“Community Art practices are all connected by the belief that the arts are essential to human life and that everybody should have the right to create. Because we believe creating and expressing yourself in a creative way is important for who we are as human beings.”
Eugene van Erven, Former ICAF director
The international community art is a constellation of inclusive, participatory arts practices, as well as a global movement of socially engaged artists, organisations, communities, and thinkers who make it their daily job to bridge the distances between people, places and perspectives.
Community art is the result of careful, reciprocal processes in which professionally trained artists work with very diverse and often marginalised communities. It is without a doubt the most inclusive, diverse, and participatory art practice out there. From this view, the evolving relationship between ‘artists’ and ‘participants’ in this creative process is often considered central to this work. The art that comes out of these relationships is directly concerned with the lives, contexts, experiences and worlds of the participants. The process and outcomes of community arts frequently leads to life-changing experiences for everyone involved, as well as to extraordinary aesthetically designed expressions.
The artists who choose to do this work are often knee-deep in the proverbial mud and endeavour to bring imagination and connection to places where precisely this is very scarce and much needed.