The links below offer a broad selection of articles from various websites, each addressing different aspects of community arts. Inevitably, some links may become broken over time, and new articles continue to appear.
Please help us keep this collection up to date by letting us know about any broken links or relevant new—or previously overlooked—articles that should be included.
A (very short) history of the British community arts movement 1968–86
François Matarasso offers a very brief overview of the community arts movement in this article from his A Restless Art blog.
This publication offers an insight into the context, development and formation of the Community Arts Partnership, the newly merged re-organisation of Community Arts Forum and New Belfast Community Arts Initiative.
In March 2009 Arts Council England, London commissioned 509 Arts
to research and review 13 London based arts organisations working
with vulnerable and disadvantaged adults. This report analyses the
findings of the review, and makes recommendations for the future
development of this area of work.
Activism and the Arts: An Interview with Maggie Pinhorn
Film maker, community artist and founder of Alternative Arts Maggie Pinhorn recounts stories from a rich and varied career which began with making James Bond movies …
In this essay contribution to ICAF: Art and Power, François Matarasso discusses the depoliticisation of Community Arts in Britain during the period 1970 to 2011. The article explores ways in which changes in creative practices and terminologies reflect wider policy and political changes in Britian over a forty year period.
Ann Jellicoe, the writer, and the ‘community play’
This article discusses the work of Ann Jellicoe and her influencial text Community Plays: How To Put Them On
Art Council (England) report on 2017 Arts and Communities Programme. The report includes a series of case studies, tips and guidance to support the development of future programmes working to achieve similar aims
Article about the artist residency programme Canal Projects Library, a non-profit space in Lower Manhattan, the Library is designed to foreground collaboration with the local community. See also link to the Library Archive
Community and Participatory Art
In an article on the Restless Art Blog François Matarasso explores and compares the definitions, practices and connections between participatory art and community art.
Brochure promoting the organisation Community Art by ZK
Community Art Initiatives as a Form of Participatory Research: The Case of Street Mosaic Workshop
The paper examines the potential of community art projects as a participatory research method and as a tool for neighbourhood regeneration.
Community Art: An Anthropological Perspective
The book focuses on the forty year history of Free Form Arts Trust, an arts group that played a major part in the 1970s struggle to carve out a space for community arts in Britain.
Community Art: Report of the Community Arts Working Party 1974
Community Art: Report of the Community Arts Working Party Of Arts Council of Great Britain, chaired by Harold Baldry, June 1974. Report lead to funding of Community Arts in the UK in May 1975
Community Art: Tate Gallery Definition
Definition of Community Art as described by Tate Britain
Community Arts as an Act of Praxis and Resistance
This study by Stefanie Larkin: ‘inspired by a commitment to social justice and a firm belief in the power of community arts, to engage people’s hearts and spirits through transformative processes’, was submitted in part Fulfilment of the Requirements for the MEd in Adult and Community Education, Maynooth University.
Community Arts as an Instrument for Development
Keynote address by Dr Love Chile to The Arts Conference, Rotorua, New Zealand 2007
Community Arts Happiness Project
Article about a community arts project in east Kent on the theme of happiness using more than a 1,000 handcrafted tiles.
Blog exploring the history and practices of Community Arts in the UK
Community Arts: A Little Historical Context
Maryo Gard Ewell provides a brief synopsis of community arts practices in the USA
Community-Built Projects, Processes, and Practices
Working paper, by Katherine Melcher, University of Georgia explores many of the overlapping aspects of community build projects with documented community arts practices in the USA
Mathilde Bertrand explores the emergence of a politicised Community Arts movement in the UK during the 1970s and the clash of values that emerged following the Conservative government victory under Margaret Thatcher.
Notes of a presentation by Andrew Duncan of Free Form (London UK) to the at the Neighbourhood Arts Program National Organising Committee in Omaha (USA), 1982
Blog by artist and teacher David Harding is a cornucopia of wonderful stories about artists, people, education and community
Democratising Print? The Field and Practices of
Radical and Community Printshops in Britain 1968-98
PhD Thesis by Jess Bains explores the history and practices of Radical and Community Printshops in the UK over three decades.
Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren
1930’s Essay in which the economist and first chair of the Arts Council of Great Britain John Maynard Keynes makes the proposition that in 100 years’ time humanity will have overcome the need to define itself through productive labour and during the interim must gradually learn to use its free time (or go mad). His argument identified the need for mass culture-based education akin to the community arts movement.
Effective Community Arts Development
Paper by Maryo Gard Ewell describing an experimental Community-based arts initiative in five small towns in Wisconsin during 1967 to 69.
Higher Ground: Community Arts as Spiritual Practice
Key-note speech to National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts conference in which Arlene Goldbard explores the potential of community arts as a socially healing spiritual activity.
Inquiry into inclusion in the Arts of Working Class Communities
Community Arts Partnership (Belfast) submission to the Northern Ireland Assembly Committee for Culture, Arts and Leisure
Inquiry into inclusion in the Arts of Working Class Communities
2014
It became necessary to learn because we made it so
François Matarasso discusses his own early introduction to community arts at Greenwich Mural Workshop’s printstudio and the various approaches employed in printstudios around the UK
The Guardian obituary of Jeff Nuttall: catalyst, perpetrator and champion of rebellion and experiment in the arts and society and author of Bomb Culture.
Interview with John Fox: artist, printmaker, poet, filmmaker, lecturer, cultural provocateur, occasional musician, and co-Founder of Welfare State International.
Les Community arts en Grande-Bretagne : un mouvement artistique engagé, 1968-1990
Article, by Mathilde Bertrand, (in French) chronicling the Community Arts Movement in the UK
London’s radical printmaking workshops of the 1960s and 70s
Jess Baines looks back at London’s printmaking workshops of the 1960s and 70s, DIY sites of political and community activism that rejected the role of the artist to participate in a network of campaign groups, radical publishers and distributors.
Mathilde Bertrand explores the notion that: ‘the cultural pluralism advocated by community artists confronted the distinction between “high” and “low” culture and sought instead to redefine art around the concept of expression, away from the figure of the individual artist and towards the possibility of co-authorship in the production of collective meanings’.
Murals and the Community Arts in England 1968-86
Study of community arts murals by Geraint Franklin
Postscript to the Past: Notes Toward a History of
Community Arts
Arlene Goldbard discusses the history of Community Arts in the USA
From the 1980s to the early 2000s, artist and archivist Rita Keegan fervently collected and preserved newsletters, leaflets, photographs and exhibition literature from the British Black arts scene. This Observer interview explores the background to this archive.
Article in the Croydonist about music-based community arts group Setting Da Standards
Take Two: “Between Community Arts and Socially Engaged Practice”
Ania Bas explores the tension between Community Arts, defined as practice emerging from within a community, and Socially Engaged Practice comprising within a community context that is commissioned by an external institution
The art of survival: community-based arts organisations in times of austerity
This article by Mark Rimmer examines the impact of austerity policies on the funding and function community-based arts initiatives in the UK
The Community, the State and a Specific Kind of Headache
White Pube explores the work of five community-based arts practitioners and discusses the broken funding system perpetuated by Arts Council England.
The Development of Local and Community Arts
Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport
and Media
Report of the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and
Media of the Irish Government exploring the potential of local and community arts initiative.
The Political Radicalism of British Film Collectives
So Mayer tracks the histories of collective filmmaking practices, often responding to the turbulence of British politics
The United Cities Local Government Network (UCLG) worked with the City of Rome in 2020 to develop this charter, written by Francois Matarasso. It expresses the aim of creating an inclusive cultural environment in which all citizens participate and develop. The UCLG is the largest worldwide organisation of local and regional cultural governments.
The Uses and Abuses of ‘Community Art’ on an Inner-City Estate
Established by local artists soon after the Aylesbury Estate’s opening in 1974, the Walworth and Aylesbury Community Arts Trust (WACAT) ran a multifaceted arts project on the estate until the early 1990s. Michael Romyn’s article traces the history this ‘community art initiative.
The Value of Arts and Culture to People and Society
This Arts Council England report 2013 is notable in its avoidance of any engagement with socially engaged practice or community arts.
The Video Show -Video Art and Community Video
This paper explores the evolution of community video practices from their inception in the 1970s to their integration into broader artistic contexts.
What Can We Learn form the Past to Help Inform the Future
Maryo Gard Ewell reflects on five decades of Community Arts practice in the USA in this presentation, which was is also published under the title “Effective Community Arts Development: 50 Tips for 50 Years”
Why are there so few books about community art?
François Matarasso asks why the literature on Community Art is so sparse and offers a brief bibliography on the subject.