“E/merg­ing Publics? In­terur­ban Col­lab­o­ra­tion and Build­ing Con­nec­tion Across Dis­parate No­tions of Pub­lic Space” presented by Lowry

Symposium:

• ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art

• Public Art of the Sustainable City

• E/merg­ing Publics? In­terur­ban Col­lab­o­ra­tion and Build­ing Con­nec­tion Across Dis­parate No­tions of Pub­lic Space

• Glen Lowry

Venue(s):

• Sabanci Center, Istanbul, Turkey

• Panel: Public Art of the Sustainable City

  In­creas­ingly, artists and schol­ars seek (or are in­vited) to cre­ate di­a­logic works ca­pa­ble of cap­ti­vat­ing and ac­ti­vat­ing publics across dis­parate geo-po­lit­i­cal lo­ca­tions. How­ever, in as much as it de­pends on our abil­ity to trans­port/trans­late en­gage­ment strate­gies across bor­ders and be­tween cities, this type of work ne­ces­si­tates care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of un­der­ly­ing as­sump­tions about the cul­tural po­lit­i­cal func­tions of con­tem­po­rary pub­lic art. In the con­text of new urban spaces and emerg­ing publics, these in­terur­ban col­lab­o­ra­tions chal­lenge the pri­macy of Eu­ro­pean or North Amer­i­can mod­els. In an at­tempt to lo­cate key ques­tions about the global mo­bil­ity of pub­lic art and pub­lic art dis­courses, this paper draws on the ex­am­ple of Maraya, an on­go­ing in­ter­na­tional art pro­ject that strives to link urban sites in Van­cou­ver, Canada, and Dubai, UAE. It be­gins from the no­tion that Van­cou­ver and Dubai are or­ga­nized around very dif­fer­ent no­tions of pub­lic space, based on dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tions to a Eu­ro­pean bour­geois pub­lic sphere. From here, my paper will set out to de­scribe key is­sues in­volved in think­ing or work­ing through in­ter­na­tional col­lab­o­ra­tions, specif­i­cally around is­sues of global mo­bil­i­ties, in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary prac­tice, and bridg­ing publics.

• marayaprojects.com

Category:

• Panel