Spaces of vernacular creativity reconsidered

Edensor, Tim; Millington, Steve

doi:10.4324/9781315104607-3

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The methods open up avenues for a quiet politics and a more ‘gentle activism’ (Hawkins et al, 2015: 335). Therefore, although creativity is recognised as a contested concept, is semantically opaque and frequently politicised within cultural planning discourse (Gibson et al, 2012), this paper illustrates that grass roots or vernacular creativity (Edensor et al, 2009) is central to the emergence of fragile friendships among residents whose affective engagements with places ‘underground’ escape attention. The ‘underground’ arts space that is the focus of the paper is quite different from other community spaces that engage but also unintentionally segregate migrant newcomers and indigenous peoples – there are few opportunities for fleeting cross-cultural friendships.…”

Section: Darwinmentioning

confidence: 95%

Re-framing the creative city: Fragile friendships and affective art spaces in Darwin, Australia

Lobo

2017

Urban Studies

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Australia has one of the most urbanised and diverse populations in the world, but there is little research that explores fleeting friendships between marginalised/racialised ethnic minority and indigenous populations. In contrast to metropolitan cities in white settler societies that have been the focus of much research, this paper focuses on the small, tropical city of Darwin in Northern Australia. This is a city that is at the centre of public debates on indigenous wellbeing, migrant integration and asylum seeker policies, with social welfare programmes that provide little opportunities for hopeful encounters among indigenous peoples and ethnic minority newcomers in surface spaces. I argue, however, that 'grass root' forms of creativity in an 'underground' car park bring their affective worlds together through a shared passion for art. The paper draws on gentle methodologies including participatory visual methods to privilege non-Western ways of inhabiting place. Through a 'quiet politics' and affective engagement with spacetimes both proximate and distant, the paper shows that it is possible to invoke different futures and crystallise experimental publics in the diverse city. The paper responds to a call to push the boundaries of urban research on social difference through geographies of friendship that are yet to engage with multisensory bodies, emotion, affect and art.

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Section: Darwinmentioning

confidence: 95%

Re-framing the creative city: Fragile friendships and affective art spaces in Darwin, Australia

Lobo

2017

Urban Studies

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“…People are putting their own kind of take on it … different stones in different formations… and sometimes the bank that’s left there is completely cleared and then it goes back.The multiple fragments of stone and concrete that surround the Henge constitute potential building materials for ad hoc structures, and outside the circle, pictograms, slogans and names designed out of this excess material disappear and reappear. This ludic, vernacular creativity (Edensor and Millington, 2018) supplements more sustained artistic involvements.…”

Section: Multiple Creative Practices At Achill Henge: Play Performanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike other spaces in legal ‘grey areas’ which have been co-opted into place marketing strategies, such as Berlin’s wastelands or Copenhagen’s Freetown Christiania, for instance (Colomb, 2012; Ntounis and Kanellopoulou, 2017), Achill Henge has been ignored by local political and commercial interests, despite drawing visitors from further afield. It thus sidesteps neoliberal appropriations of creativity (Edensor and Millington, 2018). Its controversial origins and significance mean it has not been incorporated into Mayo’s official tourist product.…”

Section: Multiple Creative Practices At Achill Henge: Play Performanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Commemorating economic crisis at a liminal site: Memory, creativity and dissent at Achill Henge, Ireland

Edensor

Smith

2019

Environ Plan D

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This paper draws on a case study of Achill Henge, County Mayo, Ireland, to examine the interplay between economic crisis, rebel creativity and shifting geographies of commemoration. Built in 2011 in a remote part of the west of Ireland, Achill Henge is a highly contested monument. Unfinished and under perennial threat of demolition, the Stonehenge-like structure was originally conceived as a ‘tomb of the Celtic Tiger’, in reference to Ireland’s ill-fated economic ‘miracle’ of the 1990s and 2000s. This paper examines this economic context before adopting two perspectives. Firstly, drawing on critical ideas about commemoration, we identify how the Henge remembers economic and political failure, materialising a unique site of subaltern memory. Situating it within memorial landscapes in Ireland, we explore how it can serve to critically analyse practices of traditional and contemporary commemoration. Secondly, we examine how its unsanctioned liminality produces a valuable, exemplary site at which numerous unregulated, playful, performative and political practices can be carried out, away from mainstream convention and commercial banality.

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“…Everyday creativity appreciates that society has moved from a culture owned and created by a few (in this case professional eyebrow artists) to a culture created by everyone. Creativity has come to be recognized as more widely distributed and reductive as opposed to elitist (Edensor and Millington, 2018). In other words, one need not have a particularly creative personality (e.g.…”

Section: Everyday Creativitymentioning

confidence: 99%