European inventory of
societal values of culture

Claire Bishop - Participation

Bishop, C. (2006). Participation. London: Whitechapel; Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-85488-147-6 (Whitechapel), ISBN 0-262-52464-3 (The MIT Press)

In this landmark publication, a leading arts participation theorist, Claire Bishop, collects 26 texts on arts participation by well-known theoreticians, artists, and curators. The section on Theoretical frameworks includes prominent texts by authors such as Umberto Eco, Jacques Rancière, and Roland Barthes. Following that, in the section on Artists' writings, one can find the texts of the main protagonists of participatory arts, ranging from Guy Debord and Joseph Beuys to Rirkrit Tiravanija. Finally, the section on Critical and curatorial positions presents texts, written by the likes of Nicolas Bourriaud, that have contributed to making participatory art a welcomed form of art across the Western art world. The book also includes Bishop's instructive overview of the rising field of participatory arts. It is an important source for anyone interested in participatory arts as a practice but also as a manifestation of the changes in society, politics, and the arts of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Bishop “Participation”