부산대학교 도서관

Funding arts and cultural activity for socially and economically vulnerable communities in the UK carries a deeply embedded practice of culture as compensation. With a tendency to measure the success of these activities through models of impact constructed by funders, such cultural programmes can omit community knowledge and subsequently further their marginalisation. This thesis investigates whether and how funders, artists, and communities can disrupt these one-sided instrumental approaches, by working together towards co-creating culture and policy. It does so specifically through artistic practice as research (PaR)- interrogating a participatory, transdisciplinary installation practice as a productive site for embodying new relationships between those giving and those receiving. As funders, artists and communities performatively shift between expertise and learning, the thesis proposes that the interdependence of their respective sets of knowledge enacts a more equitable policy process for cultural programming in service of a spectrum of socio-economic, creative and aesthetic needs. Underpinned by Karen Barad's 'intra-active agential realism,' the thesis develops a concept of 'intra-vulnerabilities', whereby vulnerability is a positive term, extending beyond its usual placement within marginalised communities to include a range of differentiated, circumstantial vulnerabilities amongst funders and artists. As all three parties participate in five iterative PaR projects, vulnerabilities manifest in personal reflection, listening, dialogue, acts of art-making and recognition of a 'mutual entailment' in social inequities. Integrating Rosalyn Diprose's reframing of generosity as a multi-directional landscape of giving, the concept of intra-vulnerabilities (as generated specifically within artistic practice) manifests a valuable interdependence between nuanced and changing vulnerabilities across the provision spectrum that can not only inform but enact policy. Developed in collaboration with Hammersmith United Charities, a 400 year-old housing and community grants giving organisation, the PaR projects ultimately inform and produce an artistic strategy for co-creating culture and policy. An online portfolio of the practice manifests in tandem with the writing, supporting the thesis' contribution to new knowledge in asserting artistic practice as a key component for artistic policy: https://www.carolyndefrin.com/onlineportfolio . This online portfolio is additionally submitted on a DVD to accompany the written thesis.