THE COMMISSIONING PROGRAMME 60
INSIGHTS FROM THE COMMISSIONING
PHASE OF THE RESEARCH
The commissioning phase of the research attracted a large
amount of interest amongst the stakeholder group. Stakeholder
members represented a range of artist-led networks, both
formal and informal, established and emergent, which have
momentum but sometimes lack the infrastructure to realise
their goals. This phase tested the feasibility of a relational
model of validation in which artists develop communities of
practice, have the means to discuss specific issues in focused
ways, to develop a critical voice for the sector and to improve
access by funders and producers to diversify the pool of possible
candidates for social art commissions.
The outcomes, reported via commissioned blog posts,²
provide an indication of how social practice groups might
expand and connect with one another to share expertise and
support, becoming communities of practice, while linking
further to relevant organisations, funders and commissioners
with the aim of developing understanding and diversifying
commissions in social practice.
Making this connection process visible also helps other
social artists access artist-led networks, who might otherwise
be working in isolation. It suggests ways to advocate for social
art in the art world and beyond; to support individuals and
groups in accessing relevant resources and peer-to-peer
exchanges, contributing to mutual validation processes, without
imposing a top down system of validation upon them.
In all parts of the commissioned programme, there was a
powerfully expressed desire and need to connect up with others
doing the same kind of work and organise together for the
conditions that will enable artists working with social practices
to feel validated. As Gina Mollett writes on her blog post on the
get together For the Love of Labour, ideas for validation include
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
Whilst the study included some international stakeholders,
and involved research associate Rebecca Senior travelling to
the US for face to face meetings with social practice organisations
and artists, the scope of the project and the lack of
existing research on artist validation limited the scoping of
the context for validation to the UK, rather than extending it
to international attitudes towards validation; understanding
this wider context is an important task for the future. Similarly,
a future goal should be to understand the relation of devolved
UK cultural policy, validation processes, and ongoing debates
about how and why validation matters.³
A second limitation of the commissioning phase of the
research was the creation of the stakeholder group only to
inform the research. Although engagement with the commissioning
process was high, the stakeholder group was not
supported to become a fully-fledged structure during the
research, which could be viewed as a missed opportunity.
Nonetheless, Axisweb have continued to work with the
stakeholder group beyond the original scope of the research
as far as possible, for example via a prospective Social Art Now!
publication, and in the formation of a Social Art Library.
transparency, codes of conduct for organisations,
peer to peer appraisals, collective action,
celebration.
2 (see: https://www.axisweb.org/social-works/)
3 We are grateful to Frances Williams for raising
the question of devolution after reading a draft
of the report.