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This article explores the themes of neoliberalism, DIY culture, and the use of urban space in contemporary music and art. It discusses the shift from government intervention to market focus in the late 1970s/early 1980s, leading to the financialization of art and a focus on commercial viability. DIY culture emerged as a response, allowing for avant-garde expression and a broad-based approach to aesthetics. After the 2008 financial crash, DIY approaches became more prevalent due to decreased state funding. The article suggests alternative systems, such as basic income provision and cooperative structures, to sustain creativity. It also discusses the challenges faced by experimental music in urban spaces, including gentrification and funding cuts, and the importance of sustainability and alternative funding methods. The collection of papers covers various topics related to DIY culture and the challenges of sustaining radical venues. The overall message is that the arts can provide creative solutions and valuable experiences, particularly in times of crisis. [Extracted from the article]

Yu's given name is actually Zhuowei Yu, but most people in the mineral community know her as Safaa Yu. This article presents the colored-pencil artwork of Safaa Yu of Littleton, Colorado. So finally 2020 comes, and for a while I had some time to challenge myself a little by using colored pencils (Prismacolor brand).... As I [progress in my art], I really like to work with them and hopefully will explore more with colored pencils in the future. [Extracted from the article]

This paper focuses on Pictures for Schools, an art patronage scheme established in postwar Britain by the artist and educationalist Nan Youngman (1906–1995) to sell affordable works of art to educational establishments. Highlighting the use of works of art as a pedagogical tool, Pictures for Schools is contextualised within a wider programme of visual education, which encouraged citizens to be critical observers of the places and objects which surrounded them everyday in postwar Britain. The paper explores the ways in which artworks offered children a critical education across two types of educational spaces, the classroom and the art gallery. Using material from Youngman's archives, it visits a series of educational spaces where, in the decade leading up to the Second World War, and influenced by the educationalists Marion Richardson and Henry Morris, Youngman established the the value of the active, participatory form of art education she later promoted through Pictures for Schools. The paper then explores the ways in which Pictures for Schools worked to develop children's skills as critical observers. At the first Pictures for Schools exhibition, held in 1947 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, children voted for their favourite exhibit. At later exhibitions, held annually until 1969, children were given questionnaires which encouraged them to look closely at the artworks. This paper argues that in doing this, Pictures for Schools aimed to develop the critical capacities of future citizens who were asked to play an active part in postwar reconstruction and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rock art is internationally recognised as a tangible connection to cultures past, whose conservation, and management programmes should be developed accordingly. When these heritage places are located within living cultural landscapes and are part of the continuing culture of First Nations people as they are in Australia, there is a fundamental requirement for programmes to be owned and implemented by the relevant communities. However, giving primacy to the voices of those with cultural authority and agency does not always amplify these efforts. To address this challenge, Traditional Owners came together, supported by a land management agency and researchers, to stage a rock art forum for Indigenous Australians in early 2023. This ground-breaking initiative is significant, because the first manual on conserving and managing rock art that gives primacy to the worldviews of Australia's First Peoples will be an output from the forum. Past Australian publications om this subject have been authored by non-Indigenous scholars and practitioners who considered only an international framework for conserving and managing rock art as a cultural treasure. This paper considers discussions from the forum and the developing manual as shared stories of resilience to manage, protect and celebrate rock art through Indigenous-led initiatives to inform the present and prepare us for future advances in the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores grassroots community activist art archives and their ability to disseminate and preserve digital protest art in the period surrounding the Belarusian 2020 presidential election. This paper focuses on the cultural aspects of these digital archives and argues that they have become a recent source for describing, defining and communicating Belarusian culture in ways that have challenged the norms of political power and the centrality of the archives of state institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a background of the rates at which educators, teaching artists, college students, retirees, parents, and the public attend arts programs in their schools and communities. The researcher circulated a 19-question online survey to measure the rates of attendance to visual and performing arts events, such as music, dance, arts community workshops, concerts, and festivals across Florida during the 2018–2019 academic year. The total sample size was 619 adults over 18 years of age. This paper applies a quantitative methodology to examine the respondents' dispositions of the arts in education and communities. The questionnaire requested that the respondents rank the importance of benefits of the arts in schools and share their attendance at school and community arts events. Findings from the study show that the respondents agreed on the importance of integrating arts in education, and that they possess the ability to advance a community's understanding of arts integration. Tangible results of arts attendance in schools and communities are presented, which could help arts school-community leaders in discussing ways to develop, promote, and cultivate resilient arts environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the various appearances of theater in the writings of L. S. Vygotsky. Starting with an overview of his early and still little explored production of theatrical criticism, we observe how theater gradually entered the field of psychology and came to be analyzed as a psychological problem. The analysis of this topic reveals an important shift in Vygotskian thought, i.e., a turn from objective to concrete psychology. With respect to Vygotsky's aesthetic stance, the paper provides a commentary about the relations between art and society, an underlying topic for the cultural-historical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, the public sector is interested in incorporating the arts into community development and service delivery. At the same time, scholars recognise the benefits of artists as co-creators in collaboration with government and nonprofits to solve public sector and societal issues. Despite growing attentiveness, gaps remain in the organizing structures, implementation, outcomes, and value of arts-based residencies in the governmental context. This paper builds upon existing knowledge of artists as co-creators to develop the potentiality of artists-in-residence with government. We undertake a conceptual analysis of literature in order to position artists as co-creators, advance nonprofit organizations as essential contributors and capacity builders, and provide a multi-actor model to build understanding and application. Ultimately, this research aims to advance understanding, impact, and practical adoption of successful artist-in-residence models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the thick of austerity, small arts communities are tested to the brink. The Arts in the North of England had been hit with staggered funding cuts, almost halving resources available from arts funders, arts organisations and the councils. In 2013, the largest DIY space in Newcastle was forced to move, closing for 2 years whilst Morden Tower, a building rich in artistic heritage, fell in to such disrepair it was forced to close. A hole was left. The Old Police House, a small DIY rehearsal space for a DJ project in Gateshead, was just that. An old police house without heating or funding that, in response to community needs, became a make-shift venue and home to several young artists and projects. Seven years on with two venue moves, two changes of Prime Minister, the threat of a super-council looming over 'Newcastle-Gateshead' and competing programmers, what impact does DIY art have? How has the local artistic community changed? Do equity and equality still exist in a climate of prescriptive narratives from Arts Funders, tick-box feedback forms and tokenistic funding? This paper proposes to explore the challenges of running an urban experimental community arts venue within this cultural context, drawing on the authors' personal experiences as an active participant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that graffiti can provide a form of socio-political commentary at the local level, and is a valuable, yet often overlooked, resource for scholars and policymakers in conflict-affected societies. Graffiti, in its many forms, can provide rich insight into societies, cultures, social issues, trends, political discourse, and spatial and territorial identities and claims. Thus, this, paper suggests that graffiti is a valuable source of knowledge in societies undergoing social and political transformation, to hear the voices of those often left out from the official discourses. Despite advances in the field of arts and international relations and the focus on the local and the everyday, peace and conflict scholarship and policy still lack systematic engagement with arts-based contributions and how to read them. The paper attempts to address this gap by outlining four core dimensions to consider when attempting to interpret and decode graffiti: the spatial, temporal, political economic and representative dimensions. This can also be viewed as an inquiry into the where, when, who and what. These four elements make up an analytical guide and enable scholars to better understand graffiti, and its political meaning and messaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A knowledge exchange programme exploring the role of art in relation to the planning context of the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, this paper explores the role of artistic knowledge in making landscape. During 2013, 25 artistic workshops were developed in collaboration with residents and planning officials, resulting in an exhibition of works produced. From a pragmatist perspective this paper draws on ethnographic accounts of the realisation of the exhibition to reveal artistic knowledge exchange as 'relational knowing'. The contribution of the paper is to recommend we account for artistic work as an ingredient of landscape planning. Although specifically drawing on fieldwork in Holy Island the experiential nature of this article makes a novel contribution across the field of rural planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Locative media art has been a popular topic to study, yet the focus tends to be on examining the artworks themselves, which have challenged us to think about the complex interrelations of space, place and time in novel ways. In this paper we offer a different view of locative media art by examining the community practices that can emerge through the production of this work. By highlighting how the social media platform, WhatsApp, facilitated communication and arts practice during a recent summer school on the theme of locative media, we demonstrate how cultures of enthusiasm can emerge from the adjacent digital spaces of locative media art. Our reflections highlight the ways that enthusiasm for locative media art and towards other participants was produced through WhatsApp spaces, through both enthusiastic language practices and atmospheres of enthusiasm. Ultimately, we aim to reveal that locative media is not only a technology that is used to shape our relationship to space, place and time, but that it is also a technology which encourages a set of community driven practices. In doing so we contribute to the literature on locative media art by giving attention to the communities of practice that form around it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses South Africa's Covid relief plan for its creative sector—the Presidential Employment Stimulus Plan (PESP)—as a locus for understanding the evolution of state arts sponsorship since the country's first free elections in 1994. It begins with an historical discussion outlining the evolution of various philosophies of national arts sector caretaking. Particular attention is drawn to the philosophical shift from democratic aspirations during the transition from apartheid in the early 1990s to the sector's steady integration into a broader neoliberal development strategy leading up to the present. National policy papers and development programs from the last two decades demonstrate the steady entrenchment of an economistic approach to the arts, decoupled from principles argued for during the transition to democracy such as education, national cohesion, or cultural representation. Structural dynamics governing the creative sector are crossed by the political prerogatives of artists who rely on state arts funding. To explain the tension between government care regimes for creative and cultural industries intersect with historically situated philosophies of how the arts intervene in communities facing crisis, we end our discussion through an analysis of a project funded by the PESP: i-Yeza, the Covid-19 Awareness Roadshow. Pivoting from macro-level discussion of arts policy to ethnographic analysis of this specific project's conception and reception demonstrates how community consciousness diverges from neoliberalism's instrumental logic. By linking the legacy of socially critical township theatre to Covid awareness and vaccination, i-Yeza performs a politics of care premised on a vision of national moral redemption despite state decay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Decolonised Approach in Intercultural Communication and Creative Methods in Practice-based Research i (Lulkowska), explores filmmaking as an intercultural practice that aims to re-represent indigenous cultures through participatory approaches to filmmaking. Keywords: Creative; practice; research; reach; impact; significance EN Creative practice research reach impact significance 95 99 5 07/05/22 20220701 NES 220701 The journey of this special issue has been a complex one as it began with a proposal to the MeCSSA Practice Network for an IRL symposium at Solent University in Southampton. [Extracted from the article]

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2020 has been marked by disruption on a global scale due to a range of compounding crises including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Many community arts responses to the pandemic originated from individuals rather than by means of concerted or sustained sectoral responses. This paper uses reflections from Ireland, Australia, and Mexico to discuss the precariousness and vulnerability of the community arts sector and the artists and educators within it at this profoundly difficult time. We reflect upon some of the artistic and educational innovations and experimentations that have come about. We simultaneously examine the work of artists and arts organizations on a paradigmatic level by reflecting upon the role we play in perhaps involuntarily sustaining inequalities despite articulating a desire for change in the work that we do. We argue for the community arts sector to draw upon its imagination and bravery to reflect, assume responsibility, and recast the world into what we want it to be, rather than rebuilding the old, broken one in an attempt to return to what is perceived to be normal. Finally, in turning to arts education policy, we interrogate the barriers and enablers of change in the arts in a post-COVID world, discussing the influencing policy factors of sectoral weaknesses; individual resourcefulness and resilience; the desire for revolution; and the importance of love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Independent foundations deliver grants for the welfare of communities. The founder can be an artist and the artist, as philanthropist, is a very recent topic and issue in social sciences, whose approaches usually mean the artist either as a starving or a star. Their foundations can be both operating and grant-making and relationship marketing can shape community engagement, both as regards fundraising in order to increase endowments and as regards grant-making thanks to multiple sponsors and financing mechanisms. Effective communication is crucial for relationship marketing and essential for helping foundations to understand their audiences. In addition to the website, communication of these foundations can include digital communication strategies and social media, that allow real-time communication among many actors. The aim of this paper concerns American artist-endowed foundations, managing with arts or community issues with different performances and communication. The methodology includes the analysis of mission statements, websites and 990 Forms, and a cluster analysis of 2016's accounting data. Thanks to the cluster analysis, economic performances, fundraising and fund-giving are highlighted and a concentration ratio indicates the degree of involvement either in specific arts (visual, performing, etc.) and creativity or in community welfare and other issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on classroom examples to discuss the integration of arts-informed teaching practices. Keeping in mind the increased awareness of the potential contributions of arts-informed practices to social work education and practice, the paper presents concrete examples of how such approaches could be applied in a graduate anti-oppression course. Through activities that relied on drawing and performance, students were engaged in critical reflection on knowledge, social work education and practice. Discussion of three classroom examples includes a description of the intended learning objectives, student reactions and feedback, as well as instructor learnings. The paper argues that graduate education undertaken on the principles of questioning knowledge could contribute to a critical deconstruction and reconstruction of social work practice and teaching, and arts-informed approaches could offer a contribution in this regard. Throughout the paper, the links to anti-oppression and social justice oriented approaches to social work are emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper sheds light on a neglected urban process in our heavily racialized and polarized contemporary societies: the slow emergence of an urban post-racial generation through artistic collaboration that is both locally rooted and transnationally connected. On the one hand, race and racism clearly still matter at the social and political levels. But, on the other hand, a part of urban youth transcends ethnic, racial, gender, class and religious boundaries in their daily lives. Used to living together whatever their assigned identity, they challenge, more or less consciously, mainstream racism and ethnicism through an active and intense collaboration in assorted artistic projects in various disciplines (music, dance, theatre, etc.). The paper, based on qualitative empirical data collected in two Belgian cities (Brussels and Liège), will document the existence of this “post-racial” generation and underline the necessity of studying it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of books received by the journal for the month of September 2007, including "Jewish Art in America: An Introduction," by Matthew Baigell, "The Politics of Urban Beauty: New York and Its Art Commission," by Michele H. Bogart, and "The Dinner Party: From Creation to Preservation," by Judy Chicago.

This position paper explores how community art education students applied an a-r-tographic disposition as artists, researchers, and teachers to investigate the pedagogic potential of public art in their evolving practice. By actively engaging body-object-space, students reviewed their presumptions about art education and what constitutes curriculum through the introduction of walking as a mode of inquiry, shifting focus from the studio classroom to public spaces in community. Mapping the a-r-tographic impulse required careful interrogation of the encounter, and this process was informed by more-than-human discourses. For community art education students, the opportunity to undertake a distinct research project as part of coursework presented a new challenge, adding to their artist-teacher professionalization training in ways that expanded horizons of thought and potential trajectories in their teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes a programme of research and practice in which the evaluation of interactive artworks in a public space is undertaken as part of the creative process. It explores the different perspectives involved in the research process of Beta_Space, a public exhibition and evaluation facility in the Powerhouse Museum Sydney. The three viewpoints presented, of artist, evaluator and curator, add up to much more than each one can offer on its own. The three roles can be taken by one, two, three or more people in any particular case but teamwork across disciplines is strongly implied by the approach that we have described. The paper reflects upon the different concerns and approaches and the ways in which they are entwined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking a short extract from Marguerite Duras' novel 'Summer Rain' (1990) as a starting point, this paper focuses its analysis on three contemporary art installations: Dorothy Cross' 'Bible' (1995); Robert Gober's 'Untitled' (1995/7) and Melanie Manchot's 'Travers' (1997/8). As well as imparting a discursive status to the unrepresentable facets of womanhood, these installations invoke a challenge to the old idea that analytical thinking and creative making are polarised activities. [1] With reference to the theoretical models of subjectivity and change constructed by Donald Winnicott and Julia Kristeva, this paper investigates the ways in which artistic experiment and risk-taking interface with our ability to restructure our sense of self and sociality. The underlying premise informing this analysis is based on the Kristevan suggestion that what we create as artists and writers is never 'new', but always involves revisiting an old site, that is the site of the repressed—be it from a social, cultural or individual vantage point (Kristeva, 1984, pp. 103-104). From this perspective, creative making (the making of objects and/or the making of meanings) is always interlinked with changes in our own self-perception. [2] This overlap between making meanings and reconstituting our sense of self can be understood, to borrow Marguerite Duras' graphic description, as an unfolding within the body. (Duras, 1990, p. 14). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on the designation of cultural actors' actions as a decisive factor in the emergence of urban patterns of art-driven social co-presences in Istanbul. It contributes to the creative city debate from the perspective of community development by incorporating the contemporary arts into urban social space making efforts. Methodologically, the locations of art organizations in the contemporary arts scene of Istanbul are approached as an urban pattern of art driven social co-presences that resulted from the 'collective action' in which a multitude of cultural actors are involved. We find that the clusters of art organizations serve as multidimensional social interactions among artist communities. There are, however, inefficiencies in spreading this interactive networking throughout different social segments. Research findings conclude that the cultural actors as agents of generating social co-presences within the place, are not effectively contributing to the society's social coherence, particularly in terms of creating links with disadvantageous neighbourhood residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a systematic approach to the study of immigration and art by considering relevant theoretical concepts. We focus on the role of institutions and economic change as forces shaping the expressive alternatives of immigrants and their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the Government of India declares its plan to convert Mumbai's Kala Ghoda art district into India's equivalent of Times Square, it does something that many Asian countries are doing in their understanding of the needs of the creative industry. In Mumbai's case, however, such an act has several additional historical echoes. This paper proposes that the origins of the so-called ‘creative class' lie in the failure of the city's historic 1982 textile strike, which saw the return of an artisanal practice to the city, often practiced by a class of casual labourers being forced to turn into low-end entrepreneurs without financial security. Such an artisanal entrepreneurship has had a far more complex relationship with industrialization than most theories recognize, and today's cultural industries are effectively replaying a longer history of this class in Bombay that may go back to pre-colonial and colonial times. The paper explores both the colonial and developmental interventions into this artisanal class as essential histories to understanding their new relationship to the ‘creative’ economy into which they are being presently inserted. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper contributes an initial venture into thinking about the uses of urban space in the context of leisure and contemporary urban life in São Paulo, Brazil. Looking at different urban spaces of leisure along Augusta Street, this paper analyzes the social, frenetic, and yet intimate spaces in São Paulo that were transformed and revived in the last few years. It examines Vídeo Guerrilha, an annual three-day video arts festival on Augusta Street. It also observes the revival of the neighborhood of Lower Augusta/Baixo Augusta in São Paulo, which is in progress and closer to the city center and, more specifically, the “bad” side of Avenida Paulista, the active artery that separates downtown from upscale neighborhoods in the city's southwest zone. It focuses on visual and urban street culture along Augusta and the two parallel avenues that flank it, Bela Cintra Street and Frei Caneca Street. The urban dynamic is reflected in the city's urban landscapes and shows a constant tension between opposite realms: global–local, private–public, and the individual–collective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of Standard Representational Photography in clinical photography and its aid in maintaining the gold standard in the Medical Illustration profession. It is important that professionals are aware of potential threats to good practice with many areas identified in the article [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces Dinghaiqiao Mutual Aid Society (DMAS, dinghaiqiao huzhushe, its urban context, issues that it concerns and strategies that it uses by introducing three of its projects. As a group that locates itself in a historically working-class neighborhood under the pressures of urban renewal, it clarifies its vision by both embodying the participants to the projects, and extending knowledge production and imagination of the place into a more profound social and historical dimension. The “common” here, serves as the interactive element and mechanism in DMAS events, as well as in its operational logic. The strategies that it develops, based on this, is a reflection and transcendence of the social political atmosphere and questions the developmental ideology of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper sheds light on a neglected urban process in our heavily racialized and polarized contemporary societies: the slow emergence of an urban post-racial generation through artistic collaboration that is both locally rooted and transnationally connected. On the one hand, race and racism clearly still matter at the social and political levels. But, on the other hand, a part of urban youth transcends ethnic, racial, gender, class and religious boundaries in their daily lives. Used to living together whatever their assigned identity, they challenge, more or less consciously, mainstream racism and ethnicism through an active and intense collaboration in assorted artistic projects in various disciplines (music, dance, theatre, etc.). The paper, based on qualitative empirical data collected in two Belgian cities (Brussels and Liège), will document the existence of this “post-racial” generation and underline the necessity of studying it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper briefly explores the problematic notion of the “artist as a social worker” and aims to develop an (ethical) counterpoint to this position via Mouffe’s concept of agonism. It begins by tracing some conceptual frameworks that have posited art as an ameliorative force within the public realm, discusses the complications of “intention” embedded in language, as well as draws attention to the difference between these terms that are often interchangeably. It ends with an exploration of three agonistic artworks, the last being the author’s own. It hopes to present a productive counterpoint to the notion of the “artist as social worker,” as well as provide insight to these discussions from a practitioners point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically considers the recent history of graffiti regulation in one municipality. It draws upon my experience of being appointed to develop a Draft Strategy on Graffiti for the City of Melbourne in 2004. My appointment was based upon the several years I had spent as a criminologist and socio-legal researcher, engaging with the communities of graffiti writers and street artists in Melbourne and internationally. The aim was to develop a Strategy that would take a more progressive approach to graffiti and street art management, and the proposed policy focused upon notions of 'negotiated consent' to the presence of graffiti or street art and 'zones of tolerance' with varying degrees of self-regulation by graffiti writers or external regulation by police and council authorities. Despite widespread support for the Strategy, the Council elected instead to pursue a policy of zero tolerance combined with a discretionary permit system. The paper examines the fate of this particular attempt to think differently about graffiti, and engages critically with the more conventional approaches put in place instead. It considers the policy-making process in a manner informed both by autobiographical experience and by some recent writings on graffiti and the city, community and communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ever-expanding number of urban authorities have declared 'war' on graffiti. This paper explores the role the wars on graffiti have played in the creeping militarization of everyday life in the city. Wars on graffiti have contributed to the diffusion of military technologies and operational techniques into the realm of urban policy and policing. Furthermore, new Western military doctrines of urban warfare have sought to 'learn lessons' from the wars on graffiti (and other crime) in their efforts to achieve dominance over cities in both the global South and the Western 'homeland'. The blurring of war and policing has deepened with the declaration of wars on terror. The stakes have been raised in urban social control efforts intended to protect communities from threats of 'disorder' such as graffiti, for the existence of even 'minor' infractions is thought to send a message to both 'the community' and 'enemies within' that there are vulnerabilities to be exploited with potentially more devastating consequences. Increasingly, there is a convergence around the notion that situational crime prevention strategies are crucial in combating both graffiti and terror threats, because even if graffiti writers and terrorists don't share the same motivations, they do exploit the same urban vulnerabilities. The paper concludes with a critical reflection on what graffiti writers might be able to teach us about how to evade and/or contest the militarization of urban life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role played by popular culture in response to the effects of the unfolding social and political repression on the ordinary Zimbabwean after 2000. The arts is one sector where the Zimbabwean government fostered its repressive hegemony. An urban youth music genre called 'urban grooves' rose to prominence during the period under focus here and some of the artists colluded with the government in propagating an anti-Western imperialism campaign. This paper evaluates the nature of the genre's performance practices and its role in the government's anti-Western imperialism campaign. It also discusses the complexities associated with notions of complicity and resistance as urban grooves artists resisted both Western hegemony, as per the government's campaign, and subverted the same government's censorship of the urban youth's and the general society's imaginary and other freedoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original medina of Algiers - currently called the Algiers Casbah - constituted an integral part of the indigenous struggle for national independence. Constantly subject to French colonialist propaganda, it suffered throughout the colonial era (1830-1962) brutal destruction, negative representation, and ideological marginalisation. Yet it emerged after Algerian revolutionary war against French occupation (1954-1962) as an icon of people's solidarity, a physical landmark of Algerian identity, and an emblem of national memory. This paper investigates the historical formation of these symbolic values, and examines how the built environment gains its cultural meaning from political struggles. It also highlights the way that such meaning becomes an immaterial tool for the instrumentalisation of the medina area in the affirmation of national identity in the post-independence era. Using a historical approach, which discusses the emergence of Algerian nationalism and the later famous battle of Algiers in the 1950s, this paper argues that the psychological and cultural implications of Algerian anti-colonial resistance contributed heavily to the way that people today perceive the emblematic importance of the Ottoman medina of Algiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the program called SWAP, which is developed as an independent enterprise for a museum participating in the Getty Museum Prototype Project. The project contains details on archaeological expeditions, art collections, and Renaissance prints and drawings. It outlines a simple object database development designed for a medium-sized university art museum. It notes that this project requires the use of a prescribed database management system and resident equipment, and had to adhere to severe limitations of budget and time. The creation of a strategy for development is mentioned to be of most importance.

ABSTRACT The focus of this theoretical paper is the analysis of the European historical avant-garde as an excess of modernism. As such, its goal was two-fold. First, it tried to transcend the institution of autonomous art and second, it attempted to integrate art into everyday life. In this light, the paper presents the contingencies of the genesis and main features of the historical avant-garde's doctrine and practice. It further argues that the historical avant-garde ended in a collapse of the aesthetic and practical dimension without corresponding emancipation. This failure, in turn, laid down the groundwork for the post-modern art which appropriated the stylistic and formal innovations of historical avant-garde while comfortably remaining within the institution of art. Thus, the post-modern betrayal of the values embedded in avant-garde and modernist works of art appears to be a necessity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes Chinese video artist Zhang Peili's latex-glove-themed paintings and conceptual art from the 1980s. It argues that they are an important intervention into post-socialist China's politicized discussions on art's role in society. Building on Mel Chen's discussion of animacy hierarchies as sociopolitical constructs, the article reads Zhang's latex gloves as animate—transgressing boundaries of "aliveness" between humans and objects. It locates Zhang and his art collective, "Pond" Society, amid mid-1980s discourses on art's emotional contagiousness, highlighting that the Chinese art establishment's insistence on Realism and on the Maoist art methodology of "immersion into life" (shenru shenghuo) reflected anxieties about "healthy" art making that could promote national progress. Zhang's series of X? glove paintings from 1986 onward represent strategic promotions of his medical conceptualization of art. Zhang was infected during the 1988 Shanghai hepatitis A epidemic, and his subsequent glove-themed work called for an embrace of viral life. The figure of the glove was also central to Zhang's first two video works, including Document on Hygiene No. 3, which signals a shift away from the insistence that art should reinforce the artist's authority. Instead, Document uses the gloved hand to reflect on where, in a society obsessed with purity and in an art world obsessed with radicalism, we might fundamentally locate agency. This article shows that the history of contemporary Chinese art cannot be understood without considering artists' responses to, and contributions in shaping, the deeply politicized notion of hygiene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 1924 the Nave Italia visited every Latin American city with a significant Italian community. This ship carried industrial and artisanal products, and numerous artworks by commercially successful but aesthetically conservative Italian artists. The Italia aimed to establish commercial partnerships with the emerging markets of Latin America, and to extend the political influence of Italy across the Atlantic. To do so, the organizers emphasized the concept of latinità, suggesting a common heritage shared by Italy and Latin America. This paper analyzes the artistic content of the Italia and how it manifested the ambiguities of Fascism's project of cultural colonization of Latin America. While most visitors of the Italia did not notice any anticipations of Fascism in the artworks on view, the Mexican Muralists did. I argue that their violent reaction towards the art on the Italia indicates the presence of embedded traces of Fascism in the apparently inoffensive aesthetic of the decorative objects and artworks sent to Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the dynamic interaction that occurs between large-scale social processes, urban development and the production of artistic expression and meaning through an analysis of art and urban change in the West Chelsea district of New York City. I begin my analysis with a discussion of specific works of art and expand to the local and global context to which these works respond and help to construct. Both urban space and artistic production, consumption and the social meaning attached to art by artists, critics, audiences and other art world actors have felt the impact of the turn to free market policies and ideology that have attended global economic restructuring and the rapid pace of globalisation. At the same time, art's new role as an engine of urban commerce and the accompanying expansion of the art market have helped to shape city districts like West Chelsea and have left their mark on the work that is exhibited and sold there. My analysis integrates a close study of two works of art exhibited in West Chelsea, interviews and other ethnographic data and recent literature on the arts and urban restructuring and the perspective of critical theory. I also provide photographic documentation of social interaction and the built environment of West Chelsea as it evolved in response to the expansion of the art worlds there. A secondary aim of this research is to contribute to a larger discussion about the social role and critical capacities of art in today's social, economic and political climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

W.B. Yeats' restoration and recreation of Ballylee Castle in the west of Ireland from 1916 as ‘Thoor Ballylee’ saw it become the symbol and metaphor of his work as a poet. With the help of the architect, William Scott, an exponent of the English Arts and Crafts school, Yeats placed the tower and its landscape at the centre of his vision of the Irish past. The Arts and Crafts aesthetic that underpinned Yeats' idealisation of Irish society opposed and decried the modernisation of rural Ireland, attempting to preserve it as an idyll for the urban intelligentsia. In his appropriation and reconstruction of Ballylee Castle Yeats sought both to locate himself amongst the peasantry of the west of Ireland whom he idealised in his work and to reassert his own roots amongst the dying colonial order. This paper explores the ambivalence of Yeats' cultural nationalism against the backdrop of republican violence and the emergence of the Free State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of Life in defining a new lifestyle based on modernism in the interwar period. With its first issue in 1936, Life embodied modernity as it pioneered a way of reaching an audience through the photo-essay. Life's presentation of art and modernity, one thread in training its readers how to be middle class, is placed within the artistic and cultural environment of the time. This paper argues that the editors of Life "domesticated" modern art through a series of strategies: monetary value, artistic practice, and biography. Life's tying of art to modernity is discussed within the context of other institutions that also believed art was integral to creating modern society - the Museum of Modern Art and the federal government through the WPA. An examination of the interplay among these three cultural actors provides insight into the larger historical issues of art production, circulation, and consumption, and the role of the government, elite institutions, and the media in promulgating art standards. This study combined three methodological approaches: an investigation of archival material, a textual analysis of all 262 issues from 1936 to the outbreak of World War II, and a content analysis of 4,522 images in 76 categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the logics and limits of graffiti management at a key site within an Australian city. Using writers' narratives, we examine attempts to control the type of graffiti (script) against efforts to control its location (bleed). Our central claim is that both these strategies demand that graffiti only speak its name when it (visually) ceases to be itself—that the 'best' graffiti, bureaucratically speaking, is that which functions as its own form of erasure. We conclude by posing and responding to the key question: under what conditions is graffiti permitted to exist? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mieko (Chieko) Shiomi is a composer who has worked independently and within Fluxus. In 1964-5, she spent a year amongst fellow Fluxus artists in New York. She has participated in Fluxus-related performances in Japan, America and Europe. However, she is still under-studied. In 2005, Midori Yoshimoto produced the first chapter-length essay on her. This article adds to existing work by drawing out further observations regarding Shiomi's concern with nature and the unconscious. It argues that her desire to merge with nature, and her focus on dream-like disparate elements in her “Event” pieces, liberate the performer into a realm of direct experience and appreciation of the incidental, providing an alternative within day-to-day routine. This paper relates her concerns to tendencies in Fluxus and her experiences in the active art and music scene of mid-twentieth century Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teesri Duniya Theatre produces politically relevant theatre about a number of uncommon and contentious issues. Its plays rely on everyday cultural experiences acquired within the local cultural milieu. This approach involves a deliberate distancing from the culture of origin and, at the same time, a resistance to cultural homogenization. A dialogic exchange ensues that includes an examination of critical social issues and relationships with the dominant culture(s), as well as a questioning of cultural orthodoxy from within diverse cultural communities. This paper discusses the material conditions (funding and company structure) that affect Teesri Duniya's work. It also addresses the relationship between art and society through a discussion of selected images and texts from Teesri Duniya productions. Teesri Duniya Theatre has demonstrated that a politically engaged theatre that examines critical and contentious issues, and builds solidarity among cultures, can represent the cultural identities of visible minorities as well as express the relationships between cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life in the city requires a measure of debrouillardise. Several African writers have examined the plight of the prostitute as a form of resistance entwined with a daily struggle for survival. Through a cultural and historical background on transactional sex practices in sub-Saharan Africa, the paper examines the role of the prostitute in Cyprian Ekwenski's Jagua Nana and Okot p'Bitek's Song of Malaya as an individual utilizing de Certeauian tactical opposition to counteract victimization. The prostitute in these two works cannot be viewed as solely a victim. She uses - and is used by society. Close examination of the role of the prostitute in these two works will reveal an individual with a unique position in society - an individual who epitomizes the art of debrouillardise, and marks it with a connection to the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among post-colonial museums rebuilding their relationship with society, South Africa's museums still have room for improvement. While general examinations of the museum's social role have been limited to the organiser's perspective, this paper reviews it from the audience's perspective, using a range of styles of visitor research. This study shows how the legacy of apartheid is influential enough to repress appreciation of museum experiences among formerly underrepresented groups. It indicates, however, the potential of aesthetic experiences to encourage people to extend their limited horizon by meeting others. The argument lies in how far museums recognise such limits and possibilities, and how appropriately they assist visitors to open to others. Through exploring visitors' experiences in the South Africa National Gallery, this study contributes to current reviews of the significance of art museums for people in a diverse society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the various contexts that determine the societal framework for research in the field of sound and music computing. Four of these contexts are identified, namely, the research context, the educational context, the industrial context and the socio-cultural context. For each context, the major trends are analysed and summarized as short statements, thus providing a background in which the state-of-the-art and the challenges of sound and music research can be situated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private Alexander Watson died a few days after being wounded during a decisive battle in the Northwest Rebellions of Canada in 1885. A year later, a monument to his memory was erected in front of city hall in his hometown of St. Catharines in the municipal region of Niagara. Our interest in Watson’s monument is in understanding the role of material culture in the fostering of popular memory. On one hand, the production side of this equation has been well considered. The mnemonic and didactic potential of monuments is used by elites in order to build a consensual understanding of the past and to legitimate claims to authority and privilege. On the other hand, the consumption side of public memory is less well understood. This paper seeks to identify how the people of St. Catharines have engaged the monument commemorating Watson’s service and his death. We use archival research and surveys in order to understand the monument’s relationship to residents of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]