WHO WE ARE
Social Art Network is a UK based community of artists committed to building agency for the field of art and social practice. We are a UK wide artist-led initiative developed to support creative professionals working with and dedicated to community-led projects. Through sector-specific meet-ups four key factors have been identified which SAN focuses on to support artists and strengthen the field:
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- 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
SAN continues to build agency for artists and communities making art through social engagement whilst developing new audiences for the work both nationally and internationally. Social Art Network is developed through the volunteer labour of artists dedicated to social practice.
What we stand for
We are unapologetically political and unreservedly radical in our approach and practice. It is a time of increasing social crisis in Britain and around the world, where increasingly reactionary politics, both from the state and within communities causes constant damage to people in their everyday lives. The backdrop to this is the impending flood of climate change; the extent of the damage which we will cause ourselves is yet unknown. The only creative response to this is a radical politic as art. We understand politics not as governmental parties but as the social collection of people, where true meaningful change is generated.
In art, this translates into emotional resonance with the state of our society, and facilitating empathy for the crises we collectively inhabit. But it also translates into vision; imagining new ways of living with one another, grounded in reality but connected to potentiality, and pushing to make such a vision occur. Artists have always led the way in conceiving revolutionary routes; we humbly believe we are a part of that tradition in today’s moment.
“The only culture worth keeping is a revolutionary culture”
– George Mason Murray, Education Secretary of the Black Panther Party
What You CAN DO
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Join one of the meet ups; across the UK, we are creating safe, vibrant and innovative spaces of social practice.
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Check out the resources page and engage in our collective work. The relationship between artist and audience is vital; we need active, radical audience engagement as much as we need active, radical artists like you.
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Contact us; whether you have something to contribute to SAN’s existing projects, something new for everyone to consider or simply want to share your social practice with others; we want to hear about it.
HISTORY
SAN was created in 2017 through a collaboration between artists Eelyn Lee and R.M. Sánchez-Camus in collaboration with artists from the Collaborative Arts Peer Forum, a peer-to-peer support forum convened by Lee with support from Artquest and Peckham Platform.
Once the meet-ups ended Sánchez-Camus merged the Peer Forum with a network he co-convened called Community Geeks, a monthly meet-up of community organisers that included civic planners, online community web programmers, strike leaders, and socially engaged artists. Continuing the meet-ups with collective voices has become central to SAN.
The early success of SAN was the launching the Social Art Summit 2018, a national review of social practice; building of an artist-led network; expanding dialogue and a pilot for the world’s first Social Art Biennial. Since the Summit meet-ups have developed across the UK.