Positioning Artists Engaging in Community-based, Participatory Artistic Interventions in Singapore: Deriving a Position of Equilibrium through Constituency, Constraints and Communityship

Abstract

Positioning Artists Engaging in Community-based, Participatory Artistic Interventions in Singapore: Deriving a Position of Equilibrium through Constituency, Constraints and Communityship seeks to fill the gap arising from a lack of studies addressing the positioning of artists who engage in the social phenomenon of community-based, participatory artistic interventions in the current literature in the sociology of art. An ethnographic study conducted during COVID-19 from 2021 to 2022, this study uncovers the performative dimensions of positioning employed by artists who engage in community-based, participatory artistic interventions in Singapore. These are categorized into three key areas: Constituency, Constraints and Communityship. Constituency examines the driving forces and sense of agency behind artists’ choices in engaging with community-based, participatory art practices in deriving their positions either attributed to them by themselves or others. Constraints present tensions faced by artists, in particular with positioning agents in establishing their positions in the Singapore visual arts ecosystem. Finally, communityship explores the idea of the collective and its related networks and support structures in impacting the career trajectories of artists engaging in community-based participatory art in Singapore. With the articulation of the above three performative dimensions, this research sought to understand and explain the impact of these dimensions on artists’ career trajectories and career path dependencies, which is the likelihood of artists remaining in the arts. This study also seeks to generate new knowledge in the sociology of art and contribute to positioning theory. To this end, Equilibrium Positionings Theory presents a new paradigm for positioning theory and research. The theory begins with the assumption that the contemporary art world is built on positioning which draws attention to how interventions by artists attribute certain features to themselves and to others in relation to one another. However, this ethnographic study suggests that the three performative dimensions employed by artists engaged in community-based participatory art - constituency, constraints and communityship - are not independent of one another but are instead intersectional and cross-dimensional. Different positions of equilibrium, referring to states of balance and stability in artists’ careers, are derived at the intersections of the three performative dimensions of positioning. Different artists achieve different states of balance and stability in their careers, depending on the interaction of these three dimensions. I refer to these states of balance and stability as Equilibrium Positionings. The plotting of these equilibrium positionings is however dynamic and malleable, at times crossing over to spaces of other disciplines, resulting in the plotting of new positionings of equilibrium and formation of new trajectories. I have coined this phenomenon as Positioning Dynamics which refers to the mobility of artists’ positions based on the forces created by either a singular active thrust in their career trajectory or a more diffused force resulting from the multi-hyphenated identities, resultant networks and support which artists carry with them over the course of their careers. Therefore, artists’ career trajectories provide a backdrop for the articulation of the Positioning Dynamics underlying the achievement of Equilibrium Positionings. This study concludes with how Equilibrium Positionings Theory might be located within existing theories in the sociology of Art, in particular Becker’s Art World Theory and Bourdieu’s Field Theory. It ends by reinforcing the significance of the Equilibrium Positionings Theory in fostering inclusivity, thus allowing greater diversity of artistic interventions and more artists to thrive in Singapore.