Stories of community practice, artistic ambivalence, and emergent pedagogies

The reflections and questions discussed in the paper emerged from a teaching artist experience in community-art that led to the examination of the contrasting values between the disciplinary paradigms of social practices, community-based and participatory arts, and that of the contemporary art world aesthetics. As goals of art for social justice often contradict the perception of artistic merit based on aesthetic quality, working at the intersection of artistic creation and community development demands a shift in perspectives. The position demands going beyond one’s artistic ambivalences, to include participants in a reciprocal relationship, attentive to the fact that any goals of empowerment inherently conceal a power structure. Models of interaction borrowed from prefigurative pedagogies, pedagogies of contingencies inspire the elaboration of a pedagogy of presence that allows for the unfolding of a process anchored in integrity, quiet activism, and the heuristic purpose of art.Published versio