AMASS Symposium
Impact of the Arts
28 January 2023 | Valletta , Malta
Are we expecting too much from artists and culture? Funding bodies frequently assess artistic proposals on the basis of their perceived impact on specific social groups, their ability to address communities’ needs or factors like audience development and the participation of various stakeholders in the creative process. The EU-funded project ‘Acting on the Margins: Arts as Social Sculpture’ (AMASS) implemented over thirty creative projects around Europe in order to analyse and promote the role of the arts in the mitigation of societal challenges experienced by groups facing different forms of discrimination. It also aimed to generate new forms of civic engagement and to address the marginal positioning and under-representation of some groups and communities in Europe. In this symposium, different speakers moderated by curator Maren Richter will discuss the role of social engagement in AMASS and other similar artistic projects and the perils of instrumentalisation. Socially engaged practices shift the attention of the public towards creative processes that encourage participation, collaboration or activism. But are artists allowing themselves to be instrumentalised when they engage in practices that have social purposes? When does the notion of ‘empowerment’ become problematic?
Speaking during the symposium, moderated by international curator Maren Richter, were Prof Raphael Vella, Dr Isabelle Gatt, Josette Ciappara, Kristina Borg, Dr Karsten Xuereb, Toni Attard, Margerita Pulè, and Gabriel Zammit.
Photos: Lindsey Bahia