In our society, cultural activity - or “the arts” - usually refers to the high culture of the elites and popular mass culture. Clarke Mackey argues for a third category that is as old as human society itself but seldom discussed: vernacular culture.

Vernacular culture comprises all those creative, non-instrumental activities that people engage in daily, activities that provide meaning in life: conversations between friends, social gatherings and rituals, play and participatory sports, informal storytelling, musical jam sessions, cooking and gardening, homemade architecture, and street festivals. In this lively and eclectic discussion, Mackey maintains that practising and celebrating such activities at the expense of passive, consumer culture have far-reaching benefits. Mackey further examines how literacy, imperialism, industrialization and electronic technologies have produced a culture of spectatorship, apathy and powerlessness.

This is a timely, considered, and provocative response to the popularity of amateur, participatory, and do-it-yourself culture available on the internet.

Clarke Mackey has taught in the Department of Film and Media at Queen’s University since 1988. Over the last forty years his feature films, television shows, and documentaries on social justice issues have won awards and garnered much critical praise. In the early 1980s, Mackey took a six-year sabbatical from his media career to work as a preschool teacher. It was during this time that he first developed his ideas about vernacular culture.

Clarke Mackey's profile page

“Mackey writes lucidly and makes a solid argument for avoiding a world where every act of expression comes with an owner's manual or an entrance fee.?” ?—Louise Fabiani, *Quill & Quire

”**Random Acts of Culture* is revolutionary. It looks at why art is the way it is and how it could-and maybe should-be different?.” —?Merilyn Simonds, Kingston Whig-Standard

“Wide-ranging in its search for cultural activities that resist consumerist commodification and includes … a riveting chapter on the rise of the modern notion of spectatorship, and a surprising and detailed appearance by folk singer Pete Seeger. …The book is filled with a never-ending labyrinth of fascinating information.?” —?Darren O’Donnell, Canadian Theatre Review

“This is a pioneering book. Contemporary societies lack, and badly need, an understanding of that part of culture that people make for themselves. Clarke Mackey brings this often invisible realm and its history into clear view. His book will help everyone who wants to think about the future of culture.?”

“David Cayley, producer of CBC Radio’s Ideas and author of The Rivers North of the Future: The Testament of Ivan Illich

“Clarke Mackey invites us to rediscover the artist we all carry within our adult, consumerist, alienated selves.?”

Gustavo Esteva, Zapatista advisor, negotiator, and visionary, and author of Grassroots Post-Modernism

“Clarke Mackey moves with panache from personal perspective into a bold interdisciplinary account of why art is the way it is in our present-day society, and how it could “- and why it should - “be otherwise.?”

Ruth Howard, Artistic Director, Jumblies Theatre, Toronto

“A timely firecracker. Given the so-far unwritten history of vernacular culture, this is the affirmation we have been waiting for. Yes to carnival. Yes to oral storytelling. Yes to tradition, outsider art, and participation. No to habitual consumerism. Yes to a cultural manifesto that bridges the fashionable gulf of frugality, austerity, and doom. Start singing and dancing now.?”

John Fox, Fellow, Creative and Performing Arts, Lancaster University (UK), and co-founder of Welfare State International