Are We the Revolution

RADAR Research Archive and Digital Asset Repository Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Note if anything has been removed from thesis. When referring to this work, the full bibliographic details must be given as follows: Barratt, M. (2010) We are the revolution? The ‘creative social action’ of La Fiambrera, Skart and Superflex, and its contribution to sustainable social change. PhD Thesis. Oxford Brookes University. WWW.BROOKES.AC.UK/GO/RADAR WE ARE THE REVOLUTION? The ‗creative social action‘ of La Fiambrera, Skart and Superflex, and its contribution to sustainable social change. Mary-lou Barratt A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy awarded by Oxford Brookes University. September 2010 WE ARE THE REVOLUTION? The ‗creative social action‘ of La Fiambrera, Skart and Superflex, and its contribution to sustainable social change. Abstract ―WE ARE THE REVOLUTION?‖ begins by introducing the type of art practices being studied, collectively referred to here as ‗creative social action,‘ and explaining the nature of their revolutionary intentions. It then shows that such art practices are in need of a critical framework; specifically, a means of examining their contribution to sustainable social changes. Having established that creative social action lacks an apposite or robust critical framework, and that such a framework is an essential tool, the study sets out to address this. Initially the study surveys a significant number of practices in order to identify core threads of creative social action. Through this, three threads of particular significance are identified; utopianism, participation and value-orientation. These threads are then examined in depth through recent critical writings on each, which takes the research into several different disciplinary territories and alternative concepts of revolution, as a slow, creative, permanent and almost imperceptible process. Subsequently, aspects of these writings and concepts are synthesised to provide an evaluative approach that is original in its transdisciplinarity and its depth of vision. The study uses its newly formed evaluative tools to unpack three carefully chosen cases of creative social action; Skart, Superflex and La Fiambrera. Accordingly, the utopianism, participatory strategies and value-orientation of these cases are explored in depth. Through this, and further development of an alternative concept of revolution, the study shows that in this sense the practices in question appear to be revolutionary. By developing a comprehensive critical understanding of creative social action, and its relationship with radical social change, the study makes a significant contribution to the field. By not providing definitive answers regarding creative social action‘s contribution to revolutionary changes, the study makes an equally significant contribution. In examining the transformative potential of these practices, the study draws attention to the need to value qualities such as complexity and flexibility, and shows that focusing on tendencies rather than absolutes, and generating further questions rather than arriving at neat answers, is not a weakness but a revolutionary force. Mary-lou Barratt September 2010 Contents Abstract Preface i Introduction 1: Setting Out 1 Part One Building Foundations 2: Circumambulating 20 3: Moving Forward 42 4: Crossing Borders 57 Part Two We are the Revolution? 5: Looking Closely 106 6: Asking Questions 135 Part Three Conclusions 7: Enjoying the View 175 Appendix: A Guide to Creative Social Action and other Relevant Practices Notes Notes to Asides Bibliography Preface The play between inner and outer worlds is something I have reflected deeply upon in my life. This engagement with notions of ‗connectivity‘ has had considerable influence on my decision to explore the relationship between art and radical social change. It has also influenced the way in which this exploration is presented in ―WE ARE THE REVOLUTION?‖ In particular, two innovative strategies have been used to highlight the study‘s interconnection with a wealth of dynamic terrains and perspectives. In conjunction with the academic conventions of quoting and referencing, this text encourages a rich array of voices to occupy its margins. These voices come from many directions, gathering around the subject of the thesis No one writes or and reflecting its position as a collection of threads drawn out from an paints alone. But we have to make the ever-shifting, deepening and expanding lived context. Hopefully, justice pretence of doing so. has been done to the texts that inspired this approach: Nina Felshin‘s But ... Ideology exalts the solitude of the is it Art? The Spirit of Art as Activism (1995); Susan Griffin‘s Woman and creative person and mocks all forms of Nature: The Roaring inside Her (1978); and Gavin Pretor-Pinney‘s The community.1 Cloudspotter‘s Guide (2006). In ―WE ARE THE REVOLUTION?‖ these ‗asides‘ nestle into the text, as fragments that offer a first layer of reading by indicating content in a very broad way.1 Rather than follow the conventional approach to signposting a text of this nature, ―WE ARE THE REVOLUTION?‖ uses headings to emphasise the thesis‘s dependence on the work of others. With a few exceptions, both headings A tissue of and subheadings are quotations from key figures in the field. For 2 quotations. example, these include seminal statements from Suzi Gablik‘s eloquent essay ―Connective Aesthetics: Art after Individualism‖ (1995), Rebecca Solnit‘s powerful Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People Power (2005) and John 1 Bibliographical details for the asides are given in Notes to Asides. Jordan‘s beautiful ―In the Footnotes of Library Angels: A Bi(bli)ography of Insurrectionary Imagination‖ (2003). ―WE ARE THE REVOLUTION?‖ values the passion and dedication of such figures, and in turn, aspires to make its own contribution to the continued evolution of this field. In response to the nature of the subject studied, two decisions have been taken in relation to the presentation of ―WE ARE THE REVOLUTION?‖ Firstly, the thesis necessarily refers to numerous groups; many are positioned here as instances of creative social action, while others are highly relevant to that field. However, readers who are not already immersed in the field many find the names of these groups tend to camouflage themselves within the text, much like the practices themselves which persistently disappear within the terrains they inhabit. Therefore, the names of these groups considered to be instances of creative social action are incorporated in the text in a way that overcomes this. Secondly, ―WE ARE THE REVOLUTION?‖ does not follow the tendency among art-related texts to include images. This thesis focuses on a type of art practice that avoids the conventional mechanisms of the art world, which does not reinforce the traditional hegemony of vision or produce ‗work‘ that can be captured by photographs or other dominant techniques of image making. Alongside writers such as those mentioned above, many organisations and individuals have contributed to the study recounted in ―WE ARE THE REVOLUTION?‖ For instance, both Oxford Brookes University and the Arts and Humanities Research Council have funded the research project, and provided essential training opportunities. The research project has also been supported by Shelley Sacks and Roger Griffin, who oversaw its growth, shared their own thoughts and questions, and patiently commented on numerous drafts. The study could not have flourished as it has without those who have supported my conviction that this study is worthwhile, and contributed to its realisation. I am grateful to many in the field, including PLATFORM and John Jordan, for their contributions, and especially to the groups who agreed to be studied in depth and generously gave their time and thought to the study. I am also indebted to the family members and friends who have shared my struggling and celebrating along the way, without this support the following paper would not have been possible. Introduction 1: Setting Out 1: Should the reader seek yet another opportunity to grieve over the prosperity of bourgeois culture, please read no further.1 Cast aside the concepts of art that have dominated for the last The false concept of art cannot contain us; hundred and fifty years; you are entering a territory occupied by an what is needed is entirely different species. The form of art at the centre of ―WE ARE THE much more, a form [of art] that will REVOLUTION?‖ rejects the traditional positioning of art and its embrace the totality 1 associated values, and in this sense can be described as an ‗expanded‘ of life. art practice.2 That is, the practices centralised here follow the ‗expanded concept of art‘ articulated by artist-activist Joseph Beuys. This asserts the social, ecological and political role of art as a universal creative faculty and ‗an agent of change,‘ rather than simply giving the artist an expanded mental and physical terrain to occupy and explore by moving

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