Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Paul Clements BA MA PhD

Paul Clements is a lecturer in arts and cultural policy. He has spent many years working with excluded communities and formerly taught in Adult Education. More recently he has lectured in Higher Education for the Open University, Birkbeck College and Londonmet University covering cultural theory and policy as well as popular culture and community arts. His career has been varied and has included a range of roles and experiences: youth worker, teacher of disturbed prisoners, government interviewer, prison librarian, community musician, visual artist, astrologer and moderator/evaluator for arts programmes. He still works as a visual artist specialising in commissions for healthcare environments and private consumption.

Research interests

These relate to cultural policy and theory, particularly the relationship between social and cultural inclusion/exclusion, the instrumental use of the arts and how cultural value is determined, also the relationship between individual artists and society more generally. Besides community arts forms and practices his interests also cover popular culture and its articulation with ‘high’ culture. This includes a more general analysis of leisure space and the global impact of mass culture.

Selected publications

‘The rehabilitative role of arts education in prison: accommodation or enlightenment?’ (2004).
International Journal of Art and Design Education, 23.2, ISSN 1476-8062.

‘The excluded terms of culture: cultural inclusion as spectacle’, (2006).
Journal for Cultural Research, 10.4, ISSN 1479-7585.

‘The cultural aspects of social exclusion and the stereotyping of adolescent males’, (2007).
Youth & Policy, 94, ISSN 0262-9798.

‘The evaluation of community arts projects and the problems with social impact methodology’, (2007).
International Journal of Art and Design Education, 26.3, ISSN 1476-8062.

‘Public art: radical, functional or democratic methodologies?’, (2008).
Journal of Visual Arts Practice, 7.1, ISSN 1470-2029.

‘Cultural legitimacy or “outsider hip”? Representational ambiguity and the significance of Steely Dan’, (2009).
Leisure Studies, 28.2, ISSN 0261-4367.

The Arts Culture and Exclusion. A critical examination of the arts and extent to which they legitimate social difference or socially integrate the excluded, (2009) Saarbrucken, GER: VDM-Verlag. ISBN 987-3-639-18769-4