Publication on Socially Engaged Art
Social Works? Open - Issue 1 2018
An artist-led journal exploring social practice art in the UK and beyond
A reader holding a copy of Social Works? Open at the journal’s launch in 2018, at the Social Art Summit in Sheffield. The cover of the journal is yellow with red text. Photo credit: Jules Lister.
Social Works?: Open is an artist-led journal for and about social practice art in the UK and beyond. It was founded by Axis in 2018 as part of the Models of Validation project with Manchester Metropolitan University and Innovate UK.
The first edition of the journal was launched at the Social Art Summit, which took place across several sites in Sheffield on 1st and 2nd November 2018, and featured 14 new commissioned pieces of writing and 2 artist commissions.
Editorial
The idea for Social Works?: Open came when the Models of Validation project interviewed artists, commissioners, producers, funders, representatives of local authorities, researchers and academics involved with socially engaged artistic practice at the start of 2018. From these interviews we identified several recurring issues in the field:
- Difficulties of communication between the people involved in socially engaged artistic practice, leading to a hindering of progress in the field.
- A lack of connection between artists and funders in socially engaged artistic practice, leading to frustration on both sides.
- Isolation facing artists working in these ways.
- A lack of well supported, critical writing in the field.
Axis responded by applying for funding from Manchester Metropolitan University and Arts Council England to develop a programme of get‐togethers, workshops, artist commissions and writing, which aimed to address and alleviate some of these issues.
Social Works?: Open speaks to the precariousness of this practice during an extended period of government-led cuts to arts funding across the UK, and the continued importance of maintaining and supporting a critical voice within socially engaged art. Deliberately open and broad in its remit, the open call for commissioned pieces of writing to launch this inaugural issue encouraged anyone involved in socially engaged practice, at any stage of their career, to submit proposals on topics they felt were pertinent in the field in 2018.
We had an overwhelming response, testament to the significance of this work, and the importance of supporting new and established voices in the field of social practice to publish their critical writing. The topics included in this first issue are varied and encompass a broad range of expertise and interests, but are all connected by a concern to accept and support critical engagement as an essential part of the field.
Alongside the writing, the first 100 issues of the journal also feature two, limited-edition artist prints, by artists Les Monaghan and Joe Cotgrave.
Thank you to all the writers and the artists who contributed to this issue, and to the funders, whose support allowed the labour that went in to this work to be fairly compensated.
Models of Validation Team
A partnership between Axis and Manchester Metropolitan University
Rebecca Senior, Mark Smith & Amanda Ravetz
Issue 1 – Contributors
Jen Delos Reyes
Jen Delos Reyes is a creative laborer, educator, writer, and radical community arts organizer. Her practice is as much about working with institutions as it is about creating and supporting sustainable artist-led culture. Delos Reyes worked within Portland State University from 2008-2014 to create the first flexible residency Art and Social Practice MFA program in the United States. She is the director and founder of Open Engagement, an international annual conference on socially engaged art.
Kerry Morrison
Kerry Morrison is an environmental artist and ecologist who works with processes of walking, talking, listening, drawing, photography, ethnography, data collection, and performance. In 2011 Kerry co-founded in-situ, a non-for-profit artist led initiative in Pendle, which serves to examine art, environment and culture in the locale of Brierfield, Nelson, and Colne.
R.M. Sánchez-Camus
Marcelo is a creative practitioner who develops works of art in collaboration with community partners. His interests lay in neighbourhood narratives, hidden mythologies, psychogeography, and outdoor interventions. He researches and writes on socially engaged practice and holds a doctorate entitled Applied Live Art. Recent project partners include Freedom Festival in Hull, Elan Valley Trust in Wales, Artangel, People United, and Circolombia. He was born in New York City to parents who emigrated from Chile and lives in London.
Claire Mead
Claire Mead is a curator, art historian and queer feminist activist working in France and the UK. She is curator in residence at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art where she is co-curating a workshop programme and exhibition around queering the museum collection in collaboration with the local LGBTQI community. She is also a coordinator for the grassroots activist organisation Collectif Archives LGBTQI in Paris campaigning for a public LGBTQI French archive, organising talks, workshops and debates, as well as a programmer for the Paris art organisation Polychrome, delivering screenings and exhibitions around queer and feminist activist practice.
They Are Here
They Are Here (f.2006) is a collaborative practice steered by Helen Walker & Harun Morrison. They are currently based in London and on the River Lea. Their work can be read as a series of context specific scenarios. Resisting rigid hierarchy and foregrounding knowledge exchange they seek to create ephemeral systems and temporary, micro-communities that offer an alternate means of engaging with a situation, history or ideology. Institutions they have developed or presented work include: CCA Glasgow, Grand Union, Konsthall C, Southbank Centre, Furtherfield, Studio Voltaire, STUK and Tate Modern.
Harvey Dimond
Harvey Dimond (b. 1997) is an artist and programmer based in Glasgow. Their interests lie in queer activism, Caribbean identities and the implications of being black in Scotland. They are the co-founder of the People of Colour Society at The Glasgow School of Art, an organisation which aims to empower and platform creatives of colour and challenge institutional racism. In March 2018 they co-curated In Residence, a series of exhibitions and events featuring 40+ artists of colour.
Lauren Velvick
Lauren Velvick is a writer, artist and curator based in the North of England. She is a regular contributor to national and local arts publications and is a Director of contemporary art and writing publication Corridor8. Lauren is custodian of two informal archives and has an ongoing interest in the ethics and labour of archiving and administration.
Artist Commissions
Les Monaghan
Les is interested in class, community, and representation. Previously a press photographer schooled in unambiguous imagery, he works by deconstructing the documentary method through successive projects; staging photographs with migrants assimilation(2006 – 2008), working with texts, the year long commission Aspirations Doncaster(2014) and the ACE funded The Desire Project(2015 - 2016), collaborating with others and re-contextualising,Relative Poverty (2016 - 2018). Works are often shown on a large scale engaging directly with the public.
Joe Cotgrave
Joseph Cotgrave’s practice explores personal narratives, as a young gay man living with HIV. He engages with audiences to create meaningful conversation surrounding issues relating to the virus. His practice aims to highlight and subsequently reduce the stigma that exists for people living with HIV, particularly amongst at-risk groups. Personally, the work provides Joe with a space in which to comprehend his experience of HIV diagnosis, stigma and trauma, and to reconcile those issues visually, in collaboration with audiences. As audiences navigate site-specific installations they are confronted with a juxtaposing commentary of HIV, traditional narratives compete with contemporary experiences. And, as they do so they are provided greater understanding of HIV. This understanding transforms how audiences engage, not only with the work, but also with the artist.
Legacy
Social Works? Open marked a significant step in Axis’ commitment to socially engaged practice, creating a permanent record of critical writing in the field. It emerged directly from the Models of Validation project and laid the groundwork for subsequent initiatives like Social Works? Live, which expanded the conversation into live, participatory formats.
Following the inaugural edition launched in 2018, two further Social Works? Open journals were produced, each expanding the range of voices, topics, and commissioned works in socially engaged art. These will be added to the initiative archive in full, ensuring a complete record of the project’s scope and impact.
As part of Axis’ initiative archive, this record ensures that the ideas, collaborations, and artistic contributions from all editions remain accessible to practitioners, researchers, and audiences, supporting ongoing dialogue and development in socially engaged art.
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