Workshops
Strategies of Non Participation
This 2-day workshop explored alternative strategies of ‘non-participation ’ for arts practitioners in the field of socially engaged and collaborative arts practice. It investigates the terms and conditions of images, objects, collaboration, dialogue and the social today. The workshop also examined the mechanisms for sustainable practice and for mutations of how to work collaboratively in the very fluid world of today.
The term ‘non participation’ is a device developed by artists Karen Mirza and Brad Butler for questioning and challenging current conditions of political involvement and resistance. Their collaborative art practice titled ‘The Museum of Non Participation’ embeds its institutional critique in its very title, yet it releases itself from being an actual museum. Instead it travels as a place, a slogan, a banner, a performance, a newspaper, a film, an intervention, an occupation: into situations that enable this museum to “act”.’ Mirza and Butler work across national boundaries, combining an activism and learning in their methodologies. How this approach transfers across geographical and cultural boundaries provides both opportunities and challenges, which will be explored as part of the workshop.
The workshop is aimed in particular at Artists, Curators and Cultural Practitioners working in the field of socially engaged arts practice who would like to examine new ways of developing their working methodologies are welcome to take part.
