Risk Related

It is often held that we live in a ‘risk society’, with ecological crisis, a pandemic, political instability, infrastructural vulnerability and economic volatility creating increasing danger and uncertainty. At both an individual and collective level, it is difficult to say what kind of world we might come to live in. Coming to grips with ‘risk’ is often understood to be a way of mitigating the worst effects of this state of affairs by by making the future knowable, manageable and even profitable (for some, at least). Artists, meanwhile, often mobilize risk in their work, with risky and chance-led processes used by those seeking to diminish or alter their agency in systems of production.

Risk, then, is variously to be avoided, managed, speculated upon, utilised or encouraged; and might be associated with danger or possibility (or both, sometimes simultaneously). Risk Related was a programme of challenging and playful artistic commissions and events exploring and utilizing risk, as well as the social, cultural, economic, political and ecological relations it draws from and gives rise to.

Produced in collaboration with David Bell for Radar, University of Loughborough.