Participatory Art and Public Spheres: Questioning the Ethical Turn and Transformative Dimension of the Arts

This contribution has an explorative purpose and aims to identify some key "semantics shifts" in order to provide an interpretive framework for the link between the socially and politically engaged artistic practices and the constitution of public sphere. I will examine how artistic practices can be interpreted in the perspective of the public spheres; which dimensions trace a terrain of collective actions capable of activating a public- political space. Analytical approaches to the concept of public sphere are many. Rather than reviewing them, in the first part of the presentation I will provide a framework for positioning the role of artistic practices in the constitution of the public sphere, bringing into dialogue different theoretical contributions ( Appadurai 2011; Arendt 2000; Bax, Gielen, Leven 2015; Amin 2008; Habermas 1981; Mouffe 2007, 2011; Rancière 2004, 2007, 2010), mainly around the "consensus- dissents polarisation". I will then interrogate critical issues emerging in the context of the ethical, social and participatory turn in the art field (Bishop 2011; Dews 2002). I will base this reflection on a number of studies (Gablik 1995; Lacy 1995; Kwon 2002; Kester 2004, 2005) and on the theory and practice of Theatre of Oppressed (TO) (Boal 1974) as a form of artistic and political intervention and as a process of political subjectivation (Santos 2016). In this contribution I will refer to TO praxis as a " heuristic device" in the exploration of key dimensions, namely: collaboration, empathy, responsibility and solidarity (Chouliaraky 2013) and the mediating role of the artists (Papastergiadis 2012). Example of practices based on TO and other participatory artistic practices promoted in the context of an EU- funded project in the field of performing arts will be also discussed in dialogue with this conceptual framework.