As part of the ‘Coniston Institute Library‘ project, Grizedale Arts have kindly included my recent article ‘Back to the Future: Grizedale Arts, Use Value and the Work of Art’. Grizedale Arts offered me the opportunity to extend and develop a previous article ‘Use Value and the Little Society’ (which first appeared in Afteral, Issue 30, Summer 2012). This has allowed me to develop some ideas around the kind of work, or labour, that the ‘work of art’ has become and, in doing so, to begin thinking through some of Rancière’s proposals on labour and language (which I have continued to pick up and develop in my paper for the Hildesheim ‘The Uses of Art: History’ Conference).

From January 23^rd – 25^th 2015 the ‘Uses of Art’ AGM took place at Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Representatives from all ‘L’Internationale’ and associated partners in the ‘Uses of Art’ project met up to discuss progress and to begin developing more concrete plans for the remainder of the ‘Uses of Art’ project.

On 13^th December 2014 ‘Negotiating Institutions’, the second Mediation/Useful Art Education Seminar of the ‘Uses of Art Project’ took place at Tate Liverpool. The key purpose of the seminar was to open up lines of inquiry and discussion – around the perceived need to radically redefine institutions in the management and defence of the common good – by inviting representatives of the L’Internationale Group, Liverpool John Moores University and Tate Liverpool to begin debating the conditions of such an inquiry. Convened by Janna Graham and Elliot Perkins, Negotiating Institutions hoped to be the first of a series of such debates that will lead to the collaborative development and publication of an operational ‘Blueprint for Change’ amongst L’Internationale members and Associate Partners collaborating on The Uses of Art project.

Participant Groups at the ‘Negotiating Institutions’ Seminar Included:

Liverpool John Moores University, Tate Liverpool, Tate Collective and the emerging Family Collective, The Quad Collective, Diásporas críticas PEI, MACBA, , Meet me@MHKA ,Neteorit, Moderna galerija (MG+MSUM), Somateca, Museo Reina Sofía, Van Abbemuseum and MIMA

On December and ‘The Uses of Art: History’ took place at the University of Hildesheim as part of ‘The Uses of Art’ project.

–The uses of art–Flyer_WEB

Paul’s Kimchi Co. Van Abbemuseum

On November 22^nd 2014 ‘Paul’s Kimichi Co.’ (a subsidiary of Static’s ongoing ‘Noodle Bar’) project opened at the Van Abbemuseum as part of the show ‘Confessions of the Imperfect: 1848 – 1989 – today‘ (curated by Steven ten Thije, Alistair Hudson)

It will be interesting to see how Paul’s Kimchi Co. as a hybrid artwork, proposition and active business model manages to survive and/or test the current frameworks for exhibition and display that the Uses of Art project is attempting to re-define.