Useful Art: John Byrne

Join us for an urgent and inspiring conversation with John Byrne as he explores the transformative power of his new book, Useful Art. In a world where creativity is often treated as a luxury or a commodity, Byrne asks a radical question: Does art have to be beautiful, or can it be useful instead?

Byrne reveals how "Useful Art" serves as a vital tool for artists and communities to reclaim their spaces and services from neoliberal pressures. From Turner Prize-winning urban regeneration to community bakeries and vegetable gardens, he showcases a collaborative playbook for direct action. This event highlights how inclusive, artist-led networks can preserve local knowledge and ignite real-world change. Discover how we can move beyond aesthetics to harness artistic endeavor for the collective good, fostering resilient communities and meaningful social impact.

'An indispensable book for understanding a practice that has moved as an undercurrent through art for nearly a century, challenging artists and critics to reconsider the enduring, urgent question: what is art for?' – Tania Bruguera, artist and activist

'With his stacks of convincing stories-as-arguments, John Byrne's Useful Art might be the closest attempt from the English-speaking world to date to capture the original understanding of seni (Indonesian for art), which is neither autonomous nor binary. Reading this book will convince you that we have not lost everything. Yet.' – Farid Rakun, ruangrupa

'Culture, resistance, community: Byrne has written an essential wayfinder that shows us how Useful Art can challenge the neoliberal occupation of our lives, drawing on global ideas to "dig where you stand" for change.' – Owen Griffiths, artist

John Byrne is Professor of Useful Art at Liverpool School of Art and Creative Industries. For over a decade he has been at the forefront of research into art and use value, working with world-renowned artists and curators to explore how art can resist, engage with or offer alternatives to the current conditions of global neoliberalism.

John will be interviewed by Emma Campbell (website) of the Array Collective. Emma is a member of the Turner Prize winning Array Collective and has exhibited internationally. She currently teaches photography at Ulster University where her recent PhD addressed photography as an activist tool for abortion rights and her Post-Doc explored Reproductive Citizenship via creative methods. Emma is also co-convenor of Alliance for Choice and a core campaigner since 2011.

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