EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 17
buffer artists from the instrumental workings of commerce,
thereby reducing artist-led influence on those markets.²
The research confirmed findings of an earlier pilot project
by the same authors that suggested social practice, which is
currently emerging as a very significant part of the artistic landscape,
suffers from lack of recognition and support. It found
that various creative organizations are active in the space, but
with an overall fragmentation in the sector that decreases internal
capacity. Further, it showed that the funding landscape for
this area of practice is largely unresearched and that respondents
have a strong preference for an artist-informed model that
enables validation to happen through a flattened, rather than
hierarchical, organisational structure.
The findings were then reformulated as four key challenges:
• External roles & awareness: there are
challenges in defining, conceptualising
and articulating social practice,
its roles and purpose, its typologies,
its constituencies and workings.
• External commissioning & participation:
there are sometimes unrealistic /
uninformed expectations from
project partners (e.g. commissioners,
participants, members of the public)
and low levels of funding for the tasks
required and time needed to deliver
excellent outcomes; there is a lack
of knowledge and overview of the social
practice funding landscape.
• Internal support and resources: there
is a lack of support and infrastructure
for social projects; provision is not
joined up, artists working in social
practice don’t have access to the levels
of validation typical of other areas
visual arts sector.
• Internal capacity building: there is
a lack of skills and training, network
functions, and professional support
systems for social art practitioners
and stakeholders.
Eight actions are suggested to meet these challenges. We
see these being led by artists, with the necessary support of
others who have a stake in the work — e.g. commissioners,
funders, other representatives of influential third sector organisations,
participants and audiences.
1. Production of a journal-as-forum,
specifically for social practice (the
exemplar produced during the research
is available in hard copy and as an
2 It is interesting that the term artist-led is
not used in Arts Council of England’s 2020 – 30
policy. Mentions of ‘artist’ come together with
‘librarians and museum curators’ with ‘creative
practitioners’ seeming to be the preference over
the term artist.
online pdf here https://www.axisweb.
org/models-of-validation/content/
social-works/2018/social-works-open/)
2. Social library / centre, offering
resources and live project
opportunities to social practice
artists and other stakeholders
3. Directory of social practice artists
for use by funders, commissioners,
participants and artists
4. Training / skills and other kinds
of artist development specifically
relevant to social practice
5. Research programme looking at social
practice systems & communities, with
particular reference to the funding
landscape
6. Identifying, mapping and strengthening
communities of practice
7. Partnership building between
communities of practice and
gatekeeper organizations
8. A social practice meshwork able to
support and promote social practice art,
involving different constituencies and
communities of practice in an accessible,
horizontal exchange structure
Given that respondents indicated a strong preference for
a flat and emergent model of validation, we recommend that
actions 1 – 7 are carried out through the approach and ethos of
recommendation 8, a meshwork structure.
A meshwork is an interweaving of growing, moving lifelines
(Ingold 2014). It has knots of encounter where lines entangle.
Thought of as an organisation, a meshwork is a correspondence
of lifelines that require attention to, and care for, its concurrent
movements.
This can be distinguished from a network, visualised as a
fixed array of more and less powerful nodes interconnected by
geometrical lines that communicate point to point. By contrast,
a meshwork grows in relation to its capacity for concurrent
movement and mutual correspondence.
As just one example: Axisweb and Social Art Network
showed meshwork tendencies in how they nurtured a common
purpose during the research, beyond a transactional notion of
what either might get from the encounter, thereby adopting an
ethos of care for the larger social environment.
This approach can also be informed by current theories of
social change (such as Wheatley and Frieze, 2006) and enabled
through the leadership styles, use of resources and principles of
cooperation adopted by social justice organisations.