Art in Other Places: Artists at Work in America's Community and Social Institutions

Based on reflections from a conference held at the University of California at Los Angeles in August 1986, this book recounts the histories of 22 institutional and community arts programmes across the United States that have pioneered the community arts field. It describes how art has used to address issues that affect the lives of young people, the elderly, prisoners, people with disabilities, hospital patients, and others. The book focusses on the role of artists, and their community-based partners, as agents of personal and community transformation.

Here is an excerpt from the introduction: "...the paths followed by these histories are dictated...by the people relating them...Some concentrate on early professional or educational influences. Others speak almost solely about how their artistic processes or techniques have evolved over the years. There is intimacy as well as distance - great detail and broad generalization. This is not an annotated dissertation or a how-to manual, and it will probably generate more questions than it has answers...This is a book about works in progress. The scripts are well developed and full, but they are still evolving."

These "scripts" consist in case studies of communication-based, USA-centred, community art programmes, divided by area of focus. A directory of programmes is also included.

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