Socially Engaged Art and Ethics: Power, Politics and Participation

by Anthony Schrag (Editor)

Overview

Bringing together artists, curators, activists, academics, managers, and educators from around the world, this unique anthology examines the notion of ethics within socially engaged art.

 The volume aims to deepen conversations around what ‘good’ or ‘right’ activities could be in this developing and expanding practice, and readers are invited to consider the contextual nature of socially engaged art – its politics, infrastructures and values. Supported by case studies from the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Cuba, South Africa, and Norway, as well as discussions relating to education, cultural policy, and activism, this volume provides a much-needed critical analysis in the making, curating, commissioning and managing of socially engaged art.

 This collection is an ideal text for interdisciplinary courses that place visual arts (including design or performance) within social and political contexts but also for students and scholars of art, art history and visual studies more generally.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032730059
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/18/2025
Pages:	314
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Anthony Schrag is artist and researcher based in Scotland. He is a Reader in Cultural Policy and Arts Management at Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh) and the central focus of his work is to explore the role of art in participatory and public contexts. With a specific focus on social conflict, agonism, and ethics, he has exhibited widely, with numerous publications as well as an extensive history of undertaking social practice projects both nationally and internationally. www.anthonyschrag.com

Table of Contents

Introduction  Prologue: A Typology of Participatory Practices  Section I: Insiders and Outsiders  1. I Live Here! Reflections on Being a Socially Engaged Artist in a Small Community  2. Making Sense of Participation as a Practitioner Through a Nodal Governance Lens  3. Inside or Outside? Morten Traavik as a Director of Scenes of Dissensus – An Autoethnographic Approach  Section II: Infrastructures  4. The Walter Process: An Alternative to the Standard (American) Artworld System  5. Doing The Right Thing? Managerial Ethics in Social Engaged Arts  6.Ethical Consciousness in Collections Management  7.Aesthetics as Ethics: The Politics of Arts-led Rural Reconstruction in Contemporary China  Section III: Roles and Responsibilities  8. Telaplico: The ‘Replica’ in Detotalising Relations of Exchange  9. The Ethics of the Future: Cultural Emergence  10. The Urgency of Community Engagement: Perspectives From the USA  Section IV: Careful Ethics  11. Critical Ethics and the Pedagogy of Care  12. Ethical Tensions Surrounding Care in Community Arts Organisations  13. Structural Distress: LGBTQ+ Communities in ‘Creative Health’ and the Limits of Care  14. The Careful Turn: The Problem of Care within Socially Engaged Art  Epilogue: The Only Way is Ethics