FOREWORD 11
Envisioning and developing spaces of care for
social practice is a radical act of reimagining the
framework of society. The artists and organisations
who support this movement are working at
the forefront of a creative practice that is urgent
and timely. The intelligent and articulate enquiry
in the following report offers us a series of new
definitions, of critical enquiry and is in itself an
act of validation and a call to creative arms.
This is no small feat in the context of contemporary
Britain where the wealth gap has increased
to record highs, ¹ with the knock-on effect of
widening the health gap. ² This has been further
exacerbated by the policies of austerity which a
special UN report found to be ‘a social calamity
and an economic disaster, all rolled into one’. ³
We envision culture to be a direct reflection of
the times we live in, so when tremors such as
these rock our society, how do the arts respond?
1 Philip Inman, ‘Gap between rich and poor grows alongside rise in UK’s
total wealth’ (last accessed 13th March 2020) https://www.theguardian.
com/news/2019/dec/05/gap-between-rich-and-poor-grows-alongside-risein-uks-total-wealth
2 ‘Health gap between rich and poor has widened’ (last accessed 13th
March 2020) https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/jan/health-gap-betweenrich-and-poor-has-widened
3 Statement on Visit to the United Kingdom, by Professor Philip Alston,
United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights’
(last accessed 13th March 2020) https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/
Issues/Poverty/EOM_GB_16Nov2018.pdf