How do we co-author culture? This was the question Open Eye Gallery and project partners across the community, health, care, justice, youth and educational sectors set out to explore. With the support of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Young At Art initiative, our Co-Authoring Cultures Programme ran from spring 2019 to November 2022, inclusive of an extension of engagement due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The programme was designed to support the gallery in embedding a socially engaged model of working, which would see the organisation co-author everything it does in partnership with local and national communities and partners. The gallery acknowledges that both the terms ‘socially engaged’ and ‘co-authored’ come with multiple meanings and interpretations, but as an approach to practice which is constantly challenging its own definition, this put us in an exciting position to explore it through live action-based research and collaboration.
This publication is just one attempt to help celebrate and profile the impact of socially engaged and co-authored practice. It contains an infographic of key quotes and stats about the programme and a series of case studies about each strand of our programme, including guest essays and a poem by one of our project participants Jane, who we also dedicate this publication to, alongside all those who collaborated with us on this work.
Foreword by Liz Wewiora
Head of Social Practice, Open Eye Gallery
You can download the publication on issuu.com.
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