The rehabilitation of 'community' art

I presented my research yesterday at PRECARIOUS TIMES workshop/symposium, which is par of the British Art Show 7 “IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET”, at Plymouth University and Plymouth College of Art, Plymouth, UK.

The presentation came at a good time, having submitted transfer docs I have been in the studio for a month actually making work.

My presentation was called 'Proposals for a Digital Public/Community Art Practice'. After the presentation I was speaking with Geof Cox, my 2nd supervisor, and he suggested dropping the words 'digital' and 'public' so:

'Proposals for a community art practice', 

which is quite scary, having always been critical of and bored by the the majority of community based work, to quote Patricia Phillips: '‘many communities installed public art as a confirmation of dominant ideologies, safe platitudes, spent recolections, or user friendly aesthetics" (Patricia, P., 'Public Constructions'. ArtForum). So can community art be rehabilitated via the developments of critical community art practice (or Socially Engaged Art) and digital means and methods, can it ?