Acceso usuarios
Heather McLean
The recent flurry of research about arts-led regeneration initiatives illuminates howcontemporary arts festivals can become complicit in the production of urban inequality.But researchers rarely engage with detailed empirical examples that shed light on thecontradictory role that artists sometimes play within these spectacularized events.Similar research in performance studies connects the political limits and potential ofsocial practice arts — interventions that encourage artists and non-artists to co-producework — as civic boosters strive to stage cities in order to attract investment. Inthis article, I explore the case study of Streetscape: Living Space at Regent Park,aparticipatory artistic intervention programmed in a public housing neighbourhood thatis undergoing redevelopment in Toronto, Canada. Streetscape was part of the Luminatofestival, an elite booster coalition-led festival of ‘creativity’. I refer to these artsinterventions to demonstrate how artists engaging in social practice arts can becomecomplicit in naturalizing colonial gentrification processes at multiple scales. But I alsoreveal how artists can leverage heterogeneous arts-led regeneration strategies to makespace for ‘radical social praxis’ (Kwon, 2004), interventions that challenge hegemonicregimes. I conclude by interrogating the effectiveness of place-based efforts in unsettlingthe ‘creative city’.
