A Stitch in Time at Edinburgh College of Art 1973. Photo: John Dugger Archive, England & Co.
The Participation Art Event 1973: Provocation or Prophecy?
Edinburgh College of Art, 13 February 2024
‘The Participation Art Event 1973: Provocation or Prophecy?’ was the title of Lynn MacRitchie‘s public lecture on 13 February at Edinburgh College of Art – the site of the Scottish avant-garde art happening she instigated as a student there more than half a century ago.
The intention of ‘The Participation Art Event’ (PAE) was to explore the idea of art being a collective action rather than an individual, studio-bound pursuit. So, over five days in December 1973, PAE took over ECA’s Sculpture Court, where a series of participatory actions took place. At the centre of this were David Medalla (1942-2020) and John Dugger (1948-2023).
PAE itself saw Medalla present A Stitch in Time, in which visitors sewed en masse either side of a long sheet of cotton. Medalla also produced his first iteration of Porcelain Wedding prior to a London show the following year. This event involved participants covering a naked couple in clay, effectively transforming them into statues while becoming ‘witnesses’ at their wedding. Dugger presented the self-explanatory People Weave a House!, which he had instigated in London the year before.
“I think it was both [provocation and prophecy],” recalls MacRitchie. “Within the institution, it was seen as a huge provocation, and for some people, what they saw was the provocation rather than the art. Coming back to PAE fifty years later, the things we were exploring and experimenting with have now become kind of the norm in the art world, which one could not have predicted at all. So at the time, PAE was a provocative event, but in terms of the changes that have worked their way through the art world since then, it was prophecy.”
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