How We Hold: Rehearsals for Art and Social Change

Serpentine Education and Civic present a new publication, How We Hold: Rehearsals for Art and Social Change. The book is an invitation to arts educators, cultural workers, facilitators, organisers, and anyone who wants to use creative practice to work towards change.

Drawing directly from a decade of projects generated by artists and groups of people through Serpentine Education and Civic programmes, How We Hold gathers project notes, documentation, conversations, commissioned texts, and exercises. It delves into the timely questions: Where do we go when things fall apart, when home has been taken away, when the cracks appear? How do we find moments of rest, joy and pleasure within ongoing crisis? How do we organise? 

Designed to be used both within organisations and as a tool to critique them, How We Hold supports dissenting and oppositional conversations, and offers pragmatic challenges to neoliberal and colonial models of education and administration found in museums, arts organisations and other institutions today.

The book honours and amplifies the creativity and resistance of artists, organisers and the many people who have shaped these projects—from children in nursery schools to labour organisers, educators and carers, young people in academy schools and those navigating the immigration system. It celebrates those who find hope, possibility and life in the most difficult of circumstances.

How We Hold Contributors

Abdullah, ACT ESOL Research Group, agency for agency, Nelly Alfandari, Anti Raids Network, Barby Asante, Ain Bailey, Camille Barton, Khairani Barokka, Barking and Dagenham Youth Dance, Zahra Bei, Bedfellows, Beverley Bennett, Jay Bernard, Becontree Broadcasting Station, Birmingham Asylum and Refugee Association, Blak Outside, Sonia Boyce, Clare Butcher, Helen Cammock, Carlton Dene Care Home, Centre for Urban Pedagogy, Teresa Cisneros, Chloe Cooper, Collective Creativity, Cradle Community, Sam Curtis, Phoebe Davies, Kim Dhillon, English for Action, Patrick Farmer, FerArts, Andrea Francke, Christine Gasper, Gateway Academy, Joon-Lynn Goh, Green Shoes Arts, Jess Harrington, Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad, bell hooks, Adelita Husni Bey, Evan Ifekoya, Implicated Theatre, Interfaith Sanctuary Shelter, Invisible Spaces of Parenthood, Adam James, Rae Johnson, Jacob V Joyce, Raisa Kabir, Anton Kats, Jasleen Kaur, Farzana Khan, Suzanne Lacy, Latin American Workers Association, Taylor Le Melle, Gail Lewis, John Lockhart, London Asbestos Awareness Group, Paul Maheke, Kadeem Marshall-Oxley, Emma McGarry, Meenadchi, Micro Rainbow, Migrants Resource Centre, Jenny Moore, Nawi Collective, New Town Culture, no.w.here, Harold Offeh, Omikemi, Other Cinemas, Pause, PEARL, Rory Pilgrim, Albert Potrony, Portman Early Childhood Centre, Raju Rage, Nisha Ramayya, RESOLVE Collective, Frances Rifkin, Ilona Sagar, Azad Ashim Sharma, Beverley Skeggs, Skin Deep, Unite’s Hotel Workers union, Daniella Valz Gen, Nicolas Vass, Voices for Domestic Workers, Voices That Shake!, Jackie Wang, Adam J B Walker, Ed Webb-Ingall, Westminster Academy, Westmead Elderly Resource Centre, Becky Winstanley, Chris X, Abbas Zahedi, Rehana Zaman, and others.

How We Hold is freely available for download.

Click here to view documentation from the launch of How We Hold: Rehearsals for Art and Social Change, a day of discussions, activations and music.