Continuing the series on Community Arts Practice as framed by the Four As: Access, Agency (Participation), Authorship and Active Ownership
If Access is about creating the conditions, Agency is about what happens once people step inside them. It’s the moment when participation turns into something more than presence — when people begin to decide, make, and shape their work on their own terms.
I’ve been watching how the language of practice shifts for decades, and I’ve seen how easily the word participatory seems to sit in the shade of brighter lights, a little dimmed, its sense diluted. Not that long ago it used to mean something altogether more urgent – communities seizing the right to make and share their own culture, amplified by a collective resolve to shift the argument, to express another way. The radicalism reflected vibrant ideas of idealism and empowerment. Now, it often reads as shorthand for becoming part of some highly-defined component of a pre-determined outcome.
Read the rest of the CAPtain’s Blog below…
CAPtain’s Blog – Creating a Change – Part Two: Agency – Participation as Power
