What is the political potential of evaluating social art practice?
Looking at the Greater London Council’s reporting of its community arts programme

For the last six months and over the next year and a half, FOTL (artists and 2013-14 OSE alumni Andrea Francke and Ross Jardine) have been developing an evaluation framework for Gasworks Participatory Artists’ Residency Programme – a programme that provides opportunities for artists and migrant communities in the local area to work together.

The starting point for the framework is the observation that current evaluation models of participatory art can unintentionally reproduce entrenched power structures between artist, public and institution. FOTL aims to develop a framework that stands as a counterpoint to current models. The artists want their framework to enable genuine ongoing accountability and self-reflexion; as well as allowing for a variety of definitions of success, damage and unintended consequences.

Join FOTL for a discussion based on documents related to the Greater London Council’s Arts and Recreation Committee, specifically its report assessing its Community Arts programme, written in response to the GLC’s abolition in 1986. We will use the report and additional material to collaboratively explore some of the themes in our research into evaluation.

FOTL (Future of the Left) is the collaborative artistic and research practice of Andrea Francke and Ross Jardine, which developed from a shared interest in administrative and policy-making structures, specifically their often overlooked but vital role within institutions.

Ross Jardine is an artist and works for the Labour Group on the Greater London Authority, where he is involved with researching and developing policy in London.

Andrea Francke is a Peruvian artist based in London. Her work uses pedagogical and social practice methods to collaboratively engage with issues around social infrastructures.