State-sponsored amateurism: cultural intermediation, participation and non‑professional production

Abstract

This chapter asks: what roles does participation as production have in cultural intermediation projects? How are individuals afforded agency in the making of cultural works and connected to the cultural ecology, between activities that are publicly funded, commercial and homemade? The chapter proceeds with an exploration of a contemporary injunction to be creative. It then deals with some of the prompts for thinking with the label of amateurism in relation to an understanding of participation and processes of intermediation. Drawing on indicative examples of activity in Balsall Heath is an exploration of a form of ‘sponsored amateurism’, a label describing every day creative work amongst non-professionals engendered by intermediaries and cultural policy. The chapter concludes with reflections on a field of production that falls outside of the obvious attention of policymakers and cultural intermediation objectives.