Idea for July 2024: arte útil

I was introduced to this idea by the brilliant people at Tŷ Pawb in Wrexham - I was writing a case study about them for an exciting report for Art Fund. Tŷ Pawb are turning a gallery into a community space, which opens next month - one form of usefulness. And the whole place is a combination of art gallery and indoor market - another kind of usefulness. The Asociación de Arte Util says that the practice ‘draws on artistic thinking to imagine, create and implement tactics that change how we act in society’: yet another version of usefulness. Then an old client told me about Benjamin Britten’s idea that ‘our job is to be useful, and to the living’. All of which of course got me thinking. Can art and music really be useful? Isn’t the whole point that they exist on a different dimension from the utilitarian? Or actually do we need to rescue usefulness, and see it as a noble aim?