Public art, affect, and radical negativity: the wall of daydreaming and man’s inhumanity to man

Bruce, Caitlin Frances

doi:10.1057/s41286-017-0023-0

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Besides these assumed 'positive' effects, however, public art can also induce 'negative' feelings such as sadness, anger, (re)traumatization, helplessness, fear, shame. Hence, public art has the power to (re)activate struggles against racial inequality, colonialism, and oppressive consequences of neoliberalism Beetham S (2016;Bruce 2017;Frank and Ristic 2020). Yet, instrumental understandings of public art often fail to consider and navigate the many subtle or not-so-subtle disagreements about belonging, diversity, and discrimination in public space erupting during placemaking (Courage et al, 2021;Summers et al, 2019).…”

Section: Pushing Public Art Beyond Consensusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ghostly murals: Tracing the politics of public art in Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley

Landau

2023

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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The article unpacks the multiple political implications of commissioned murals in contested urban space. It examines public artwork in Hogan’s Alley, a historically Black neighborhood in Vancouver, BC, situated on the unceded Indigenous territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Coast Salish Nations. Drawing from ethnographic field research and semi-structured interviews with local artists, policymakers and community activists, I read the mural Remember Hogan’s Alleny (2019), covering the sidewall of a subsidized housing project, as a contested public space. In this conflictual space, multiple pasts appear, disappear and reappear, oscillating between the celebration of Black culture, food and entertainment and the systematic displacement of Black residents and businesses. By contrasting diverging rationales, expectations and dreams regarding murals’ contributions to memory-making and cultural reconciliation, I trace where and how conflicts about public art inscribe themselves into the urban cultural fabric. The article intervenes into the predominantly ‘positive’ discussion of sanctioned public art to develop a more conflict-attuned understanding of artworks placed in the public realm. It deploys a framework of hauntology to discuss the appearance of ghosts invited into the public realm via official art commissions. These ghosts, becoming visible on urban walls via acts of placemaking, conjure memories of spatial displacement and racial discrimination, as well as stories of community care and healing. In sum, the article argues that the analytic of ghosts assists to foster an understanding of public art as always-already conflictual, thus inviting to stay with conflicts of belonging and memory, rather than to suppress them or shy away. By reflecting on what public art does politically – unpacking diverse narratives of the past that continue to mark present racial inequalities – the article contributes to sketching a conflict-oriented understanding of public space that is needed in cities wounded by racism and displacement.

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Section: Pushing Public Art Beyond Consensusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ghostly murals: Tracing the politics of public art in Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley

Landau

2023

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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“…Within polysemic texts, affects, and negative affects in particular, are not always contextually relevant. As Bruce (2017) explains, “affects are not the same intensity across time, rather, they become more or less intense when such forms are salient nodes of expression” (p. 227). So why is SCUM important now?…”

Section: Scum Manifestomentioning

confidence: 99%

Negative Affect,SCUM, and the Politics of Possibility

Rowe

2019

Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies

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Negativity has been widely framed through Edelman’s “no future” orientation. While being productive, this orientation forecloses the potential negativity to foster coalitional alliances. Building off previous works about Valerie Solanas, I turn toward an investigation of the negative affective traces of her SCUM Manifesto to create paths of meaning-making beyond Edelman’s accounting. First, I examine how Solanas uses negative affect in her work. Second, I build from contemporary re-framings of negativity to imagine a possible reparative reading of SCUM. I argue that through her use of lived experience—specifically her narratives of violence, SCUM challenges the reader’s engagement with negativity. Within SCUM, there is a potential path of meaning-making through Solanas’ invocation of her own lived experience.

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Crossing Borders, Building Solidarity: Affective Labor in Shaping Coalitional Murals

Bruce

Homan

2018

Women's Studies in Communication

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Public art, affect, and radical negativity: the wall of daydreaming and man’s inhumanity to man

Cited by 5 publications

References 25 publications

Ghostly murals: Tracing the politics of public art in Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley

Ghostly murals: Tracing the politics of public art in Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley

Negative Affect,SCUM, and the Politics of Possibility

Crossing Borders, Building Solidarity: Affective Labor in Shaping Coalitional Murals

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