Introduction
This page is a work-in-progress site for a research proposal to be submitted on 21 January 2026 as part of the MA Intercultural Practice at Central Saint Martins, University of the Art London.
Working title
The working title for the research proposal is “A feasibility study to determine the preconditions for a participatory art project involving connections between the ecological environment and its local community”.
Methods and Methodology
What is a feasibility study?
A feasibility study, sometimes called a feasibility analysis or feasibility report, is a way to evaluate whether or not a project plan could be successful, ie., whether it’s likely to achieve its aims and objectives. In this case, a feasibility study will evaluate the practicality of my plan for the artistic project, River Kinship, in order to judge whether or not I should move forward with the project.
In undertaking this feasibility study I will be seeking to answer the following two key questions:
- Do I have the required tools or resources to complete this project?
- Is there a high enough likelihood the artistic, environment and community outcomes will be achieved to make the project worth pursuing?
Though of lesser importance, I will also be seeking to answer the following questions:
- Are my assumptions and expectations realistic?
- What resources will I need to undertake the project?
- What are the potential challenges and opportunities I will need to address in order to make an informed decision
The Richmond River community
River Kinship is the proposed title of an umbrella artistic project to be undertaken in and around the Richmond River in Northern New South Wales Australia, traditionally known as Nyangbul Country and belonging to the indigenous custodians, the Bundjalung people.
This project is driven by a desire to understand the cultural topography of the land as well as the social.
What is the definition of a “community arts project”?
The broadest and most generalised definition used to describe art created beyond the studio that has seen a proliferation since the early 90s is the one found in NAVA’s Code of Practice for Visual Arts, Craft and Design:
‘Community engaged practice’ is a term used to describe a creative approach that embeds direct engagement and exchange between practitioners and communities within a project. There are many interchangeable terms for community engaged practice including community arts, community and cultural development and socially-engaged art (accessed 3 November 2025).
Influences and context
Theorists
There is no doubt that there has been much written in relation to the aesthetic quality and value of community-engaged arts practice so it is important to set out my position in relation to what I ultimately how I aspire this for this project to be received, both critically and by a broader public. I have reluctantly adopted the parameters set out by Claire Bishop in Artificial Hells where she, in turn, adopted Rancieres idea that good art “must negotiate the tension that (on the one hand) pushes art towards ‘life’ and that (on the other) separates aesthetic sensorially from other forms of sensible experience”.
This friction ideally produces the formation of elements ‘capable of speaking twice: from their readability and from their unreadability’. (Rancierre, p 67)
Secondly, Bishop adopted Ranciere’s idea of art “as an autonomous realm of experience in which there is no privileged medium” (p X). Although I will be working from a basic project plan, I envisage the medium for this project will be a constantly shifting idea, action, intervention, form of participation, as the feasibility study evolves. The discussion around participation with community members will, no doubt, evoke different responses that will result in the need to adapt the project plan. The feasibility study is, in essence the vehicle for the development of the mode of production for the medium in and of itself.
Artists
Artists that have an influence on my practice and the development of this project include: Alfredo Jaar, Lucy Orta, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Annika Eriksson, Temporary Services, Vic Muniz, Thomas Hirschhorn (in particular, Bataille Monument, 2002), Tania Bruguera, Sharon Hayes, Johanna Billing, Katerina Seda (note accents), Oda Projesi (in particular, FAIL #BETTER project by Lina Faller, Thomas Study, Marcel Mieth and Marian Burchardt, 2004. Two-week workshop about building structures in the city, in the Oda Projesi courtyard), Jeremy Deller, Megan Cope, Ali Yunis, Keg de Souza, Linda Tegg, Shooshi Sulaiman.
Ethical considerations
Cultural complexity
[Comment on my role as a settler artist engaging with the complexity of a site that has been taken care of for 60,000 years by the traditional owners of the land.]
History of the site
Authorial renunciation
See Bishop, p 22.
Moral judgement
As Ranciere has argued in his seminal text, Malaise dans l’esthe(*)tique where he attacked the ‘ethical turn’ in contemporary thought stating ‘politics and art today are increasingly submitted to moral judgements bearing on the validity and the consequences their principle’.(p 145, 2004).
Condescension – Hal Foster.
Reopening of wounds
Discuss Jeremy Deller, The Battle of Orgreave, 2001 – see Artificial Hells pp 30-37.
Importance of working closely with collaborators.
Bibliography
https://ozfish.org.au/projects/saving-our-saltmarsh-richmond-river
Community Engagement section in NAVA’s Code of Practice for Visual Arts, Craft and Design.
https://asana.com/resources/feasibility-study
Bishop, Claire (2012). Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. Verso Press.
Bourriaud, N. (1998/2002). Relational Aesthetics.
Jackson, S. (2011). Social Works; performing art, supporting publics. Routledge.
Kester, G. H. (2011). The One and The Many; contemporary collaborative art in a global context. Duke University Press.
Collie, M., Cope, M., Day, C., and Radliff, M. (2025). Earth Ethics: Art, Institutions and Regenerative Practices. Monash University Museum of Art.
Ndiritu, G. (2021-25). Being Together; A Manual For Living. Page Not Found.
Van Der Loo, Marjolein (Ed.) (2025). A Tree, A Reader on Arboreal Kinship. Onomatopee Projects.
Koskentola, K. and van der Loo, M. (2025). Enfleshed: Ecologies of Entities and Beings (2nd Edition). Ontomatopee Projects.
Helguera, P. (2011). Education for Socially Engaged Art: A Materials and Techniques Handbook. Jorge Pinto Books.
Thompson, N. (2011). Living As Form