I live here! Reflections of a socially engaged artist in a small community

This chapter considers what it means to be a socially engaged artist in a small community including some of the ethical considerations that underpin my socially engaged art practice. My reflections are very particular to my local context, the Shetland Islands, and I write from the perspective of an incoming resident, where for nearly three decades I have occupied multiple roles: artist and visitor; teacher, incomer, researcher; participant in other people’s projects and sometimes consultant to visiting artists and researchers. I consider the experience of working in a small community where socially engaged artists are openly visible, and constantly scrutinised, carrying multiple identities into everything, sometimes raising questions about conflict of interest. Work evolves, or unfolds, with an ‘ongoingness’ that responds to the small community, with projects overlapping and interconnecting. Relationships draw on encounters in different contexts and even from different time periods. Power dynamics can be tangled, or deeply rooted, with attitudes and hierarchies based on impressions dating back numerous generations. Skills and qualities needed to work ethically in small places, and how these overlap with ethical engagement in other contexts, are explored.  Factors such as language, time, uncertainty, boundaries, values, collaboration and decision making, are discussed.