Social Art Library

Introduction

Social Art Library (SOAL) is a collectively built archive and resource library for social practice, created by Axis. It is an interactive digital space that holds a growing collection of custom content created and commissioned by Axis, alongside projects submitted by artists, an artist/librarian-in-residence programme, and a digital archive of current thinking around the intersection between art and society.

The Library evolved as a collaborative project with social practitioners from across the UK and beyond. While the current format remains live, it now stands as an active archive of the field, a record of how artists, communities and organisations have worked together to share knowledge from and about social art.
 

How It Started

The idea for the Social Art Library began in 2015, when Axis recognised that an increasing number of artists were creating work in social settings. To understand more about this growing field, Axis commissioned the research Validation Beyond the Gallery with Professor Amanda Ravetz (Manchester Metropolitan University), followed by Models of Validation a Knowledge Transfer Project (KTP)

These projects involved more than one hundred artists and produced a new journal (Social Works? Open), a report (From Network to Meshwork), and a Festival of Social Practice held in 2019 at Manchester School of Art. Together, they revealed that social practice often lacked the structures to connect practitioners, share learning or preserve legacy.

Axis responded by imagining a new kind of archive for social art, one that would create visibility, connection and access to the many stories and learnings emerging from this field.
 

Building the Library

The concept of a Social Art Library was developed by Mark Smith and Lucy Wright as a way to create space to document social art practice and make visible the knowledge produced through collaboration between artists and communities. Lucy took on the role of Social Art Librarian, helping shape the early direction and ethos of the project.

In 2019, Axis formed a partnership with Social Art Network, an artist-led organisation that had been instrumental in bringing social practitioners together. During that year, with seed funding from Art Fund, Axis commissioned artists to share creative responses to the Covid-19 crisis and to explore new forms of documentation within social art practice.

The Social Art Library platform launched in Beta in July 2020, bringing together artist-submitted projects, publications and videos supported by commissions, residencies and events. While it remains live today, the Library is now presented as a living archive, a resource for artists, researchers and communities to explore how social practice has evolved over the past decade.
 

What It Is

The Social Art Library reimagines what an archive can be. It is an evolving, participatory platform shaped by artists and communities rather than institutions.

It includes three main strands:

• The Library Space – a comprehensive and accessible collection of materials about social art and related community interests such as activism, environment, care, gender and politics.
   
• Public Engagement Programme – residencies, events and commissions that invite artists and participants to co-create and shape the Library.
   
• Documenting Social Practice – exploring and testing new ways to record and share the stories, relationships and processes at the heart of social art.
   

Principles

• The archive is a shared concern between artists, communities and Axis.
   
• The archive is messy and alive, encouraging creation, re-interpretation and connection rather than preservation.
   
• The archive resists hierarchy, treating every contribution as equal and open to recontextualisation.
   
• The archive rejects fixed taxonomies, remaining incomplete and always in motion.
   
• Documentation can take any form. Artists and communities decide how their stories are told.
   
• The library decentralises access to social art history.
   

Mission and Values

We believe that socially engaged art creates positive change. The mission of the Social Art Library was to support artists and the communities they work with by making their stories visible.

Social Art Library's vision is of a stronger, kinder and more accessible social art sector that values collaboration and social impact as much as artistic innovation.

Social Art Library's values:

• Inclusivity and accessibility – ensuring all spaces, digital or physical, are welcoming, informed by up-to-date access standards and shaped by users.
   
• Usefulness and relevance – a living resource that celebrates experimentation, process and learning as much as finished work.
   
• Bold and critically engaged – advocating for social artists, challenging exploitative practices and contributing to the body of critical writing in the field.
   
• Caring and empowering – transparent, respectful and supportive relationships with artists and communities.
   
• Outward facing – sharing the insights and methods of socially engaged art with the widest possible audience.
   

Legacy

The Social Art Library remains online as a record of an ambitious attempt to reimagine what a digital archive for social practice can be. It continues to document the stories, voices and ideas that shape socially engaged art and to inspire future generations of artists working with people and place.

• Visit the Social Art Library