Grassroots Day 1, Panel 1: Operable Infrastructures

This series of online events, Grassroots: Artmaking and Political Struggle, explored relationships between art, activism and political organising in Britain during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Across six panels over three days in spring 2021, speakers took a number of different approaches to thinking about how art works and visual culture both interrelate with, and have acted as, catalysts for social change. Papers ranged from considerations of how artists have created alternative infrastructures, intervened in state organisations, worked together collaboratively, engaged with labour and activist struggles, as well as established channels of production, circulation and distribution. Using feminist, decolonial and queer theoretical approaches, the speakers address how intersections between art making and political struggle in Britain during these decades transformed culture in ways that continue to resonate with the contemporary moment.