Continuing my series on Community Arts Practice as framed by the Four As: Access, Agency (Participation), Authorship and Active Ownership. This is part 3 - Authorship - Finding Voice
If Agency is participation with power, then Authorship is what happens when that power begins to speak.
The dictionary definition is plain enough. Authorship is the act of originating something. An author is the creator, the one who brings a work into being. Straightforward enough.
In community arts practice, authorship is more fragile and more profound than that definition suggests. It is not simply about who made the work. It is about whether someone has been able to shape meaning from their own experience, rather than having meaning shaped for them. It is the moment when expression comes from within, not as a response to a prompt, but as a claim.
Authorship is where participation stops being activity and starts becoming testimony. It's that key pivot where agency is at work.
Over the years, I have seen many forms of participation that never quite reach this point. People attend regularly. They take part. They enjoy the sessions. They follow the process. The work can be good, sometimes really good. But the creative power can remain elsewhere. The content, the direction, the final form can still largely be decided in advance and elsewhere, by someone else.
This is not failure because participation can often offer connection, confidence and diversion. It can be fun. But it may not quite yet be authorship.
Authorship begins when something shifts. It can happen when a participant stops asking or doing what is expected - the next move as it were, and when they start to make that move themselves and assert what matters to them instead. Often this happens quietly. A poem that refuses the suggested theme. A visual choice that disrupts the particular design the facilitator had in mind. Even a refusal to explain something. Sometimes a decision to remain silent.
These moments are easy to miss. They rarely announce themselves. But they are decisive.
I have seen authorship emerge when a young person insists on writing about anger rather than hope, even when hope would have been more comfortable for everyone else. I have seen it when a group rejects a polished version of their work because it no longer feels like theirs. I have seen it in mural projects when participants reshape symbols and messages to better reflect their lived experience. I have seen it in many settings where the most important act of authorship was choosing not to share at all.
Authorship is not about confidence. It is about permission. Permission given by the space, the facilitator and the process itself.
This is why authorship does not automatically follow agency. Agency may be present. People may be deciding, shaping and influencing aspects of the work. But authorship requires something further. It requires the space to find yourself in the work, to see your own experience as valid material, and to risk expressing it.
And authorship can be misunderstood as a form of authority. The two are of course related, but they are not the same.
Authority suggests power. It implies influence, legitimacy, even permission. In many contexts, authority is assumed to flow from someone’s position, from their qualifications, from their institutional standing or from some recognised form of expertise. In community arts, however, authority operates differently. It's not about being in charge, or giving orders. It doesn’t rely on enforcement. And it can’t be imposed without risking undermining the very conditions in which that fragile authorship might emerge. It needs balance, skill, patience.
In practice, authority in community arts is fluid. It is relational rather than absolute. It exists in the dynamic between participants, their facilitators and the artwork. It is granted, not claimed. An artist facilitator may hold authority in terms of skill, experience or responsibility, but that authority only really functions if it is exercised with integrity, sensitivity and restraint. The moment it becomes directive rather than enabling, the chances for the emergence of authorship start to immediately recede.
In my view, it is one of the quiet tensions that sits at the heart of community arts work. Someone has to hold the space. Someone has to take responsibility for safety, for pacing, for the shape of the process. That responsibility carries a form of authority, but it is an authority that holds so many other concerns, practical and aesthetic - who’s in the room, how are they doing, how long is to run in the workshop, how has the artwork shifted because of that last edit, will this new narrative continue? That someone, balancing all the forces, ideas and questions is of course the community artist - a uniquely socially skilled and patient breed of artist that sees enabling and facilitating as the principle elements of their authority . And when they are nurturing authorship, integrity matters, protecting the participants' right to choose, matters. And allowing that to make a difference really matters.
So protection, in particular, complicates the picture. In trauma informed and expressive practice, authority may be exercised not to direct expression but to limit it. To slow things down. To say not yet, or not here, or not in that way. This is not closing down on subjects , and definitely not censoring them. It is about pace and care.
What emerges, then, is a different understanding of authority. Not as control, but as stewardship. Not as deciding what is said, but as ensuring that people can decide for themselves whether, how and when to speak. And making sure all are heard.
Authorship grows in that space. Like the gentle nurturing of gardens, time and pacing are key elements. Real growth, that reaches a certain stage and then moves on, needs that supportive time. In a hurried world, where funding is precious and needs so overwhelming, having the chance to take that time is very precious indeed. Short-form programmes often only get to that rhythm and pace where authorship is emerging when all too often, the budget is exhausted, the project is coming to a close, the time is up. That’s why leaving skills is so important. This is not a criticism of short-form work, which can be so valuable and incredibly necessary. But it is a recognition of its limits. Authorship, particularly where people are reclaiming voice or confidence, often needs more time than our systems allow.
That's where leaving skills comes in. Leaving skills is about consciously transferring agency. Ensuring that others have the means and hopefully the confidence and the authority to continue the work in their own way…to adapt it, to question it. To take it somewhere else.
This is why, within CAP’s CEMENT programme, we deliberately seek out mentees from within the local group or organisation itself. The intention is not simply to deliver a project, but to seed future possibility. To ensure that when an artist leaves, something remains that is not dependent on their presence. That may seem so obvious. The club, the association, the group retains the means to continue growing until another opportunity arises. And as I have said so many times over the years to each new cohort , this is not rocket science but a good process built on good practice will always yield a good outcome. By seeking mentees from within the group itself, the intention is not just to extend activity, but offer that opportunity for further authorship.
When skills are left behind…authorship remains alive and the creativity is capable of being reshaped and reimagined.
That, perhaps, is the quiet ambition of community arts practice at its best. Not to hold authority indefinitely, but to pass it on with care. Not to author the work of others, but to help create the conditions in which people can continue for themselves, building that confidence and that resourcefulness.
And that authorship can grow when authority is visible enough to provide safety, but transparent enough not to dominate. When participants sense that someone is holding the process with seriousness and care, not deciding what works and what doesn't. Carefully holding space, where power is present, in a supporting role of trust.
This may be why authorship so often appears tentatively. Trust is difficult to achieve…never mind in workshop environments where participants may be stepping into an experience like this for the very first time. And in that environment, small acts might emerge. They have to be noticed. The half sentence. The change of direction, colour, tone. The shift of emphasis. These may be signals that the space is working.
In community arts, authority that seeks recognition will often eclipse authorship. Authority that seeks to support it, will quietly disappear into the background, doing its work without demanding too much attention. The best facilitation is often felt rather than seen. The authority is there, but it is not the point.
And whilst credit can rightfully be given to the generous and supportive community arts facilitators - all those artists who gently and quietly champion an artwork with their participating groups and turn up, positive and resourceful, week after week - they seek to credit that authorship within their participants.
Community artists are amazing, generous and dedicated. Community artists tend not to be too showy, seeking the spotlight and insisting on the credit. Community artists know that authorship remains open ended with those they’re working with. And the meaning being authored cannot be fully anticipated or predicted either. It grows, it's organic, it's transformative, it's at human scale. And because of all that and as often as not, the outcomes which matter most may not be the ones originally envisaged. This might unfortunately confuse a funder or a commissioning organisation, but it's perfectly understood by the community artist.
So again, authorship is something more fragile and more demanding. It asks those who hold power to know when to loosen their grip just enough to protect without directing and to enable without dictating.
That is not an easy balance. But when it is struck, something rare happens. People do not simply take part. They speak. And when they speak from within their own experience, authorship begins to do its work. And the community artist has done theirs too. Brilliantly.
When that happens, participation deepens. Agency finds expression. And authorship becomes something people recognise as their own. And I said in earlier blogs, there is risk because there are consequences for people. That risk should never be underestimated.
For many who are taking part in projects across the country, across the world, their circumstances can be challenging. People arrive carrying life. Fatigue. Trauma. Self doubt. Long or short histories of being unheard, corrected, ignored, mocked, shunned. For some, expression feels unsafe. For many others, it may feel totally unnecessary. In such circumstances authorship cannot be assumed. It must be sensitively invited and then carefully nurtured. Even when it does appear, it will remain vulnerable. A well meaning celebration might undo it. A rushed suggestion could flatten it. Authorship grows when it is noticed, not declared.
This is where reflective practice has been essential in CAP’s work over the years. Through years of observation, discussion and documentation, including in Between Ourselves, our guide to inter-community practice with input from a range of community artists including the redoubtable Dr Shelley Tracey, we learned to see creativity as partial, subjective and continually evolving. We learned that meaning is not delivered. It is negotiated. And that authorship sits at the centre of that negotiation.
Partial, because no creative act ever tells the whole story. It captures a moment, a perspective, a truth that is firmly located and incomplete. That incompleteness is not a weakness; that is the opportunity.
Subjective, because meaning is always shaped by lived experience. Community arts does not seek a single authoritative voice (says me, writing a blog!) . It tries to create space for many voices to sit alongside one another, sometimes in harmony, sometimes in tension, always connected or as we stress , relational.
Continually evolving, because creativity does not end when the workshop does, or when the artwork is unveiled. Meanings shift, confidence ebbs and flows. People return to ideas later with new understanding. Experince has changed them. Life! Authorship is not a fixed moment or a point of arrival. It is a condition that can deepen over time.
And as creativity is not fixed, then neither is authorship. The role of the artist facilitator is not to secure a final version, but to support a process that may remain open and alive to exploration. That may seem an unduly abstract notion, but it resides as a central aspect of all art-making. To return to the piece, to re-read it after years, to see it again, to discover more, something that was missed, unnoticed.
As our practice work increasingly crossed over with expressive arts and trauma informed practice, the underlining of the importance of authorship has become more central and all the more crucial. Trauma disrupts narrative. It fragments agency. Creative work can help rebuild coherence, but only when the person retains control over what is expressed, how it is expressed and whether it is expressed at all. Expressive arts practice recognises that meaning does not always arrive through words or indeed all at once. It might surface through colour, movement, rhythm, sound or gesture. Sometimes it appears indirectly, symbolically, or only in part. Again, it is in the observational, the noticing, the moment.
Trauma informed practice reminds us that choice is essential. Authorship, in this sense, is not simply expressive. It is protective and restorative. Here authorship holds a healing power. It allows people to reclaim some authorship over their own story where creativity can become a place of re-found dignity and self recognition and re-activation. The risks are there too. Postive, negative, It supports choice. It allows people to step forward, pause or step back without losing control of the process. That is why process counts for so much. My shorthand of such gentle and care-woven facilitation doesn't do it justice. For Carole Kane, CAP's resident expert practitioner, the learning is decades long and fathoms deep.
However, this work is not arts therapy but its therpeutic value is clear, It is about art as a humane practice. It is community art too. One that respects the complexity of people’s lives and understands that their voice, when it returns, often does so very quietly. Small steps. Heart beats.
This brings us back to the central responsibility of community arts practice. Not to speak for others, but to hold conditions in which people can speak for themselves. Not to rush expression, but to allow it to arrive in its own time. And when that authority is exercised as stewardship, when skills are shared and power is loosened rather than tightened, authorship can take root. And when it does, participation deepens, agency converts to expression, and people begin to recognise creativity not as something delivered to them, but as something that belongs to them.
Without authorship, engagement remains participative.
With authorship, creativity becomes meaningful.
If Access builds the conditions and Agency animates them, then Authorship is the moment participants begin to tell us something that truly comes from within. It is where community arts becomes more than engagement and starts to become self determination, self activation. It is where the participants become the artist.
And this is where community arts does its work.
The arts matter.
