Art and Activism

Just over a year ago Silent City staged an exhibition at the Rag Factory, Brick Lane. It established our aims and ambitions as a collective ñ to foster and engage with artists and other creative practitioners on political, social and environmental issues. Following the exhibition, the collective were eager to respond to some of the questions that arose and decided to create a platform in which we could ask other artists their thoughts and experiences.


Artists and writers were asked to respond to the following questions:


Should art be separated from activism?

Should art have a political value or function?

Should art be radical, critical, resistant or subversive?


The publication arrives at a very crucial point in contemporary British society, where the arts have been subjected to the government's extreme cuts. Artists from across the country have come together to point out that the vibrant arts culture in Britain is the envy of the world, appealing to the government not to slash funding, risking destroying its achievements and the social and economic benefits it brings to all.


In a time of severe austerity, we must look to how artists' work relate to and respond to society, to the institutions, to cultural policy and to wider political movements such as environmentalism and anti-globalisation. To reflect on these ideas, Silent City set about collaborating with Shoppinghour to create a publication, which brought texts and art from all over the world, to investigate the grey area of the relationship between art, activism and politics.


We welcome you to explore the many answers and responses we received for these questions. The publication brings our attention to arts political power, and yet heightens the awareness of its problems. For Silent City, this burgeoning discussion can be related to a simple question: what kind of transformation of our lives are we capable of achieving?