'Every human being is an artist, a freedom being, called to participate in transforming and reshaping the conditions, thinking and structures that shape and condition our lives' Joseph Beuys
Social Sculpture refers to a conception of art, framed in the 1970s by Beuys, as an interdiscplinary and participatory process in which thought, speech and discussion are core 'materials'. With this perception, all human beings are seen as 'artists' responsible for the shaping of a democratic, sustainable social order. Social Sculpture lifts the aesthetic from its confines within a specific sphere or media, relocating it within a collective, imaginative work-space in which we can see, re-think and reshape our lives in tune with our creative potential.
The Social Sculpture Research Unit is based within the multidisciplinary School of Art, Publishing and Music at Oxford Brookes University.