In this talk, we asked in what way can the notion of care, collectivising and the collective become a primary part of contemporary art practice. And further, what types of art practices address these central tenets of democracy? Andy Hewitt and Mel Jordan do this by reflecting on the political potential of care and its importance as a tool for achieving an equal society. They employ their previous practice as the Freee Art Collective, as well as more recent work as the Partisan Social Club to consider in what ways their practice can be deemed collective.

Andrew Hewitt and Mel Jordan are former members of the Freee art collective. In 2017, they formed The Partisan Social Club, a provisional group including artists, designers and researchers all working with ideas about the relationship of art and collective politics. Hewitt and Jordan’s work has fore-fronted the application of public sphere theory to the practice of participatory art in order to investigate the relationship between art and its publics. Their work has been exhibited at the Istanbul Biennial and the Liverpool Biennial as well as BAK, Utrecht, Wysing Arts, Cambridge, Milton Keynes Gallery, SMART Project Space, Amsterdam, the ICA London, Centro Cultural, Montehermoso, Vitoria, Spain, the Collective Gallery Edinburgh, International Project Space, Birmingham and 1000000mph Gallery, London. Recent Partisan Social Club projects include: On being together: memberships, collectives and unions, 2018, Beaconsfield Art Gallery, London. Social Montage: Speak-Act-Print-Publish! Project and exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers, 2019. ‘The Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness’, Coventry Biennial, 2019.