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Participating in the Wrong Way? Four experiments by Sophie Hope

This publication provides evidence of four research-through-practice projects. The four projects have different origins (two publicly-funded commissions and two self-initiated) but all were carried out bewteen 2006-2010 as part of my doctoral research. The publication was produced after completion of my PhD in 2011 and is printed and distributed by Cultural Democracy Editions so as to reach an audience of practitioners in the field of public, participatory and socially engaged art. The publication documents and reflects on four projects which bring new critical understandings of cultural democracy and the commissioning of art to effect social change to the fore. The work is particularly concerned with the practice of socially engaged art in relation to public policy in the UK. It reflected an urgent question of the time: what are the implications of increasing dependency on a culture of commissioning art to effect social change that might perpetuate rather than radically rethink social injustices? The publication explores innovative creative strategies such as futurology, critical evaluation, performative interviews and collective cultural production. The publication demonstrates how the projects documented in the book have led to new insights into the limits of the art commission and relationships between art and work. This research-through-practice into participating in the ‘wrong’ way develops new ways of understanding the parameters and frameworks of the commissioning process, the problems with the discourse of ‘participation’ and assumptions of critical and political art practices. While the projects themselves have been the result of conversations and collaborations with many different partners, funders and individuals, I am the sole author of the content of this publication.