Posted on by Marcelo

Social Art Network

Founding Co-Director of a national mutual aid group for social practice artists in the UK.

Social Art Network is a UK based community of artists committed to building agency for the field of art and social practice. Through sector-specific meet-ups four key factors are focused on to support artists and strengthen the field: A platform to showcase and discuss current work; Expanded critical and reflective dialogue around the work; A national network of artists to strengthen peer support and artists’ development; A database of current, past and historic projects.

My key role was ensuring the organisation’s future resilience, having successfully received £15,000 from Arts Council for the Social Art Summit and £10,000 from Artfund for Social Art London’s online meetups, that supported creative practitioners working with communities during lockdown. Over 2,000 people per year have participated in the delivery programme, many of which have been young NEETS, adults with mental health conditions and adults and carers living with dementia. Building the partnership with Axisweb led to over 200K in partnership project funding. Social Art Publication was developed as an independent publishing house offering ISBN’s for socially engaged publications. I set up both steering committees to run each organisations. 

  • Successfully led the organisations through new governance development and management process to shape a new business plan and diversify income streams and ensure organisation´s future resilience. 
  • Successful grant applications include: £15,000 from Arts Council for Social Art Summit, a national review of socially engaged practice, £10,000 from Artfund for Social Art Network London online meetups during lockdown to support creative practitioners working with communities. 20K of Social ARTery Project Grant towards SAN/SAP partnership. 
  • Development and implementation of organisational wide data capture and evaluation/impact methodology to capture social impact and new audience’s data
  • Line managed 12 national hubs, each with 2-4 representatives, and oversaw the organisation´s delivery programme including, high profile artist public realm commissions with Axis, SAFEDI and socially engaged projects with over 2,000 participants per year including disabled children, young NEETS, adults with mental health conditions and adults and carers living with dementia among others. 

The Social Art Network (SAN) was developed in 2018 as part of a strategy to help connect practitioners and thinkers around social practice. Inspired by Open Engagement and National Review of Live Art, the hope was to create a site of radical critique and care for artists and activists interested and dedicated to social concerns.

Developed from collaborations between artists in the Collaborative Arts Peer Forum and combined with input from London Meetup Community Geeks (makers of Hack the Barbican) the Social Art Network was founded.

Following the launch of SAN was the Social Art Summit (SAS). Inspired by the National Review of Live Art, this was a place to bring artists dedicated to social, collaborative, public, and participatory practices.

SAS was presented as a large-scale collaborative social practice work of art where artists presented works through talks, meals, installations, 2D works, film, interventions, live music, and more. The Social Art Assembly was held the following year to review the magical 48-hour social art gathering and plan for the future of SAN and the creation of a second Summit as a biennial.

SAN meetups happened in London, Sheffield, Stoke on Trent, Nottingham, Brighton, Newcastle, Manchester, and other cities in development.