engaged artists’ of the entire nation through TV programmes
and self-exploitative nature, of creative artists in communities. Braden lamented preference for f luid structure and naturally such as My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.17
work. he working conditions of cultural and the funders’ failure to accept that a genuine evolving collaborative activities. his means
creative workers have been well documented, commitment to the agenda of community that pinpointing exactly when a project ‘ends’ One of the community artists employed on
alongside the ways in which socioeconomic arts entailed “a long-term commitment is not always straightforward (as the running the project talked very candidly and emotively
background still remains a factor in accessing from them as administrators and that this out of the funding does not always coincide about her dificulties in letting go of the
creative careers.12 We also know that the commitment necessitates patient year-by-year with the natural conclusion of the activity), relationships formed through the project,
precariousness, informality and demand for programming in which communities and so that attending to the aftercare process for to the extent that, almost two years after
f lexibility that characterise this type of work artists can grow together”.14 both artists and community participants is not the conclusion of the project, she was still
have particularly negative impacts on women, always possible within the scope of the project, offering guidance, creative mentoring and
disabled people and minorities.13 We similarly his vision of an organic approach to nurturing as understood in terms of the timescales and psychological support to one of the young
know that, notwithstanding its fundamental collaborative arts practice was destined expectations of a grant. project participants. She was honest about the
shift from the counter-cultural fringe to the to remain unfulilled: in 1984, Owen Kelly implications, both material and psychological,
publicly subsidised mainstream, socially was already writing about community arts’ Something that emerged powerfully for me that this had for her; as a low-income single
engaged arts practice remains structurally “grant addiction”, the resulting dependency a few years ago, when conducting a piece of mum working freelance, the emotional labour
under-funded, especially in our present times on funders, and the inevitable embrace of research on a participatory heritage project invested in the extra care for her participant
of post-inancial crash austerity. their priorities and agendas on the part of the involving the Gypsy and Traveller community was time that could have otherwise be billed
recipients of funding. More recently, Sophie in Lincolnshire, was the extent to which all for. However, it was clear that the real toll was
Hope has discussed the persisting problems of the artists involved, as well as the project the weight of responsibility she felt for the
posed by the prevailing short-term, project- managers and communications specialist, welfare of a young girl facing the well-known
reported – unprompted – having contributed challenges that young people from a Gypsy

44 Learning in Public Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme 45

 and Traveller background routinely face. his invisible emotional labour seems such a by the Warwick Commission report, than it is at present; it is currently artists
Never having received training to deal with recurring feature of the working conditions the contraction of welfare provision has working in socially engaged contexts, as we
situations which normally are the domain of artists who practice collaboratively with signiicantly reduced the welfare support have seen, who shoulder the costs of rigorous
of professional social workers, she reported communities (and often with communities that had traditionally beneitted both artists and respectful practice which fall between the
being plagued by self-doubt and anxiety: was facing social disadvantage, discrimination, and the communities with which they work cracks of project funding.
she offering the right kind of support? Was a displacement and other complex challenges), in socially engaged practice.18
well meaning intervention what this kid really that it is worth ref lecting on in more depth. We need an explicit effort to bring our public
needed? Could it be counterproductive? How he cultural labour literature highlights the hese working conditions and the matter of cultural institutions to task in relation to
long could she go on offering this support, inequalities entailed in a creative career invisible subsidy pose a problem which is two- what Mark Banks calls “creative justice”,20
when she herself had more of her fair share of path predicated on beginnings made up of fold. On the one hand, we have the practical by highlighting the mechanisms of systemic
responsibilities for her own dependants? unpaid internships, and labour exchanged problem of sustainability of artists’ careers exploitation of artists within a funding
for contacts, networking opportunities and and their own psychological wellbeing, and on infrastructure that is very comfortable using
he heartfelt dedication towards the notion visibility rather than payment. However, what the other, their implication for the moral and the rhetoric of collaborative, participatory
of duty of care for participants emerged from we see in the subsidised socially engaged political economy of arts subsidy. and socially engaged arts practice, but does
all the interviews I conducted as part of this arts practice is a systemic under-resourcing not quite follow those principles in its own
small scale project, and it unleashed a series that affects practitioners well beyond their What should policy do? conduct. Current funding practices, and
of questions that I have tried to explore ever early careers. his, alongside the problems we the ways in which project-based funding
since: whose burden should participants’ have seen resulting from funding-by-project, “To create today is to create rarely incorporates, as a matter of course,
after care really be? If, as it seems to be the effectively means that socially engaged arts with responsibility.” provisions to ensure the fulilment of duties
case, it is effectively artists who often end up practice can survive only because of what we of care towards both artists and participating
taking charge of such duties, should they not may call an ‘invisible subsidy’ on the part of the his was Suzi Gablik’s motto for the renewed, communities, are a key example of these
be trained to do this safely and appropriately? artists themselves at all stages of their careers. participatory aesthetics she called for in he ethically questionable practices.
And most crucially, should not this emotional reenchantment of art.19 She wrote this with
labour be acknowledged, recognised and Whilst artists’ invisible subsidy might not artists in mind, but I would argue that we need In this context, it is crucial that we develop
suitably remunerated? Unsurprisingly, this have been commonly labelled as such, the to extend this expectation to the agencies that fresh thinking on the moral economy of the
invisible labour was something that the artists phenomenon itself is nothing new. However, are part of the bureaucratic infrastructure of subsidised arts sector. As Mark Banks observes,
in the Who Are We? collective were very familiar at least in the UK, the tacit expectation on arts support and provision, if we are to ever “[w]ork is always subject to the norm and
with, too, and which they had taken on in the part of funders that artists will shoulder realise Gablik’s vision for “a new connective, values of the particular society in which it is
extremely challenging geo-political contexts. the extra burden of project after-care is participatory aesthetic” and “a value-based embedded”, (emphasis in the original).21 Moral
further compounded by the consequences art”. he weight of responsibility that Gablik economy approaches help “emphasising the
of a prolonged austerity policy. As noted refers to needs to be shared out more equally normative environments that both ground and

46 Learning in Public Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme 47

 connect different individuals, institutions l In other words, the prevalent strategy for
and structures”.22 It is my contention that the the legitimation of discursive formations that
normative environments of contemporary aspire to justify arts subsidy is predicated on
arts funding point to a clear moral failure of the systematic exploitation of cultural workers
cultural policy. Here are the grounds for such involved in publicly funded socially engaged
a conclusion: practice. In reality, the most precarious,
lowest paid cultural workers heavily
l Poorly funded socially engaged arts subsidise the public cultural sector via their
practice is too often relied upon to provide poorly paid or unpaid work, their invisible
evidence, case studies, support and legitimacy and unacknowledged emotional labour,
for arguments around the social beneits of and by bearing the hidden but signiicant
the arts that are deployed by the (much better psychological costs of duty of care towards
funded) arts establishment to help ‘make the project participants.
case for the arts’, thus offering fodder for
advocacy based on what I have referred to as Cumulatively, I would argue, these issues
‘defensive instrumentalism’. amount to a moral failure of public
policymaking, and a betrayal of the oficial
l his, in turn, effectively reinforces rhetoric the arts sector deploys, with its
patterns of funding that advantage foregrounding of the values of collaboration,
established public arts institutions inclusion, transparency and fairness. his is
whilst keeping socially engaged forms of the challenge we need to address if we want
activity under-resourced. Practitioners to see socially minded collaborative and
ind themselves thus open to exploitation participatory arts work f lourish.
and self-exploitation, driven by a sense of
responsibility towards project participants
and their wellbeing during the project – and
often well beyond its conclusion (or at least
beyond the expiration of the funding).

48 Learning in Public Collaborative Arts Partnership Programme 49

 Endnotes

What, then, might the way forward be, if we 1. Gablik, Suzi, he reenchantment of art, hames and Hudson, 12. Banks, Mark, he politics of cultural work, Springer, 2007
New York, 1991, pp.4-5 13. Conor, B, Gill, R & Taylor, S, Gender and creative labour
are genuinely committed to the goal of an 2. Hope, Sophie, From community arts to the socially engaged art in he Sociological Review, 63 (1_suppl), 2015, pp.1-22
aesthetic practice driven by responsibility commission, in A. Jef fers and Moriarty, G. (eds.) Culture, Democracy 14. Braden, Su, Artists and People, Routledge, 1978, p.124
and the Right to Make Art: he British Community Arts Movement, 2017,
and a truly collaborative ethos? We need a pp.203-221 15. Hope, Sophie, From community arts to the socially engaged art
commission in A. Jef fers and Moriarty, G. (eds.) Culture, Democracy
willingness to hold public institutions and 3. Beliore, Eleonora, “Defensive instrumentalism” and the legacy of New and the Right to Make Art: he British Community Arts Movement,
Labour’s cultural policies in Cultural trends, 21(2), 2012, pp.103-111
funders to account in the name of fairness Bloomsbury, 2017, pp.203-221,
4. Beliore, Eleonora, ibid. 16. Hope, Sophie, ibid.
and social justice, even when this might 5. Gablik, Suzi, he reenchantment of art, hames and Hudson, 17. For a fuller discussion of this project, please see Beliore
lead to uncomfortable conversations with New York, 1991, pp.4-5 (forthcoming).
funders, policy-makers and cultural sector 6. www.whoareweproject.com 18. Neelands, J, Beliore, E, Firth, C, Hart, N, Perrin, L, Brock, S,
7. Tiller, C, Who Are We? Tate Exchange – First Year Evaluation, Holdaway, D and Woddis, J, Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and
partners. his can only ever work as a unpublished, 2017 Growth, the 2015 report by the Warwick Commission on the Future
collaborative strategy, however. Resisting the 8. Crossick, G. & Kaszynska, P, Understanding the value of arts & culture: of Cultural Value, he University of Warwick, 2015
exploitative tendencies of the arts funding he AHRC Cultural Value Project, Arts and Humanities Research 19. Gablik, Suzi, he reenchantment of art, hames and Hudson,
Council, 2016 New York, 1991
infrastructure cannot be a task reserved for 9. www.evasajovic.co.uk 20. Banks, Mark, Creative justice: Cultural industries, work
arts practitioners alone. Success will only 10. www.whoareweproject.com/seminars-workshops/2017/3/14/ and inequality, Pickering & Chatto, 2017
be achievable through a collective strategy, learning-lab-eva-sajovics-unlearning-the-role-of-the-artist 21. Banks, Mark, ibid.
11. Ibid. 22. Banks, Mark, ibid.
and the coming together of different actors:
artists, for sure, but also academics, arts
administrators committed to progressive
change within the sector, and – crucially –
international coalitions of values and interests
much like the one this book documents.

Dr. Eleonora Beliore is Professor of Communication

and Media Studies at Loughborough University.

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