The Ethics of Collaboration in Socially Engaging Art practices.

I attended a talk in Dublin yesterday. Liz Burns from the Monster Truck Gallery organised a talk on behalf of the Polish artist Artur Zmijewski. The artist did not attend himself but there were a panel of guest speaker to discuss his project Two Monuments that he worked in collaboration with Liz Burns and to bring forward a discussion on the ethics of collaboration in socially engaging art practices.

Among the panel were Dave Beech (Artist/Writer)  from Chelsea College of Art and Design, Dublin artist Jesse Jones, Dr Aine O'Brien (Director of the Forum on Migration and Communications) and Chaired by Liz Burns from Monster Truck Artists Studios  in Dublin.

Brought forward was discussions on collaboration, ethics, social and political art. Liz Burns suggested it was time to start rethinking arts claim in society and consider the social studio as a working methodology.

Collaboration and Participation was  a topic of conversation and  there was some debate as to their differentiation. It was said that maybe we should consider the collaboration as a specie of participation.

Collaboration    =    Ideology

Participation  =  Analysis

At what level one can value the level of participation of both the community of interest and the artist in the creation of any art project? I think it can be valued at what level you allow your self to participate and let that form organically. Participation can be gauged on ethics, which can be seen as a repository of ideology. It is easy to bring ethics into this discussion and the panel suggested that ethics and moral were merely the same thing. Ethical concerns occur on a daily basis from just being in the world together. I was under the opinions that ethics is a law that governs any human relationship, any communication or interaction as a whole but to me morals are more personal. 

Authorship was another topic of discussion. Authorship of the art piece. The art piece as a product. Jesse Jones stated that the will of participation must be evident for the authorship of the work, suggesting that the role of the artist as a cynical figure. I see the author as the producer and this will relate to all involved in the production of the work. If a artist instigated a project with a certain community of interest, they create a piece pf work and it is the artists role to document the collaborative processes of the group while creating the art piece. The artist edits the documentation and creates the art piece. This becomes the art piece. The artist is then judged on their documentation of the project from a context and not object based. While the art piece created by the community of interest becomes the object. The ethical concerns are created here!! The author as the producer verses the participants suggesting that there exists not enough authors and too many spectators!!