Our Social Acupuncture wing houses ongoing work that induces encounters between strangers, blurs the line between art and life, and proves the generosity of the social sphere. We devise methods to increase our stock of social capital, bridging gaps between people who may not ordinarily have any reason to form relationships. Simultaneous to its impact in the community, it functions as a laboratory of sorts for the performance work of the company, inspiring new techniques and approaches, as can be seen in the development of Diplomatic Immunities.

In our Social Acupuncture work, we are exploring an aesthetic of civic engagement: the artistic use of the institutions of civil society - of community centres, schools, senior's centres, sports clubs, the media and public spaces. Civic engagement as an aesthetic uses the consensual participation of these institutions as material to create work that, seen from most angles, appears to be mostly not art, or even intervention, but that takes modest glances at simple power dynamics and, for a moment, provides a glimpse of other possibilities.

Go to Coach House Books to buy Social Acupuncture: A guide to suicide, performance and utopia, an essay and the text of A Suicide-Site Guide to the City by Darren O'Donnell.

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