Useful Art

Name: Useful Art
Brand: Manchester University Press
Price: 185.75 AUD
Availability: PreOrder

How Activist Artists Can Change the World

By: John Byrne

Write A Review

Hardcover | 29 April 2026

At a Glance

Format
Hardcover

Dimensions(cm)
20.3 x 12.7 x 1.8

Hardcover

RRP $194.99

$185.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $46.44 with

or

Available: 29th April 2026

Preorder. Will ship when available.

This smart, provocative book reveals how Useful Art is changing the world.

Does art have to be beautiful? What if it can be useful instead? In this cutting-edge book, John Byrne shows how the concept of 'Useful Art' is helping artists and communities fight back against the neoliberal takeover of our spaces, services and lives.

Byrne demonstrates that networks of artist-led activism and community-based direct action can provide a collaborative playbook of impactful and inclusive alternatives. From Turner Prize-winning urban regeneration projects to bakeries, vegetable gardens and multi-use arts spaces, Useful Art has enormous potential for bringing people together, recovering and preserving local skills and knowledge and reclaiming artistic endeavour for real-world good.

Exploring an international selection of projects, exhibitions and activism, this important new work champions the shift from aesthetics to use value, challenging traditional ways of seeing the world symbolically through art. Reaching beyond the financial logic of the art world, Byrne shows how Useful Art can offer an artistic toolkit for implementing radical change.

Shipping

	Standard Shipping	Express Shipping
Metro postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Regional postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95
Rural postcodes:	$9.99	$14.95

Orders over $79.00 qualify for free shipping.

How to return your order

At Booktopia, we offer hassle-free returns in accordance with our returns policy. If you wish to return an item, please get in touch with Booktopia Customer Care.

Additional postage charges may be applicable.