EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 16
*
Validation is defined in the report as the accumulation of critical
acknowledgement and associated opportunities that act to
endorse contemporary artists’ work. Whilst self-validation —
an artist’s personal belief in their work — is essential to the
development of an enduring, robust practice, external validation
is also necessary to establish and maintain a professional
career in the arts. In the art world this is often understood to
take the form of critical reception by critics, peers, participants
and audiences, access to sales and paid opportunities via
commissioners and funders, and access to professional mentoring
schemes and other forms of training and artist development
(Thornton, 2009).
However, the art world means different things to different
players. The sociologist Howard Becker characterised it in 1982
as a network in which people’s cooperative activity and joint
knowledge of shared conventions leads to the kind of art the
art world is known for — in many ways a self-perpetuating and
tautologous system. For the majority of contemporary artists,
endorsement of their place in this system comes from gallerists,
dealers, collectors, curators, peers and gallery-going audiences.
But for social practice art where much commissioning, funding
and audience participation goes beyond this network and
where art work is unlike that produced in other art worlds, this
endorsement can be elusive and difficult to access.
Social practice art is often commissioned and funded by
an array of ‘non-art world’ organisations and individuals, for
example primary, secondary and tertiary educational establishments,
local authorities, healthcare providers, heritage bodies,
rivers and waterway trusts, non-art charitable foundations, as
well as being artist-led or self-initiated with the artist(s) raising
funds themselves (e.g. Portland Project, Stoke on Trent;
Poole and Genever); and by artists who are social activists
living in and part of their particular communities (e.g. William
Titley, Nina Edge). Combined with the conceptual, ethical,
artistic and practical specificities of social practice art, it is
the diverse and fragmented character of this provision that
partly explains why artists working in these ways are not being
professionally validated.
*
The research adopted an ‘action research’ methodology to
investigate the existing landscape for social practice artists,
commissioners and funders, while simultaneously developing
and testing a new model of validation. We privilege participants’
voices in the report, resisting theorising as a form of validation
at the expense of the living knowledge that those quoted here
so clearly possess and demonstrate.
We worked with social practice artists to explore issues
they faced in relation to validation and discussed what model
might serve them better. 40 interviews were conducted with
artists, commissioners and researchers; surveys were run with
a stakeholder group that grew to 160 people; and a programme
of artist-led commissions was designed and group members
invited to apply to it.
Through the interviews and surveys, we identified five
interlocking issues facing social practice artists:
• difficulty articulating social practice,
including creating definitions and
negotiating roles and values;
• unrealistic / unreasonable expectations
from project partners (e.g. commissioners,
participants, members of the public);
• lack of support and infrastructure
for social projects;
• perceived second class status
of social practice in the art world;
• uncertainty about the validation
process aka ‘validation gap’ (how
artists receive acknowledgment from
appropriate networks).
The four-stranded commissioning programme
‘Social Works?’ responded to these issues as follows:
a. To provide a platform for social practice
artists’ critical writing and debate,
the first issue of a new journal called
‘Social Works? Open’ was published.
b. To combat isolation, four artist-led
network gatherings called ‘Social
Works? Get Togethers’ were commissioned.
c. To explore specific issues (in this
case paid commissions and arts and
health), two artist-led ‘Social Works?
Workshops’ were commissioned.
d. To create opportunities for informal
conversations between the wider
stakeholder group through a festival
of social art, ‘Social Works? Live’
was held at Manchester School of Art
in April 2019.
The research led to a range of outcomes designed to
benefit the industry partner (Axisweb), as required by the
gateway funders Innovate UK. Primarily, this involved the
development of an online platform hosted by Axisweb (due
to launch Summer 2020), which aims to contribute to the
new model of validation outlined in the report. The research
also changed how Axisweb operates as an arts charity, by
integrating rigorous research methodologies into organisational
structures and catalysing new collaborations with
other organisations committed to social practice, including
Heart of Glass, Social Art Network and Social Art Publications.
The research developed an artist-led and artist-enabled
approach to validation, distinct from dominant art world
networks (and amongst some funders), that tend to artificially