ABSTRACT
Much has been made recently of the “social turn” in contemporary art. As someone who comes to this discussion from the field of performance studies, this turn is perpetually intriguing. But what exactly does it mean? How do we know when we are in the presence of “social practice” in art? Is this turn in any way new? What histories, frameworks, and methods are most appropriate for understanding what social art works
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of “social practice” seems to lie at the heart of our conceptions of the field. As a term that combines aesthetics and politics, as a term for art events that are inter-relational, embodied, and durational, the notion of “social practice” might well be a synonym for the goals and methods that many hope to find in the discipline of experimental theatre and per -
It also gestures to the realm of the socio-political, recalling the activist and community-building ethic of socially engaged performance research.
