artWORK: Art, Labour and Activism (Protest, Media and Culture) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1786601893 ISBN 13: 9781786601896

Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

artWork: Art, Labour and Activism brings together a variety of perspectives on contemporary cultural production and activism in order to interrogate how the concepts of art, labour and activism intersect in practices for social change. What can we learn about contemporary art and politics by looking at the intersections between art, labour and activism? What theoretical tools can help us arrive at a deeper understanding of these intersections?

In order to address these questions, this collection explores the role of art as activism, the use of social media and technology in creative production and organising, the politics of artmaking, the commodification of culture and the possibility of a creative commons, and the work of artist activists as educators. In addition to offering a variety of new perspectives from researchers and practitioners, it proposes new paths towards interdisciplinary research in this field that combine sociological, anthropological, philosophical and art theory perspectives. It will be of interest to students and scholars interested in creative labour, social movements and political arts practice.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Paula Serafini is a Research Associate at CAMEo Research Institute for Cultural and Media Economies, University of Leicester.

Jessica Holtaway is a PhD candidate in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Alberto Cossu is Assistant Professor in media and communication within the School of Media, Communication and Sociology at the University of Leicester. He is a sociologist, researching the intersection between digital media and activism, qualitative and digital methods, collaborative and digital economies.

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artWORK

Art, Labour and Activism

By Paula Serafini, Jessica Holtaway, Alberto Cossu

Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.

Copyright © 2018 Paula Serafini, Jessica Holtaway and Alberto Cossu
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78660-189-6

Contents

List of Figures, vii, 
About the Authors, ix, 
Preface, xiii, 
Introduction Paula Serafini, Alberto Cossu and Jessica Holtaway, 1, 
1 Reimaging, Reimagining or Reimagineering: Rebranding Ulster Sheelagh Colclough and Sarah Feinstein, 25, 
2 Art, Activism and Addressing Sexual Assault in the UK: A Case Study Winnie M. Li, 45, 
3 Macao before and beyond Social Media: The Creation of the Unexpected as a Mobilisation Logic Alberto Cossu and Maria Francesca Murru, 65, 
4 The Political Value of Techno-Future Emanuele Braga, 87, 
5 Changing the Narrative: Highlighting Workers' Rights in Environmental Art Activism Paula Serafini, 105, 
6 Working Dancers: Contemporary Dance Activism in Argentina Konstantina Bousmpoura and Julia Martinez Heimann, 127, 
7 Making Art Relevant in the Aftermath of the Egyptian Uprising Rounwah Adly Riyadh Bseiso, 147, 
8 Collective Art-Making to Agitate for Social Change: In and between Theatre, Live Art, Community Art and Protest Camps Mel Evans, 167, 
9 Embracing Failure, Educating Hope: Some Arts Activist Educators' Concerns in Their Work for Social Justice Jane Trowell, 189, 
10 In Case of Emergency Make Art: Exploring the (Non)function of Art in Response to Humanitarian Disasters Jessica Holtaway, 209, 
11 Post-Autonomous Art and Common People in Barcelona Roger Sansi, 225, 
Conclusion Jessica Holtaway, Alberto Cossu and Paula Serafini, 237, 
Acknowledgements, 249, 
Index, 251, 

CHAPTER 1

Reimaging, Reimagining or Reimagineering

Rebranding Ulster

Sheelagh Colclough and Sarah Feinstein

Since the nineteenth century, culture has increasingly been regarded as a resource, which has accelerated in the post-industrial context as a means to revitalise economically and socially neglected urban spaces (Punter, 2010; Yudice, 2003). Concurrently, increasing civic participation through cultural engagement has become a priority in guiding policy rhetoric in Western Europe for the past thirty years (Bianchini and Parkinson, 1993; Matarasso 1997, 1998). This discursive coalescing has often manifested in a praxis of culture-led regeneration, a marriage of festivalisation and urban reanimation, underpinned by the weighty rhetoric of tourism and foreign investment whilst precariously balanced alongside audience access, inclusion, empowerment and expansion (Sassatelli, 2011; Waitt, 2008). A contingent impact of these efforts is often inscribing a reconceptualisation in the public sphere; the city and its diverse (or divergent) cultures are presented to highlight their existing assets (i.e. reimaged) or their potential utopian benefits (i.e. reimagined). Moreover, the supposed default state of a positive outcome from civic participation is entirely dependent on the culture onto which it is transposed as it must contend with broader contradictions embedded and embodied within that culture, both economic and social (Clark and Carreira da Silva, 2014).

This raises the question of how agency is negotiated among the divergent social and governmental actors and particularly how various agendas are implemented and resisted by arts practitioners themselves. It also raises the issue of what aspects of participatory democracy are constructed and evoked in these manifestations of culture. Additionally, in a post-conflict urban context, there is the issue of how these dynamics affect the development and performance of reimaging, reimagining or reimagineering culture.

The contemporary politics of space in Northern Ireland is in many ways defined by what has been colloquially termed the Troubles. Most often framed as a sectarian or ethno-nationalist conflict that started with the Battle of the Bogside in Derry/Londonderry in 1969 and ended with the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998, the Troubles can equally be explained as a colonial conflict between British army forces, Northern Ireland state forces (predominantly Protestant), Loyalist paramilitaries (Unionist and predominantly working-class Protestant) and Republican paramilitaries (Irish Nationalist and predominantly working-class Catholic). During this time period, over 1,900 people were interned without trial, 3,600 people were killed, over 10,000 were imprisoned and 40,000 were injured (McKittrick and McVea, 2002). Aside from the militarisation of daily life in the form of checkpoints, barricades and watchtowers, public space became highly regulated and everyday movement patterns highly segregated. Needless to say, foreign investment and tourism were deeply impacted during the Troubles as well. The public culture that developed during this period was as complicated as the political culture it often reflected.

This chapter examines the cultural 'renaissance' of Belfast through the lens of creative practitioners, considering in particular the tensions between the aims and aspirations of local government, traditional indigenous groups and arts professionals. We will explore these dynamics first with a discussion of the arts policy framework developed post-Good Friday Agreement and then through an examination of the transformation of public space as interrogated through the work of artist Sheelagh Colclough. We will then turn towards public culture and the historic and symbolic role of its manifestation to unpack issues of class, collective memory and urban space as embodied by a shared or invented culture in the contemporary urban arts festival Culture Night Belfast. We situate this analysis through the myriad conundrums of the contrasting landscape of traditional community cultural forms and the emergent expressions of contemporary Ulster, asking what function does the labour of the arts serve, in both its production and its reception, to reflect the potential and limits of urban life.

REIMAGING AND REIMAGINING PUBLIC SPACE

In the rush to rebrand the historically troublesome terrain of Ulster with the economic and social benefits of a liberal peace, agencies of governance, such as the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI) and other statutory paymasters of the public purse, have attempted to depoliticise the most exigent and inevitably least affluent areas in a number of public art programmes. This has primarily focused on attempts to reconfigure and recast public art forms such as 'gable end' murals away from militaristic sectarian expressions of urban life (e.g. balaclava-wearing combatants wielding machine guns) towards 'more "positive" depictions of the history and contemporary condition of Northern Ireland' (Hill and White, 2012, 72). This is part of a broader agenda to address longstanding social and cultural divisions through reconfiguring and realigning their public expressions to create a 'shared' society, as seen in policies such as the Northern Ireland Executive Office's A Shared Future – Policy and Strategic Framework for Good Relations in Northern Ireland (2005) and Together: Building a United Community Strategy (2013). The overlapping of some of the stated aims of these policies and their implementation through the work of such agencies as the Community Relations Council and ACNI, particularly those evoking the benefit of increasing the 'peace dividend' from tourism and regeneration investment for example,...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rowman & Littlefield International
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1786601893
• ISBN 13: 9781786601896
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 274
• Herausgeber: Serafini Paula
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland