Cittadini, Benjamin (2014) Wasted space : performance, public space, urban renewal and identity. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

This research aligns performance and socially engaged art practices with the current process of urban renewal and the re-definition of identity in the inner-western Melbourne suburb of Footscray. It enacts a sustained public art project, sited in central Footscray, that utilises performance and socially engaged art practices to interrogate the social spaces of Footscray and develop a methodology for the implementation of art as part of the urban renewal process by engaging with the rhythmic iterations of everyday life in order to produce a fluid story of space. The analytical component of this research surveys the theoretical concepts of the production of space and the practice of everyday life through the key works of Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau. It interrogates the proliferation of performance and socially engaged art practices and their role in creating social spaces and contemporary identities through the work of Claire Bishop, Shannon Jackson, Nicholas Bourriaud and Alan Kaprow. The creative component of this research comprises a program of observational, participatory, and performance art actions in Footscray that are documented and contextualised by the work of artists Miranda July, Francis Alÿs, Hans Haacke and the work of the social research project Mass Observation.

Search Google Scholar

Repository staff login