Mapping the Idea

Participatory art as a concept and practice is a slippery notion. It is a shifting and constantly renegotiated conceptual framework which is used to define a variety of activities and practices residing in specific cultural and historical contexts. It has been linked to theories of participatory democracy, it has multiple histories, and its political, social and ethical dimensions are variously described and implemented. Participatory art therefore remains a hotly-debated arena.
Participate
→ v.
1. (often participate in) be involved; take part.
2. (participate of) (archaic) partake of (a quality).
DERIVATIVES participation n. participative adj. participator n. participatory adj.
ORIGIN C15 (earlier (ME) as participation): from L. participat-, participare ‘share in’, based on pars, part- ‘part’ + capere ‘take’

The defining of the concept, as well as the terms used to describe those who carry out these kinds of projects - artist, activist, mediator, to name a few - is also of interest. In the workshop Rules of Engagement-Part 1 led by artist Ana Laura, who prefers to describe her practice as public art, some of these questions were addressed while others were raised.
Do practitioners use self-determined labels to describe their role and are different terms used depending on the context? What terms are imposed from outside, for example, to satisfy funding criteria and applications? Do the terms relay the same nuance, or even exist, across language and different cultures? How can, and do, arts institutions, for example, the Tate, engage with these types of practice? And does the institutionalization of practices such as participation, inclusion, social engagement, have the effect of neutralizing difference?
Artist Mark Beech in an article about participation in art, Include Me Out! Art Monthly, April 2008, concludes:
‘The social and cultural distinctions that prompt participation in the first place, which participation seeks to shrink or abolish, are reproduced within participation itself through an economy of the participants’ relative proximity to the invitation. Outsiders have to pay a higher price for their participation, namely, the neutralization of their difference and the dampening of their powers of subversion. Participation papers over the crack. The changes we need are structural.’ read more