Participatory and Socially Engaged Art

This course examines the history and theory of participatory and socially engaged artistic practices. These practices involve the direct interaction and participation of various publics, notably through video, performance, installation, and community art projects. We will consider antecedents across the twentieth century, from the historic avant-gardes to the proliferation and formalization of such practices in the 1990s. Along the way we will study the philosophers and theorists who have driven this participatory turn of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, including texts by Claire Bishop, Nicolas Bourriaud, Guy Debord, Édouard Glissant, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Jacques Rancière, alongside artists writings. In addition, we will consider the current state of participatory art and explore how it can—or perhaps cannot—meet our most urgent challenges: racism and the continuing legacies of colonialism; social media and its impacts on democratic politics and public spheres; the pandemic’s profound altering of our conceptions of community; and the looming threat of climate disaster on public space and our ability to live on this planet. This course is global in scope and we will be working with artists, collectives, and activists from all over the world.