Probably kicked off by looking at other artists’ work – I have been wondering lately what the difference is when artists initiate community based projects and comunity based projects. Where does the line site between art/activism/social science? Should artists receive funding for these kinds ofprojects? I was reading around the art mags online today and came across this article in Frieze in the Editor’s blog, which pretty much sums it up perfectly:
original article here: http://www.frieze.com/blog/entry/underneath_the_ni…
Apologies for quoting lengthy passage – not much time/energy and if I don’t write this post now, it will disappear from my brain.
“A question that begged to be asked was precisely to do with the issue of art; what is it about the ‘art’ element to a project that might make it socially unique and useful, rather than a community garden or youth outreach scheme like any other? What, for instance, makes the Baltimore Development Cooperative’s project to turn an area of wasteland in their city into an urban vegetable allotment any different to hundreds of similar, non art-related projects across the United States and Europe? Because it is run by artists? Are artists that special? Are they to be afforded more socio-political latitude or leverage as citizens than, say, gardeners or social workers? Is the label ‘art’ just an excuse for tapping into a broader range of funding streams? An impressive answer to that question came from artist Laurie Jo Reynolds, who spoke frankly in her talk about how she has used the label ‘art’ where it seemed most useful in order to support her admirably successful campaign to instigate reform of conditions for prisoners at the Tamms Super Maximum Security Prison, Illinois. Here was an artist taking serious political responsibility rather than just associating herself with it.”
