INSIGHTS 45
Several reported that they did not currently experience a
sense of validation in relation to their practice, suggesting that
for some, validation was most easily understood in terms of its
absence or contestation:
I don’t feel very validated
(Artist, 22A)
I decided that I would apply for
more things and I found that quite
soul destroying because most of the
time it was nothing or “you’ve been
shortlisted” but then nothing and
that just left me unvalidated — that
the work wasn’t worth bothering with
(Artist, 4A)
Similarly, and in line with the wide range of definitions
offered for social practice, responses did not show clear consensus
around a set of agreed principles or values for how the
validation of social art might function:
I’ve known some social practice artists
who want gallery representation and a
studio and others who couldn’t care
less (Researcher, 2C)
Individual values around the purpose of art, whether it
should be socially useful or provocative, whose and which interests
it should serve and how varied, depend upon the particular
aspect of social practice an artist most strongly identifies with
as well as their political ideology and career stage. This suggests
that attempts to address the validation gap for social practitioners
needs to be aware of and responsive to the often-divergent
value systems at play amongst those who identify as social
artists. Crucially, artists felt that any and all routes to validation
should be recognised as valid in themselves:
I think maybe there isn’t just one
way of validating socially engaged
art… There are lots of different ways
and they have to have credibility…
We need to give it that credibility
(Artist 22A)
This scenario is comparable to the interconnecting
domains through which traction and visibility can be gained
by studio practitioners (e.g. exhibiting in artist-led spaces,
commercial galleries and/or publicly-funded galleries). The
routes through these domains involve different expectations,
entry points and levels of perceived prestige, but offer artists
opportunities to develop their career paths in alignment with
their circumstances and individual value systems.
For social artists, the options are relatively fewer and more
difficult to access. For some, validation represented gaining
(greater) acceptance from existing structures and institutions
in contemporary art, such as galleries and funding bodies:
When you get funding from organisations…
it’s a validation of the trust
that they have for you… it’s validation
of their faith in you (Artist, 4A)
When we’re approached to do work with
organisations that we would respect…
we would think, “oh that’s really good,
we’ve got a reputation for quality,
meaningful work” (Artist, 10A)
These respondents generally acknowledged the value,
power and influence of existing institutions — and the benefits
to an artist’s career of engaging with them. This was particularly
meaningful when seeking to communicate the value of an
artist’s practice to others:
I think when you obtain funding that
demonstrates [the validity of your
practice] very easily to people
(Artist, 8A)
For many, gaining recognition from institutions also
demonstrated a wider acceptance of social practice within
the mainstream art world. Several suggested that rather than
looking for a separate system of validation for social practitioners,
social practice should be more widely understood
and embraced by the art world as an equivalent practice of
contemporary art. For these artists, the current gallery-based
system was usually felt to be limited, or reliant upon outdated
assumptions about how art might look and function:
It frustrates me that the art world is
seen as studio-based gallery practice
because that is just one tiny section
of the art world and I don’t agree with
the fact that we should be reinventing
something different [for social
practice]. I think that field should
be expanded to include this and other
forms of artistic practice as well
(Artist, 21A)