Representing the Change: Rules of Engagement

Drawing on practice rooted in regeneration contexts with a focus on housing and development, this lab aims to reveal the challenging situations artists find themselves in when managing complex projects. When under pressure to demonstrate impact, notions of success for artists working in precarious contexts can be difficult to define.
In this lab delegates are invited to unpick the rhetoric and image of ‘successful’ community based arts programming and explore alternative criteria for reviewing practice. The lab will aim to create a space for truthful, supported exchange around a need for transparency in the ways that artists are working in order to demand greater support for the practice. Guest artists Rebecca Davies and Dan Russell will join Anna Francis in facilitating the lab.

The lab was delivered as part of The Social Art Summit.
'An Artist-Led Review of Socially Engaged Arts Practice in the UK & beyond.
Convened by Social Art Network, Sheffield.
Over two-days artists from around the country will come together to share practice, showcase work and explore what it means to be making art through social engagement right now.
Artists, activists, community groups, curators, students, academics, funders and sectors working in the social realm are invited to join the conversation through a series of events at Site Gallery and other venues around the city. Through building a network, showcasing practice and expanding dialogue the Summit will develop agency in the field of art and social practice and test the ground for launching a Social Art Biennale in 2020.
International guests include Black Quantum Futurism and Interference Archive.'