“I thought of Agota Kristof’s incredibly disturbing book The Notebook, but Slavoj Zizek’s afterword to the book troubles me and upsets me. Alternatively, I thought of Jeremy Deller’s monograph Joy in People which is fitting in the theme of People and Place. However, the populist right-wing undercurrent in the images of his work, though I am sure Deller is not intending at all, again worry me. I am aware that Deller is genuinely interested in giving a voice to the people who are unpresented in art. Nevertheless, it worries me in the context of the current surge of the populist right-wing movement. Grant Kester’s The One And The Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context provides a thorough analysis of participatory art practices especially in relation to place-making. And yet, Kester’s deployment of jargon is not approachable for larger audiences. Against this backdrop Living As Form provides a numerous examples of socially engaged art and some examples are relevant in our local situations. The essays by Shannon Jackson, Brian Holmes, Maria Lind contextualise the dynamic range of artworks in a current dynamics of mediatised and globally connected world in which distinctly localised questions and problems arise.”
— Atsuhinde Ito