Socially engaged art: the conscience of urban development

Book synopsis: Emotional Cartography is a collection of essays from artists, designers, psychogeographers, cultural researchers, futurologists and neuroscientists, brought together by Christian Nold, to explore the political, social and cultural implications of visualising intimate biometric data and emotional experiences using technology

Interview with Dr Sophie Hope

Our guest editorial takes the form of an interview between the JAWS editorial team and the artist and teacher Dr Sophie Hope. We were particularly interested in Sophie’s research-driven artistic projects, and what she thought about the wider contexts that artists are now implicated in

Bursting paradigms: a colour wheel of practice-research

In this article, I question practice as a research paradigm by exploring its position in relation to non-positivist qualitative methodologies. Frayling’s [1994. Research in art and design. Royal College of Art Research Papers, 1(1), 1993/4] distinctions between AQ2 research into, through, and as (for) practice are expanded to ¶ explore overlaps between these approaches. I argue for the need to understand the nuances of different epistemologies and ontologies that underpin diverse disciplinary approaches to practice-research. This is done through an analysis of a selection of Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded projects to find out how they are using and/or embedding practice in the research process. The resulting Colour Wheel of Practice-Research illustrates a spectrum of positions of practice in relation to research, suggesting existing research paradigms are bursting at the seams and that the “disciplinary matrix” of practice might offers other ways of knowing. The reason I have chosen to focus primarily on AHRC-funded projects is because it explicitly states its support of “practice-led research” and that it “remains dedicated to this area of research”. This article aims to add to knowledge of how and why practice-research is of continuing interest to research councils, universities, and those identifying as practicebased/ led researchers

Participating in the 'wrong' way?

Through this practice based research I argue that cultural democracy as a way of thinking contests dominant models of commissioning art to effect social change. A method of generative metaphor of critical distance emerges through four projects based on a contextual and theoretical framework that tests the conditions for recognising cultural democracy as a critical practice. Cultural democracy is distinct from the democratisation of culture, which means providing free, accessible professional culture to all. The socially engaged art commission is, I argue, an example of the democratisation of culture based on predefined economic, aesthetic and social values. Cultural democracy disrupts expected forms of participation and communication of culture, drawing attention to these values. As an uninvited act of disobedience, it is thought and practised as individuals reclaim the right to express themselves, creating conflicts with expected norms of behaviour. This research project began in 2006, nine years into New Labour's administration, and reflects an urgent question of the time: what are the implications of increasing dependency on a culture of commissioning art to effect social change that might perpetuate, rather than radically rethink, social injustices' These concerns are even more significant in a political and economic climate where public funding for critical, non-conformist participation in culture slips further down the agenda. My own career is a symptom of New Labour's neoliberal policies of social inclusion and the arts. A new period of 'austerity' may imply fewer paid opportunities for this professional class of socially engaged art workers, coupled with a distancing of the recognition of cultural democracy as a possible alternative, with further reliance on free, precarious cultural labour. For this reason, I hope this research will be of use to those who also find it an urgent task to address these issues critically and practically

Interning and investing: rethinking unpaid work, social capital and the “Human Capital Regime”

For young workers, interning is a strategy for speculating on one’s asset portfolio. Students and graduates undertake internships as a way of maintaining their self-appreciation and avoiding depreciation in a “human capital regime.” In this article, we explore the specific example of interning in the creative industries as the self-management of human capital vis a vis the human capital theses. Taking three cultural objects and recent representations of the issue of unpaid internships—Intern magazine, an advert for a “volunteering opportunity” student placement, and testimonies from interns—we analyze how unpaid work in the creative industries and the neoliberal version of human capital entrepreneurship can be seen as embodied by interns

Social Art Map

An in-depth study of 5 art commissions from 3 perspective

Unfinished business: performative interviews as a method for expressing failure in the socially engaged art job

Socially engaged art has, for some, become a professionalised, freelance funded form of labour. It is work that involves emotional labour, empathy and compassion, demonstrated by the trust that is often needed between (paid) artists and (unpaid) participants in order for projects to develop. In order to preserve the already precarious funding of this industry there is a tendency to promote the positive and successful aspects of these projects. This article explores how the imperative to present the work in a positive light has led to a culture of silence and individualised absorption of failure when things start to go wrong. Through a re-examination of a series of Performative Interviews, the article reflects on this playful method for speaking out about unfinished, cancelled or compromised socially engaged art jobs. In doing so, the theatrical frameworks of both the socially engaged art job and research interview are brought into focus

Stories from the global staffroom: experiences of caring and uncaring architectures at work with Effy Harle and Jos Boys

Learning from the work of artist and maker, Effy Harle and cofounder of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project, Jos Boys, Manual Labours (Sophie Hope and Jenny Richards) critically examine an excerpt of their conversation from the podcast series The Global Staffroom Podcasts which reflects on experiences of and relationships to the staffroom both as a concept, virtual and physical space. In dialogue with intersectional feminist theory, architecture theory and social reproduction theory we consider the architecture of the staffroom in different workplaces and its tensions as a space for oppression and exclusion but also transformation, collectivity and solidarity. We conclude advocating for oral and intersectional analyses of the staffroom to intervene in its reproduction within a wage-based racial capitalist framework, and as a way to uproot it from the notion of a fixed workplace and worker: to build a staffroom for a post work imaginary that foregrounds care on the basis of our differential needs and desires