News & Views

Artworks Alliance’s gathering on 19th October 2022 focussed on the cost of living crisis. As the cost of living crisis hits hard and people are struggling with the soaring cost of living, we wanted to explore how participatory artists, organisations and participants...

What if the work of a nurse, physio, or homecare worker was designated an art, so that the qualities of the experiences they create became understood as aesthetic qualities? What if the interactions created by artists, directors, dancers, or workshop facilitators were...

Suzie West, Talent Development Lead at Barbican Theatre Plymouth, reflects on a year of co-creating in youth training.

Hip Hop is perhaps the most powerful and far-reaching modern music phenomenon known to man and womankind. Its multifaceted and complex nature allows its reach to surpass boundaries of race, culture and socio-economic context but how can we, as artists and creators, harness its powers to activate and enhance the wellbeing of the participants we meet during our everyday practice within the UK? Read this month’s blog from Kiz Manley.   

Genevieve Rudd reviews the sustainability resources and training presentation she gave at the AWA Gathering in November 2021, highlighting practical steps towards addressing the climate emergency as a sector in 2022 and beyond.

David Richmond from Arts in Development reflects on the AWA Gathering, which focused on workforce support and development in the times of Covid and climate crisis. Working in participatory arts, ‘We are not firefighters, but gardeners’, he argues.

Kiz Crosbie from member Mortal Fools shares their development journey to a tangible and clearly articulated co-creation practice that combines the creative process (practical activities used to produce artistic content) and the relational process (the environments cultivated and how people work together). With practical tips at the end!

‘They thought art could change the world. Thousands joined in and things were never the same again.’ From this new publication about participatory arts fifty years ago reviewed here by Adrian Sinclair.

Culture declares emergency… we interviewed a young climate activist who has found the power of participation in creative activity as part of Extinction Rebellion protests.

AWA member Roxane Permar from the University of the Highlands and Islands explores why we need MA courses for participatory artists now more than ever and proposes an archipelagic perspective for thinking about social art practice and higher education.

Ben Vleminckx, Chief Executive of member Evolve Music, shares how they’re working with emerging and established music leaders on workforce development and invites you to contribute to the conversation about best practice.

Amy Twigger Holroyd and Emma Shercliff, coordinators of the Stitching Together network, discuss the long history of participatory textile making projects and outline some of the benefits and challenges encountered when making textiles with others today.

JoJo Spinks from Interwoven Productions CIC explores the Capability Approach for measuring quality of life from participatory arts work as a push back against prescribed outcomes such as improved health, wellbeing and environment.

‘How diverse are we really?’ is a research project commissioned through the CPP National Peer Learning and Communications programme with funding from Arts Council England. Dawn Cameron looks out of her lockdown window at the start of her fieldwork and describes what she sees.

From a disaster movie, past the New Year’s Honours list and on to a care home. Some reflections on the profile, purpose and impact of participatory artists and arts organisations from the network’s Secretariat.

With the arts ecology so dependent on freelancers and a significant growth this year of networks for independents, we asked June Gamble to share her experiences of working collaboratively as a network. Hear her journey from card file systems ‘back in the day’ to creating safe spaces on Zoom.

Dr Sue Kay reflects on the impact of cultural networks from research and personal resonances. She explores how their value lies not only in what they do, but also in how they do it.

Adrian Sinclair, from the AWA Advocacy Action Group, takes up the What next? question following last month’s blog from Gerri Moriarty of ArtsChain, to explore how we can organise and advocate for participatory arts.

AWA member Gerri Moriarty sets out the research ArtsChain carried out over the summer, in order to better understand the current needs of the participatory arts sector, and the three proposals made to Arts Council England with their initial reflections.

Kim Wide describes how Take a Part responded to the rapid changes that happened when Covid-19 hit and what they did to support local communities, already living precarious and stressful lives.

Freelance participatory theatre maker and AWA member Rachel Griffiths explores how artistic practice can combine with community organising to make a lasting, positive difference.

JoJo Spinks from member Interwoven Productions CIC explores what it means to be truly ‘place-based’ and how participatory practice with open, two-way communications supports ongoing relationships, even in the climate of pandemic.

Fiona Doring from AWA Partner Impact Arts introduces the Sketchy Youths and other initiatives supporting them to be a listening organisation.

Catherine Cartwright reviews Social Works?: Open edited by the Models of Validation Team, a partnership between Axisweb and Manchester Metropolitan University, Rebecca Senior, Mark Smith and Amanda Ravetz.   'Now is the time to instigate our collective thinking...

We are delighted to share a blog from Steven Marwick, Director of Evaluation Support Scotland, exploring some answers to this question and advocating a people-focused, ‘stats and stories’ approach to evaluation.

Laura Broome is Outreach Programme Manager for new AWA partner UCLanDance. Here she looks what it means to be a ‘Civic University’ and the role of change from within a living system, from many local actions.

Mark Robinson from Thinking Practice reflects on the two days he spent at the recent Wild Conference, ‘the latest try at an Arts Council England-commissioned national arts conference, following events like State of the Arts and No Boundaries.’

Looking for a bigger, broader and brighter picture of leadership than we’re seeing on our screens right now? Some different ways of working and how participation can be a guiding influence.

‘The Necessary Space’ is the latest organisation to join ArtWorks Alliance. Here Director Simon Sharkey, who previously worked for partner National Theatre of Scotland, writes about why theatre has never been so urgent and important. calling on us to act on Martin Luther King’s ‘Fierce Urgency of Now’.

Three partners from the ArtWorks Alliance Admin Group (previously known as the Leadership Group, but successful distributed leadership led to the name change…) share their experiences of collective and collaborative working for better participatory arts.

Adrian Sinclair from partner Heads Together Productions looks at the ‘why, what, how and who for’ of training pathways for those wanting to pursue a career as participatory artists and reflects on the power of coaching in the UNION programme.

Kathryn Deane, visiting Professor at York St John University in the International Centre for Community Music, reviews François Matarasso’s A Restless Art.

John Whall from Derby QUAD is the ArtWorks Alliance digital participation champion. Here he explores issues around mental capacity and creative work by participants in an edited version of a blog fromDigitalpARTicipationis…No-one wants to participate in participation designed by somebody else following a Soap Box presentation at the 2018 Engage international conference A Social Prescription.

Catherine Rogers, from Alliance partner Creative Leicestershire, continues her blog about a recent British Council funded partnership development visit to Brazil.

Catherine Rogers, Alliance partner Creative Leicestershire Manager and also Junction Arts Chair and Advantage Creative Associate, writes about her first day on a recent British Council funded partnership development visit to Brazil.

Our ‘blog swap’ arrangement with the US Bartol Foundation starts with their interview with the artist Mindy A. Early about trauma informed practice.

Rhian Hutchings, Partnership Manager at ArtWorks Cymru, shares key provocations and practices from the Fourth International Teaching Artist Conference (ITAC4) held recently in New York City.

Catherine Rogers from ArtWorks Alliance partner Creative Leicestershire, and a member of the Alliance’s leadership group, reflects on two hot days for weather and ideas.

Prompted by re-reading Padgett Powell’s ‘The Interrogative Mood’ and attending a recent European Academy of Participation course, Adrian Sinclair, Chapel FM Centre Director for Heads Together Productions, takes a questioning approach to what he’s doing in participatory arts…

Briar Monro, Arts Practice Director, Community and Youth at Creative New Zealand reflects on participatory arts in Aotearoa/New Zealand and the UK – and looks ahead to a slow spiral of development that honours the process and shared intentions of the work itself.

Adrian Sinclair from ArtWorks Alliance partner Heads Together Productions shares some thoughts from the Cultural Democracy: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow symposium held on 5 April 2018.

Derby QUAD’s John Whall, our ArtWorks Alliance digital participation activity group champion, takes a look at what the DCMS Culture is Digital and Nesta Digital Culture 2017 reports have to offer (or not…) for participatory arts.

Prepositions may be small words, but they tell big stories…

Extend cultural leadership programme evaluator Mary Schwarz shares some reflections on why people working in education and learning roles make such great leaders…and how leadership can be practised in all sorts of ways and by all sorts of people – not just ‘the boss’. 

Following her work as Paul Hamlyn Foundation ArtWorks initiative Project Director and Advisor (2010-17), Susanne Burns was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to visit the USA and Australia, exploring solutions to support artists working in participatory settings. She reflects on her enquiry, learning through different lenses and where synthesis leads…

Newsletter subscriber Stephen Pritchard reviews Culture, Democracy and the Right to Make Art: The British Community Arts Movement edited by Alison Jeffers and Gerri Moriarty.

In her last blog as Alliance Consultant Director, Kathryn Deane tackles market issues…

Participatory arts: what’s it for? Prompted by the recent death of community play pioneer Ann Jellicoe, Kathryn Deane revisits practice purposes… 

We’ve spent a lot of time over the past decade in ArtWorks and ArtWorks Alliance on the quality of our participatory arts. It’s time we looked at how much of it we do, says Kathryn Deane.

Alliance Communications Manager Mary Schwarz explores what the participatory arts sector can learn from a book about individual altruism…

Kathryn Deane, ArtWorks Alliance Consultant Director, is not a techno-Luddite but does want to reclaim what’s participatory when we talk digital…

What does ArtWorks Alliance as a strategic UK-wide network actually do?

Why is participatory arts better than the aerospace industry? Because it’s worth more – however you measure it.

The initial ArtWorks Paul Hamlyn Foundation special initiative finished with A Call to Action to work collectively to strengthen practice in participatory settings.

ArtWorks Alliance members have mantras: ‘We only do what only we can do.’ ‘It’s not what we take, it’s what we bring.’ True – but worthy: be honest, you want to know WIIFM?

ArtWorks Alliance is committed to improving the quality of participatory arts. How are members going about doing that? From Kathryn Deane…

Why do we do participatory arts? Let’s not try an answer here: it’s all in the fascinating report of the three-year Arts & Humanities Research Council Cultural Value Project.

A new research report into current practice in older people’s dance, published by ArtWorks Alliance member People Dancing and co-commissioned by Aesop, was launched at the House of Lords on 7 November 2016.

Frameworks for the quality of participatory arts have recently been launched by ArtWorks Alliance members ArtWorks Cymru and Creative Scotland.

ArtWorks Alliance has announced that Kathryn Deane is to be its new Consultant Director.