In this video, Mikey Martins was director of Freedom Festival between 2015 and 2024, and is now director of Oerol festival. In this video, he takes a critical look at the way we consider co-creation with people who don’t visit conventional cultural venues, along with systematically contacting artists to find responses to social problems. He draws attention to the quality and meaning of these community relationships, and to the value of comparing international viewpoints, as people ultimately face the same societal issues whatever their geographical location. He also denounces the fact that the work of artists cannot be a band-aid to compensate for public disengagement.