A resource for socially engaged and participatory art.

For years, I’ve found myself having the same kinds of conversations with students making socially engaged and participatory work. They know there are ethical questions at stake, but they are often much less sure how to think them through.

The standard ethical frame used in the social sciences—do no harm, be open and honest, get informed consent—can be a useful starting point but it doesn’t always fit art making. Art is often awkward. What if discomfort is part of the work? What if withholding information (one of the foundations of fiction) is central to what you are making? What if the ethical choice in one situation would be completely wrong in another?

I wanted a resource that could help artists take those questions seriously without pretending there was always a correct answer.

Ethics Without Rules grew out of that problem. Rather than offering a code of conduct, it uses case studies and questions to open up discussion around power, care, risk, money, representation, place, relationships, time, labour and what remains after a project ends.

The bilingual (English / Chinese) resource was developed and tested with students at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan as part of a Ministry of Education Teaching Practice Research Project, but it is intended for much wider use by artists, teachers, students and community practitioners.

You can work with the supplied case studies, bring your own, or use the questions to test a project while it is still being developed. It is also deliberately open to alteration: questions can be added, removed or rewritten to suit different contexts.

►Ethics Without Rules is free to download here.

I hope people will use it, argue with it and adapt it to their own needs.