Practising equality? Issues for co-creative and participatory practices addressing social justice and equality.

Harris, Paul; Fremantle, Chris

Abstract

Increasingly co-creativity and participation are considered central aspects of practices across art and design (including architecture) (Bishop, Bourriaud, Hope, Kester, Till). The discourse on Web 2.0 (Leadbeater, Shirky) addresses co-creativity and participation but from quite different perspectives. One of the key aspects of these discourses is the extent to which they recognise context as a critical factor. The other critical factor is the understanding of equality, not in terms of a general social aspiration, but rather as a function within a creative practice. This paper draws on examples including the Center for Urban Pedagogy and the projects of Suzanne Lacy to discuss what ‘equality’ can mean in creative practice. Practitioners seeking social justice and equality describe the importance of involving participants and co-creators, not through ‘evenness’ of participation, but rather through discernment opening out to larger audiences. The juxtaposition of art, design and web 2.0 in terms of both practices as well as critical literatures is distinctive. Fremantle led on the overall concept and developed the focus on Center for Urban Pedagogy as well as the project of Suzanne Lacy; Fremantle and Harris jointly developed the approach across the four domains (art, design, architecture and web 2.0).

Citation

HARRIS, P. and FREMANTLE, C. 2013. Practising equality? Issues for co-creative and participatory practices addressing social justice and equality. Participations: journal of audience and reception studies, 10(2), pages 183-200. Available from: https://www.participations.org/Volume%2010/Issue%202/11.pdf

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 30, 2013
• Online Publication Date: Nov 30, 2013
• Publication Date: Nov 30, 2013
• Deposit Date: Jul 7, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 7, 2014
• Journal: Participations: journal of audience and reception studies
• Electronic ISSN: 1749-8716
• Publisher: Participations
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 183-200
• Keywords: Aesthetics; Art; Co-creativity; Design; Equality; Participation; Web 2.0
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/988
• Publisher URL: https://www.participations.org/Volume%2010/Issue%202/11.pdf
• Related Public URLs: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/1563