Theorising arts-led collaboration as 'assemblage'

Coalition, context, alliance, network, and collaboration are terms that have become stock-in-trade currency in the language of contemporary art. For the visual arts, in particular, many things have changed: prevailing styles of art work and ways of working, as well as institutional and market contexts. Contemporary art work, especially of the kind pursued by C3West, increasingly relies on what Gemot Grabher refers to as 'temporary and episodic' patterns of collaboration. Multiple relationships between artists, galleries, curators, funding bodies, educational institutions, other artists, critics, writers and technical advisers have become integral to the very labour of the profession. Visual artists now also engage in numerous tasks beyond art itself. Proposal development, theorisation, research, writing and communication with audiences and other participants imply collaborative relationships on many levels and stages. This chapter focuses on the complex engagements that occur across the boundaries of everyday practice in arts-based collaboration. How are complex collaborative networks brought together? More specifically here, how might we theorise such engagements?