What is the condition of the political within contemporary art? What does contemporary art say about politics? At what moment does contemporary art become politics/political? How is the political articulated in contemporary art? What are the real versus symbolic 'weight' and intended ambitions of participatory public art practices?

This Workshop event takes place in the context of a growing interest in notions of participation and social engagement within contemporary art practice. Increasing attention is being paid to practices which have emerged in the area of or post what has been termed New Genre Public Art* Numerous claims are made on behalf of this work in terms of being able to achieve certain outcomes, deliver on political issues such as developing community, dealing with social exclusion and so on. The current projects Publicness at the ICA and Ella Gibbs' Spare Time Jobcentre at Chisenhale Gallery provide apt examples of this practice.

The purpose of this workshop is to consider a range of contemporary art practices, which embrace a notion of politics and the political. In other words from the overtly communitarian art practice to the so called radically subversive. This approach we believe will guarantee a productive debate about site-specific and socially-engaged practices as part of a broader field of contemporary art practice.

The workshop will examine a number of related issues with artists, theorists and other invited guests. We hope that the discussion over these two days will evolve predominantly through examining concrete examples of socially-engaged and site-specific art practice in terms of its particular ambitions and actual outcomes.