When art and politics collide

When Susan Kelly launched her project, What is to be Done? in 2002 (with Stephen Morton), she cannot have realised its far-reaching implications. "

It takes on its own life," she says. "It's an uncategorisable beast that keeps growing and moving."

It began life in the Lenin Museum in Finland and quotes the rhetorical title of his book published 100 years earlier. Modelled on Alexander Rodchenko's Reading Room for Workers from the Paris Exhibition in 1925, the installation poses a question. In the light of the triumph of global capitalism, what possibilities for social change exist?

"If all resistance to globalisation is coded as subversive, even criminal, as if there is no outside to this governing consensus, then there is no way to imagine an alternative," Kelly explains. "We thought the museum might become a rhetorical space, an appropriate site to address these questions."

An outline of the project and the question were sent to numerous organisations, artists, politicians, philosophers and others. Reading groups and discussions were organised. The installation travelled to the Krasnoyarsk Museum Centre in Siberia, ACC Weimar, CAC Vilnius and after Dublin will go on to the Prague Biennial.

Well over 500 responses have been generated so far. Many prominent theorists and writers including, Michael Hardt, Alain Badiou, Nicholas Brown and Imre Szeman and, closer to home, Nell McCafferty, took the time to give considered responses. "You could say there was nothing in it for them, just their own interest and the chance to contribute to the discussion," says Kelly.

She herself is remarkably upbeat about the prospects for change. In particular, she is optimistic about the convergence of artists and political activists. "In terms of interventions, artists have a grasp of certain things, such as timing, and the nature of events, that is useful."

For artists, involvement in practical movements means "their relationship to the political isn't framed in terms of representation." There are, she says "a huge number of artists involved in direct action, particularly in Italy and Spain". Coming up with viable alternative systems is central. "Rather than speaking always from a position of opposition, you must deal creatively with systems and structures. Nothing changes if the structures stay the same."