Artistic City-zenship: How artists perceive and practice political agency in their cities

Scratching the surface of urban change: Art collectives as public entrepreneurs

“…In general terms, the key aim of artists is often to fill a gap in the approach of policymakers to meeting social challenges. This is well-documented in the literature on art and social innovation (Coenen, 2023), critical urban artists (Kaddar et al, 2020), grassroots artists and political imagination (Zilberstein, 2019), and art activism (Murzyn-Kupisz and Działek, 2017). In our case, however, this phenomenon appears to be associated with the contradictions of a city that simultaneously attracts and rebuffs local residents and emerging artists.…”

“…Such endeavours have been termed as artivism (Lee and Han, 2020;Zebracki, 2020), and grassroots art organisations develop 'alliances and infrastructure to sustain their alternative meanings of urbanism that connected them to the broader neighbourhood and political economy' (Zilberstein, 2019(Zilberstein, : 1155. Kaddar et al (2020) have investigated the relationship between artists and urban politics and identified five types of urban artists based on their degree of civic participation, political contestation and efficacy: autonomous, social activists, political artists, political activists and high-status artists. Except for the first category, which accounted for only a small part of the sample in their study, the artists tended to perceive themselves as either socially or politically engaged and set their goals accordingly.…”

The joint contribution of grassroots artistic practices to the alternative and vital city. The case of Bologna and Venice (Italy)

“…A feature of both milieux was the strong emphasis on connections, hybridizations, and the will to cooperate with people who shared the same view, in a constant effort to produce a shared alternative ecosystem. The tensions emerged in Bologna and Venice can be found in other cities, such as Barcelona (Cohendet et al, 2011;Sánchez Belando, 2017), Seoul (Lee & Han, 2020), Hamburg, Hanover, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv (Kaddar et al, 2020).…”