Ethical Matters: Useful Art

Does art have to be beautiful? What if it can be useful instead? For over a decade Professor John Byrne has been working with artists and curators to explore how art can resist, engage with or offer alternatives to the current conditions of global neoliberalism.

From Turner Prize-winning urban regeneration projects to bakeries, vegetable gardens and multi-use arts spaces – join John as he explore the ways in which Useful Art can bring people together, and offer an artistic toolkit for implementing radical change.

John Byrne is Professor of Useful Art at Liverpool John Moores University’s School of Art and Creative Industries. His work and research is defined by an interest in the relationship of art to use, use value and the kind of job or labour that the work of art has now become. His book, Useful Art: How Activist Artists Can Change the World, will be available to purchase at the event.