Academy, Art and the Urban Question: Towards a More Equitable City

The conference poster, courtesy of 17, Instituto de Estudios Críticos

Academy, Art and the Urban Question: Towards a More Equitable City

Mel Jordan, Mahsa Alami Fariman, Ahmadreza Hakiminejad 

XXXVIII International Colloquium and 3rd Megacities Forum
Urban Realities: Produced City, Inhabited City
Location: Museo de Arte Popular, Mexico City, Mexico
Date: 20-25 January 2025

Synopsis
This panel is set to challenge the bureaucratic colonisation of the public sphere and privatisation of public spaces in the UK through the lens of art and urbanism. We believe that art and urban policy agendas in the UK cities turn towards hegemonic neoliberal governance and are often superficially labelled as inclusive and diverse as in practice, there are considerable gaps between state policy objectives and a) the commissioned artistic outcomes and b) grassroot urban interventions and strategies. Urban spaces are critical in our affirmation as they are means to protect a clear economic and political strategy of the state and the private sector. Together, we argue, they are often complicit in perpetuating the systems of oppression embedded in capitalist, hetero-patriarchal, and racist spatial structures. In this panel we take a closer look at the UK hegemonic artistic, cultural and urban policies in what Hewitt (2011) calls the ‘privatizing the public’ in art and culture sphere and what Scobar (2018) refers to as applied (market-driven) design in urbanisation.

But our discussion goes beyond this to also provide a counter lens through which ‘transition design, design for transitions, and design for social innovation’ (Scobar, 2018) are practiced through partnership among practitioners, activists and academics within and beyond the UK context. Through this section we will reflect on our ASC (ArtSpaceCity) workshops and public engagement events, conducted between 2021 and 2023, in order to show our endeavour and determination in developing non-Eurocentric practices and social engagements. Our focus is on the potentials that allow and enhance the coexistence of heterogeneous trajectories and narratives, while being always in a state of becoming (Massey, 2005). In order to contextualise our discussion, we will delve especially into one of our workshops entitled ‘Co-making Futures: How Do Universities and Cultural Organisations Create Equitable Cities?’. This workshop— held at the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry in July 2023— was formed as a critique of the approach undertaken for the redevelopment of the former IKEA building in Coventry hailed as the so-called City Centre Cultural Gateway, in which the Coventry University will “create a cultural hub” across two floors of the building, as part of which “the university’s state-of-the-art facilities will be open for public use” (quoted in Whitley, 2023); and also in the context of the launch of Coventry Culture Works, a new partnership between University of Warwick, Coventry University and Coventry City Council, formed to oversee the delivery of the city’s ten-year cultural strategy. As part of this panel, we also aim to present a selected screening of the works of some of our ASC workshop’s participants including ‘The Preston Model: Growth without Growth (Julian Manley); as well as ‘Art, Neighbourhood and Social Action’ by Ana Laura López de la Torre from the Faculty of Arts at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo, Uruguay, whose pedagogical practice operates through the framework of critical ‘extensión’.

The conference programme can be seen here. 
The event was livestreamed on the 17 Institute YouTube channel.