Back in 2017, I wrote a blog about ‘Socially Engaged Art - Engaging in the Archecture of Flow’. It was about the moment of realising that there was a whole world of art that did what I’d been (in a very small way) doing - putting conversation at the heart of artistic practice.
As part of my research I’d come across the work of Suzanne Lacy, an american artist, who has for almost 50 years been pioneering social practice and community organising, drawing heavily on feminist practices, including consciousness raising, expanding audiences, inclusion strategies, and naming the political in the personal.
So I was excited to go on a trip (back in April 2022) with my art-partner-in-crime, Lisa Hudson, to visit Suzanne Lacy’s recent exhibition in Manchester at the Whitworth Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery, to find out more about Suzanne Lacy’s work, how she goes about it, and how it translates into the gallery. We were interested not least because of our Utopias Bach - Revolution in Miniature collective, which is a learning community around the role of socially engaged art in working small scale in the face of existential threats (climate change, eco-system collapse, inequalities etc).
The Whitworth describes the exhibition - “What Kind of City - A Manual for Social Change’ - as having “been conceived with the artist as a project that is more than an exhibition, one that takes key works with relevance to our current context and uses them to convene people in order to start new initiatives that will actively help rebuild our city. In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, What kind of city? Working around fundamental themes such as youth agency, borders, social cohesion, and work prospects for older women, the exhibition is designed to operate as an evolving manual for how we create equitable transformation.”
I think previously I’d heard Suzanne Lacy making a distinction between the socially engaged process itself and the creation of ‘art for galleries’’. But the exhibition - and series of events and programmes - for the Manchester galleries usefully blurs that distinction. The exhibition becomes a catalyst for further learning and change. I think this is exciting. Not least because last year I visited the Turner Prize in Coventry - the first prize where all nominees were collective, working with social art. - and this had brought home to me how difficult it is to transition social art into the gallery effectively. It made me question whether/why we need to do that. (by the by, a member of Utopias Bach, Emily Larens wrote a blog about her visit which describes in many ways how I felt about it).
You can watch a video of Suzanne talking about the Manchester exhibitions and her work here
Lisa and I enjoyed the exhibition at Whitworth. It was a kind of mix of documentation of past events, where documentation of process and results were almost like museum exhibits, and some wonderful videos of some of the performances (you can see some of these in the video above) which are art works in themselves. No workshops were running when we visited, so that aspect of ‘the manual for social change’ was not accessible to us, although we did wander into the ‘Office de l’art utile’ which is a space the Whitworth is making available for groups to utilise. But it was completely empty, with documents referring to activities in glass covered cases, again, feeling a bit like a museum or council office:
So the best thing about our visit was the conversations it provoked between us, it set out so many ideas and suggestions as to how to approach socially engaged art (and so was a bit like a manual for us, informing our own approach). I thought I’d share some of the strategies that we noticed Suzanne using, because to me, they illustrate how socially engaged practice needs to go beyond ‘holding a workshop’ or other one off events that are sometimes called socially engaged.
Strategies Suzanne uses in her practice include:
collaboration with active community organisations and reseearchers - she is invited in by them, working alongside them for sometimes many years, rather than creating the projects herself. This means that the engagement is long term, it has a life of its own, rather than being centered or filtered through her (‘decentring the artist’). She has often said that the thing she holds decision making power on is just the aesthetics.
working on ‘topics’ that she feels she is in a position to work with, recognising the specific perspective she brings both in terms of who she is (eg a white american woman) and her situated knowlege.
drawing heavily on feminist practices, including consciousness raising, expanding audiences, inclusion strategies, and naming the political in the personal. She brings together intersections of people, enabling them to have discussions and interactions, hearing and understanding each other in ways that are not usually possible.
research, including mapping the systems in operation, including power relations around the issue. She often uses ‘sites in transition’ (disused Mill that is about to be developed), temporary car parks, borders that are being questioned/opened/closed
working in multiple ways with carefully selected participants and intersections of participants, creating opportunities for discussion, community building, interviews and performance. They together create some kind of event, or series of events, and conversation is often the main focus, but also singing, story telling, walks and physical works in urban and rural landscapes. She hosts meals for all involved (often hundreds of people), using prompt cards to stimulate discussion.
‘documenting’ often involves video (‘documentary’ style and also more evocative pieces), sound recordings, manifestos, posters and scripts and maps. While the processes that people have engaged in are ‘theirs’, these artefacts are seen as art pieces in themselves to be shown in galleries.
Suzanne Lacy’s interventions are big. Long term. I imagine also costly. Most of us aren’t in a position to do these things, but in mutliple small ways, and at a small scale, we’ve been experimenting with these kinds of strategies within Utopias Bach. You can read a brilliant blog about it by Wanda Zyborska here together with a video of a zoom meeting of our discussions.
Thinking about my own conversational practice (Utopias Bach as perhaps the most fully evolved expression of that), and some current things I’m working on (like Dyffryn Dyfodol), these strategies are good reminders that socially engaged art is not a light touch thing. We need to think about and design engagement carefully, and be very aware of own position/backgrounds/norms/assumptions within them. I’m going to use these 6 ‘strategies’ as a reminder of how the work i do could go deeper.
Meanwhile, Utopias Bach is currently being asked to engage with art galleries (which is a bit of a strange experience, as we have been entirely outside the gallery environment for almost 2 years), and we are thinking through how to do that in a way that continues to bring the process into the gallery… and re-imagining the socially/environmentally engaged art gallery of the future. You can see the Utopias Bach events here - you’d be very welcome to join us!
