Social Practice Art

Social practice is an art medium that focuses on engagement through human interaction and social discourse. Since it is people and their relationships that form the medium of such works – rather than a particular process of production – social engagement is not only a part of a work’s organization, execution or continuation, but also an aesthetic in itself: of interaction and development. Socially engaged art aims to create social and/or political change through collaboration with individuals, communities, and institutions in the creation of participatory art. The discipline values the process of a work over any finished product or object.

Artists working in social practice co-create their work with a specific audience or propose critical interventions within existing social systems that inspire debate or catalyze social exchange. The large overlap between social practice and pedagogy demonstrates the need for art education to embrace collaborative practice. Social practice work focuses on the interaction between the audience, social systems, and the artist through aesthetics, ethics, collaboration, methodology, antagonism, media strategies, and social activism. The social interaction component inspires, drives, or, in some instances, completes the project. Although projects may incorporate traditional studio media, they are realized in a variety of visual or social forms (depending on variable contexts and participant demographics) such as performance, social activism, or mobilizing communities towards a common goal. The diversity of approaches pose specific challenges for documenting social practice work, as the aesthetic of human interaction changes rapidly and involves many people simultaneously. Consequently, images frequently fail to do justice to the engagement and interactions that take place during a project.

Up until 2005 the term "social practice" was used in a branch of social theory that considered human relationships to each other and to the larger society as "practices". The term "art and social practice" was institutionalized in 2005 with the creation of the Social Practice MFA concentration at the California College of the Arts. Other institutions of higher education followed suit, including Otis' Public Practice MFA, directed by Suzanne Lacy and PSU's Art & Social Practice MFA, directed by Harrell Fletcher. Social practice art as a medium has been referenced in the New York Times,Artforum,ArtNews, and Art Practical. As an emerging field, social practice can encompass a variety of terms: public practice, socially engaged art,community art, new-genre public art,participatory art, interventionist art, collaborative art,relational art and dialogical aesthetics.

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