Socially engaged art resource

Book synopsis: An in-depth guide to the collaborative projects by a duo of groundbreaking artists, Lucy + Jorge Orta Pattern Book: An Introduction to Collaborative Practices identifies the artists' multilayered methods and the social, political and pedagogical impacts of their work over the last 20 years. Lucy + Jorge Orta have used art making as a tool to bring serious humanitarian issues to the forefront. Touching on themes as wide-ranging as community, social inclusion, dwelling, architecture, nomadism, mobility, sustainable development, ecology and recycling, the Ortas have used collaboration and education to produce beautiful objects and situations that look critically at pressing political and social matters. Lucy + Jorge Orta Pattern Book explores projects that the artists have co-produced with community groups in locations as diverse as Johannesburg, Melbourne and Nottingham. With commentary by esteemed writers, thinkers, critics and curators including Sally Tallant, Janna Graham, Sophie Hope and Chris Wainwright, the book is a uniquely comprehensive look at the principles of collaboration and pedagogy that characterise the work of these two pioneering practitioners. This volume also includes an interactive pattern element designed and compiled by Emma Gibson that encourages an ever-wider participation in the Nexus Architecture project initiated by the artists, and a resource index compiled by B+B Archive featuring relevant schools, gallery programmes, institutions and courses. Lucy + Jorge Orta Pattern Book is a vibrant account of a totally unique method of art making, facilitating a radically new way of understanding the role of art in the machinery of social policy