Anne HERTZOG , Geography, University of Cergy-Pontoise, CERGY, France

The Art of Occupying the City : Contestations and Resistance through Creative
Activism in an French Suburb

https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2014/webprogram/Paper49536.html

Saturday, July 19, 2014: 3:00 PM
Room: 313+314
Oral Presentation

Recent urban renewal policies in France have led to a reactivation of "urban activism"
rooted in the "urban struggle" of the early 1970s (Castells, 1973) and the rise of "new
social movements" (Touraine, 1978), while knowing deep changes in the light of new
concerns (Ion, 1997). Through the analysis of a local organization of inhabitants
promoting the use of art in the public space in a suburban town affected by urban
regeneration, we can question these renewed registers and the modalities of action
chosen by inhabitants who challenge and intend to participate actively in the
transformations of their material surrounding, in a context of changing decision-
making process in French urban planning. We will see how, through use of art in
urban activism, between performance and informality, it is the City given back to its
inhabitants which is staged and defined as a counter model to the contemporary
planned and imposed town. Through the collective production of a new urban
aesthetic, a new relationship with the city is suggested, based on renewed values
and sensitive approaches, as well as an alternative urban design and landscape.
We will also show how the creative act, as a collective process, appears more
important than the art piece itself, as it allows social relationships defined like a new
kind of urban togetherness. However, far from being inclusive, this "artivism"
(Lemoine et Ouardi, 2010) can also work like an entre soi, and thus, in a more
exclusive way, involve a spatial and social distinction process (in the bourdieusian
sense). This communication will, thus, insist on the ambivalence characterizing
collective action and belonging through use of art in urban mobilizations.