Participation - the P word

Below is an extract from the fine PAR+RS group about the theme of Participation in the arts and society. Read the full article here

Equality is an underpinning concept in participation.  It is one of the reasons why participatory arts remain contentious.  Some artists and arts workers believe that equality is key to the future of culture in society and that elitist assumptions about the artist and the arts are dangerous.  They believe that art should be everywhere and involve everyone.  This is rooted in an ethnographic, rather than economic, understanding of culture.

hours til midnight a Clean Break production

 Equality is too easily interpreted, through the idea of everyone participating in the making of decisions, as democracy.  An alternative interpretation is that equality is linked with justice.  This linkage places less emphasis on choice-making in the sense of ‘yes-no’, tick the box (every four years), and more emphasis on the formation of judgements and the participation in that process (which is of course also a process of learning).  Rahila (of Clean Break Theatre Company) described the process of deciding how to reconstruct the battered wife’s story into a screenplay, not as a process of choice that could involve the woman, but as a process of doing justice to her story in a way that was the best she could do within the artform.