In this article we ask in what way can the notion of care, collectivizing and the collective become a primary part of contemporary art practice? And further, what types of art practices address these central tenets of democracy? We do this by reflecting on the political potential of care and its importance as a tool for achieving an equal society. Uniting the action of care and collectivity, we conclude that together these two undertakings represent a political force of commoning within the public sphere. Utilizing the writing of Beech, Hutchinson and Timberlake, who argue for collectivism over collaboration as a way towards societal change, we reflect upon the political implications for art when artists work collectively. We consider the practices and function of other art collectives examining their key purpose for acting collectively. We employ our previous practice as the Freee Art Collective, as well as our more recent work as the Partisan Social Club to consider in what ways our practice can be deemed collective.

Volunteerism is the New Jerusalem, according to the Lib-Con coalition in the UK. Cameron and Clegg's 'big society' describes a world in which we all participate in public life by running post offices, libraries, transport services and initiating and administrating new schools. They suggest that these acts of volunteerism will give us more 'people power' and more control over our own lives.

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The conceptual framing of artist activists as arts entrepreneurs is pivotal to this study’s analysis of artists’ political organizing during the overlapping moments of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Trump presidential era. However, artist activism as a form of arts entrepreneurship is underexplored in the arts entrepreneurship literature. To address this gap, I conduct a side-by-side comparison of key principles in the arts entrepreneurship and social movement literatures to establish a transdisciplinary theoretical baseline that supports my argument that artist activism is a vital form of arts entrepreneurship. I then analyze interviews with twenty-seven artist activists who cultivated and exercised actions for “changing the future” (Koppl & Minniti, 2008a, 17) during this period and apply my findings to further expand the taxonomy of arts entrepreneurship first developed by Chang and Wyszomirski (2015) beyond management process to vehicle for institutional change. In addition to connecting arts entrepreneurship to the social movement literature and conceptualizing artist activism as a form of arts entrepreneurship, I identify strategies and tactics employed by US artist activists in their creation of both economic and social value in the 2020-2022 period.

The forensic setting houses persons with offence convictions who are also in receipt of ongoing mental healthcare–a criminal justice system and healthcare meeting-point. Extant literature highlights how this context is laden with interpersonal and institutional difficulties unique to a secure context that must provide care and custody concurrently. Our central argument is that the intertwining and interdependent cultural and custodial elements of forensic healthcare environments are integral and influential to care, culture, and conduct within such institutions–including concerning misogynistic everyday talk and the continuum of men's violence against women therein. We argue that the institution is a continuation of contemporary social issues experienced within community life (e.g., misogyny), as the boundaries of such institutions are porous–polis values traverse physical brickwork. This paper analyses ethnographic data from two male wards that are situated within a UK inpatient forensic mental health hospital. Ethnographic fieldwork occurred over 300 hours–overtly participating in, exploring, and recording the daily life of the community. Five excerpts of ethnographic data are presented, which evidence the gendered ward environment and highlight a series of encounters pertaining to problematic social life, which are the upholding of heteronormative gender roles, hegemonic masculinity, and misogyny. These views are problematised within the sexual offending rehabilitative context by considering the clinical risk associated. Further, we argue that to only focus on the end of the continuum often viewed as most serious (e.g., rape) ignores a pervasive cultural landscape of the polis in wider community, beyond the institution, that facilitates the more commonly experienced end of the continuum related to misogynistic values, encounters, and talk. We evidence how social norms and habitualised gendered actions permeate the institution, which bring into question the rehabilitative efficacy of the hospital. This paper embraces a feminist lens to explore everyday social interactions and the embodied experience of the female ethnographer within a male-dominated forensic setting. We contribute to the literature by newly theorising the influences of hierarchical heterosexual gender roles, violent language in forensic settings, and misogynistic attitudes and practice, on the care for, and rehabilitation of, patients.