Abstract

In this article, I will construct a critique of the pervasive notion of the artist as a singular individual, by exploring collaboration – in a specific form of relationship, the one between artist and non-artists participants – as a strategy to propose a different way of being and working in the art world. For this, I will use a project I initiated in 2011 as my main critical tool. Rastilho is a project that aimed at the collective creation of an artistic gesture. It engaged former employees – mostly women – of the textile industry, from the north of Portugal, in conversations about the socio-economical condition of workers in their region. The project resulted in the constitution of a collective, that called itself RASTILHO – after the initial project’s name – and which reclaimed a public building for the collective use of the community to produce cultural/educational/leisure events. I am trying to put forward through Rastilho a practice that goes beyond the paradigm of individual authorship.

How to Cite:

Cruz, D., (2015) “Co-agency in Collaborative Art Projects”, Dandelion: Postgraduate Arts Journal and Research Network 6(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/ddl.327