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ARTISTS IN CONTEXT is a flexible organizational framework designed to assemble artists and other creative thinkers across disciplines to conceptualize new ways of representing and acting upon the critical issues of our time.  The Prospectus is the main project of Artists in Context, and is a curated, multimedia collection of works through which artists collaborate with creative thinkers from other fields to propose innovative ways they and others might intervene in major debates on global, national and local/regional scales. More information on the project can be found on the current Prospectus site. Artists in Context is a project of The Arts Company.

This website is an archive of previous AIC activities.

Click here to link to the current AIC website.

Books and Catalogues*

Antebi, Nicole; Colin Dickey; and Robert Herbst (eds). 2008. F
ailure! Experiments in Aesthetic and Social Practices. Los Angeles: Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press.
Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Becker, Carol. 1994. The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society and Social Responsibility. New York and London: Routledge.
Berry, Wendell. 1995. The Way of Ignorance: and Other Essays, Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard.
Beuys, Joseph. 1988. Ideas and Actions. New York: Hirschl & Adler Modern.
Bhagat, Lex and Lize Mogel (eds.). An Atlas of Radical Cartography. Los Angeles:
Journal of Aesthetics and Protest Press.
Borer, Alain. 1997. The Essential Joseph Beuys. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Burnham, Linda Frye and Steven Durland (eds.). 1998. The Citizen Artist: 20 Years in the Public Arena: An Anthology from High Performance Magazine 1978-98. Gardiner, NY: Critical Press.
Calame, Jon and Esther Charlesworth. 2009. Divided Cities: Beirut, Belfast, Jerusalem, Mostar and Nicosia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Cieri, Marie and Clare Peeps. 2000. Activists Speak Out: Reflections on the Pursuit of Change in America. New York and London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Cleveland, William. 2008. Art and Upheaval: Artists on the World's Frontlines. Oakland,CA: New Village Press.
Cohen-Cruz, Jan (ed.). 1998. Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology. London and New York: Routledge.
de Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Felshin, Nina (ed). 1994. But Is It Art?: The Spirit of Art as Activism. Seattle: Bay Press.
Ford, Simon. 2004. The Situationist International: A User's Guide. London: Black Dog Publishing.
Gablik, Suzi. 1991. The Reenchantment of Art, London: Thames & Hudson.
Gablik, Suzi. 1995. Conversations before the End of Time: Dialogues on Art, Life and Spiritual Renewal. London: Thames & Hudson.
Galenson, David W. 2007. Young Geniuses and Old Masters. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Recommended by Dava Newman)
Gold, Rich. 2007. The Plenitude: Creativity, Innovation, and Making Stuff. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. (Recommended by Dava Newman)
Gomez-Pena, Guillermo. 2005. Ethno-techno: Writings on Performance, Activism and Pedagogy. London and New York: Routledge.
Home, Stewart. 2001. The Assault on Culture – Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War. Oakland: AK Press.
Hyde, Lewis. 2008. Trickster Makes This World: How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture. Edinburgh: Canongate Books.
Kaprow, Allan and Jeff Kelley (eds.). 2003. Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lacy, Suzanne. 1995. Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art. Seattle: Bay Press.
Latour, Bruno and Peter Weibel (eds.). 2005. Making Things Public; Creating Atmospheres of Democracy. Cambridge, MA, and London, England: The MIT Press.
Lee, Pamela M. 2006. Chronophobia: On Time in the Art of the 1960s. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. (Recommended by Dava Newman)
Lewis, Helena. 1990. Dada Turns Red: The Politics of Surrealism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Lippard, Lucy. 1984. Get the Message? A Decade of Art for Social Change, New York: E.P. Dutton.
Lovelock, James. 2006. The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity. Santa Barbara: Allen Lane 2006
Macy, Joan. 2007. World as Lover, World as Self, rev. ed. Berkeley: Parallax Press.
Marcus, Greil. Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
Matilisky, Barbara, C. 1992. Fragile Ecologies: Contemporary Artists’ Interpretations and Solutions. New York: Rizzoli.
Quinn, Susan. 2008. Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times. New York: Walker and Company.
Sandel, Michael J. 2009. Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Schechner, Richard. 2002. Performance Studies: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge.
Solnit, Rebecca. 2005. Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People Power. Edinburgh: Canongate Books.
Thompson, Nato (ed.). 2008. A Guide to Democracy in America. CreativeTime Books.
Thompson, Nato and Gregory Sholette (eds.). 2006. The Interventionists: Users' Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. 
Weinberg, Bill and Peter Lamborn Wilson (eds.). 1999. Avant Gardening: Ecological Struggle in the City & the World. Brooklyn: Autonomedia.
Wright, Ronald. 2005. A Short History of Progress. Edinburgh: Canongate Books.

Book Chapters, Articles and Essays*

Cieri, Marie and Robbie McCauley. 2007. "Participatory Action Theatre: 'Creating a Source for Staging an Example.'"
Participatory Action Research Approaches and Methods: Connecting People, Participation and Place. Eds. S. Kindon, R. Pain, M. Kesby. London: Routledge, 141-149.
Kester, Grant.1999.Dialogical Aesthetics: A Critical Framework for Littoral Art.” Variant Supplement - Socially Engaged Practice Forum (9), 1-8.
Stip, David. 2006.Pentagon Says Global Warming Is a Critical National Security Issue: Report Claims Climate Could Change Radically, and Fast.” Fortune, January 26.

Films and Videos*

Pioneers in Art and Science: Gustav Metzger. (2004, dir. Ken McMullen).

*Lists in formation. We acknowledge In the Footnotes of Library Angels: A Bi[bli]ography of Insurrectionary Imagination as one of our sources for these lists.