Art and Gentrification in the Changing Neoliberal Landscape 2020054570, 2020054571, 9780367521479, 9781003056720, 9780367521493

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Art and Gentrification in the Changing Neoliberal Landscape

Art and Gentrification in the Changing Neoliberal Landscape brings together various disciplinary perspectives and diverse theories on art’s dialectical and evolving relationship with urban regeneration processes. It engages in the accumulated discussions on art’s role in gentrification, yet changes the focus to the growing phenomenon of artistic protests and resistance in the gentrified neighborhoods. Since the 1980s, art and artists’ roles in gentrification have been at the forefront of urban geography research in the subjects of housing, regeneration, displacement and new urban planning. In these accounts, the artists have been noted to contribute at all stages of gentrification, from triggering it to eventually being displaced by it themselves. The current presence of art in our neoliberal urban spaces illustrates the constant negotiation between power and resistance. And there is a growing need to recognize art’s shifting and conflicting relationship with gentrification. The chapters presented here share a common thesis that the aesthetic reconfiguration of the neoliberal city not only allows uneven and exclusionary urban redevelopment strategies but also facilitates the growth of anti-gentrification resistance. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual studies, cultural studies, human geography, social anthropology, and urban studies as well as contemporary art practitioners and policymakers. Tijen Tunalı is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Research Fellow at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) Aarhus University, Denmark.

Cover image: Exterior view of the Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, a derelict building which housed a contemporary art squat and became a casualty of gentrification in 2012. Image courtesy of www.freeimages.co.uk.

Routledge Research in Art and Politics

Routledge Research in Art and Politics is a new series focusing on politics and government as examined by scholars working in the fields of art history and visual studies. Proposals for monographs and edited collections on this topic are welcomed. Migration, Diversity and the Arts The Postmigrant Condition Moritz Schramm, Sten Pultz Moslund and Anne Ring Petersen Social Practice Art in Turbulent Times The Revolution Will Be Live Kristina Olson and Erec J. Schruers Modernity, History, and Politics in Czech Art Marta Filipová Italian Modern Art in the Age of Fascism Anthony White WPA Posters in an Aesthetic, Social, and Political Context A New Deal for Design Cory Pillen The Political Portrait Leadership, Image and Power Edited by Luciano Cheles and Alessandro Giacone Art and Activism in the Age of Systemic Crisis Aesthetic Resilience Edited by Eliza Steinbock, Bram Ieven, and Marijke de Valck Terrorism and the Arts Practices and Critiques in Contemporary Cultural Production Edited by Jonathan Harris Art and Gentrification in the Changing Neoliberal Landscape Edited by Tijen Tunali For a full list of titles in this series, please visit https://www.routledge.com/RoutledgeResearch-in-Art-and-Politics/book-series/RRAP

Art and Gentrification in the Changing Neoliberal Landscape

Edited by Tijen Tunalı

First published 2021 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Taylor & Francis The right of Tijen Tunalı to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tunali, Tijen, editor. Title: Art and gentrification in the changing neoliberal landscape / edited by Tijen Tunali. Description: New York : Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020054570 (print) | LCCN 2020054571 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367521479 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003056720 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Art and cities. | Gentrification. | Neoliberalism‐‐Social aspects. Classification: LCC N72.C58 A785 2021 (print) | LCC N72.C58 (ebook) | DDC 701/.03‐‐dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054570 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054571 ISBN: 978-0-367-52147-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-52149-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-05672-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by MPS Limited, Dehradun

Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgments About the Editor List of Contributors Introduction: The Dialectic Role of Art in Late Neoliberal Urbanism

vii ix x xi

1

TIJ EN TUNALI

PART I

Art’s Conflicting Relationship to Gentrification in the Twenty-First Century 1

Gentrification and the Critique of the Contemporary Urban Dream-World

19

21

L UKE CARRO L L

2

Proximal Disruptions: Artists, Arts-Led Urban Regeneration and Gentrification in Oakland, California

39

ROB IN B AL L I G E R

3

Arts, Culture and Neoliberalism: Instrumentalization and Resistance in the Case of Marseille

57

M ATHI L DE V IG N AU A N D A LEX A N D RE G R OND EA U

PART II

Alternative Voices, Visualities and Performances Against Gentrification 4

A Listening Against Gentrification: Ultra-Red in Boyle Heights and Elephant & Castle S US ANA JIM E N E Z -C AR M O N A

75

77

vi Contents

5

Representing the Anti-Gentrification Resistance: The Role of Two Artists in a Retail Market in London

91

MARIE -PIE R R E VI N C E N T

6

Enacting the “Right to the Creative City” in Berlin

108

RAB EA B E R F E L DE

PART III

Community Building in the Gentrified Urban Space 7

The Urban Art Mapping Project: Mapping Art, Narrative and Community in St. Paul, Minnesota

125

127

HE ATHE R SH IR E Y, D AV I D TO D D L A WR E N CE, A ND PAUL LOR AH

8

Indigenous Cultural Resurgence, Hotel Murals and Neocolonial Urbanism

140

MICHEL L E V E ITC H

9

“Mapping the Old City”: Street Art, Urban Resistance and Community Building in Nicosia, Cyprus, 2014–2018

162

PANOS L E VE N TI S

Index

176

Figures

1.1 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 7.1

7.2 7.3

The aestheticization of labor, 2019. Photograph. Shoreditch. ©Luke Carroll Disinvestment at 32nd Street and San Pablo Ave., West Oakland. March 8, 2016. Photograph: Robin Balliger Still image from “The Guillotine” music video by The Coup, 2012 “Each 1 Teach 1” live style writing at First Friday. March 1, 2013. Photograph: Robin Balliger Protesting factory farms at First Friday, Oakland. May 3, 2019. Photograph: Robin Balliger Location of the four study cases analyzed in Marseille, 2020. ©Mathilde Vignau Example of Graffiti in Le Panier, 2016. Marseille. ©Mathilde Vignau Example of frescos in Le Panier, 2016. Marseille. ©Mathilde Vignau Using street art to denounce the “high treason” of the municipality in La Plaine, 2016. Marseille. ©Mathilde Vignau Future Hackney. Untitled, 2019. Photograph. Ridley Road Market. ©Donna Travis Support Black Businesses. Untitled, 2019. Photograph. Ridley Road Market. ©Donna Travis Future Hackney. Hands off, 2019. Photograph. Ridley Road Market. ©Donna Travis Martin Baier, Doch Kunst (Yet Art), 2017 Our study area is located in the Midway Neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. (a) Minnesota is part of the “North Coast” bordering both Canada and Lake Superior. (b) The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are located at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. (c) The Midway Neighborhood is often overlooked—it developed later than the downtown cores and is often seen as an area to pass through. (d) The heat map displays urban development patterns as of 1900, depicting the neighborhood’s central location, as well as its peripheral role. ©Paul Lorah Lori Greene, Berbere, 2015. Mosaic. St. Paul, Minnesota. ©Lori Greene Greta McLain, Braided, Acrylic on poly tab canvas on brick; mosaic. 2015. St. Paul, Minnesota. ©Greta McLain

31 43 47 50 52 60 66 67 69 93 99 100 118

128 134 135

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Figures

8.1 Jerry Whitehead (Plains Cree), Richard Tetrault, Eric Parnell (Haida), Richard Shorty (Northern Tutchone), Haisla Collins (Tsimshian, Celtic), Sharifah Marsden (Anishinaabe) and Nicola Campbell (Interior Salish, Métis), Through the Eye of the Raven, 2010. Wall mural, Orwell Hotel, Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada. Video still from Through the Eye of the Raven (2010), produced by Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/Numedia Group. ©Dave Eddy, Orwell Hotel and Vancouver Native Housing Society 8.2 Jerry Whitehead (Plains Cree), Richard Tetrault, Eric Parnell (Haida), Richard Shorty (Northern Tutchone), Haisla Collins (Tsimshian, Celtic), Sharifah Marsden (Anishinaabe) and Nicola Campbell (Interior Salish, Métis), Through the Eye of the Raven, 2010. Wall mural, Orwell Hotel, Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada. Video still from Through the Eye of the Raven (2010), produced by Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/Numedia Group. ©Dave Eddy, Orwell Hotel and Vancouver Native Housing Society 8.3 Jerry Whitehead (Plains Cree) and Portico Design, Forest Spirits Suite (Room 508), 2013. Skwachàys Lodge and Residence, Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada. Photographer Craig Minielly/Aura Photographics. ©Craig Minielly, Dave Eddy, Skwachàys Lodge and Vancouver Native Housing Society 8.4 Jerry Whitehead (Plains Cree), Nancy A. Luis (Cree, Iroquois, Métis) and Portico Design, Northern Light Suite (Room 609), 2013. Skwachàys Lodge and Residence, Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada. Photographer Craig Minielly/Aura Photographics. ©Craig Minielly, Dave Eddy, Skwachàys Lodge and Vancouver Native Housing Society 9.1 Locations of “Mapping the Old City” works in Walled Nicosia. ©Panos Leventis 9.2 The 15 works of “Mapping the Old City” numbered chronologically and grouped in three geographic clusters. ©Panos Leventis 9.3 “Mapping the Old City” work #1, Aristophanous Street, April 2014. ©Panos Leventis 9.4 “Mapping the Old City” work #4, Trikoupi Street, August 2016. ©Panos Leventis 9.5 “Mapping the Old City” work #2, Achilleos Street, April 2016. ©Panos Leventis

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156 164 166 168 169 171

Acknowledgments

This book project emerged from two academic gatherings. One is the panel I organized at Art History Association’s (AHH) annual meeting “Art and Gentrification in the Changing Neoliberal Landscape” on April 4–6, 2019, in Brighton, UK. I am grateful to the presenters Luke Caroll, Amy Melia, Michelle Veitch, Marlous Van Boldrik, Justin Burns, Nicola Guy, Bill Balaskas and Kirsten Lloyd who, with their rigorous input and challenging discussions, inspired me to produce this book. The other conference, which enabled me to be exposed to the works of the authors Mathilde Vignau, Marie-Pierre Vincent, David Todd Lawrence, Paul Lorah, Heather Shirey and Panos Leventis, was “Rebel Streets: Urban Space, Art and Social Movements.” I co-convened that conference with Gülçin Erdi at CITERES (CIté, TERritoires, Environnement et Sociétés) laboratory at the University of Tours in France. I give my thanks to Dr. Erdi for her collaboration in the organization and funding of the conference and CITERES director Nora Semmoud for her strong support to realize this large international gathering and my exhibition that accompanied it. I would like to thank Muriel Hourlier for her aid in digitalizing this conference and Adeline Vioux for her contribution in designing all the print media. I thank Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (MSH), CITERES and LE STUDIUM Institute for Advanced Studies Val de Loire for the funding of the conference and my postdoctoral research at the University of Tours that both academic organizations stemmed from. I wish to thank the contributors to this book. Most of them I met in the two conferences and a few of them I have had the pressure to get to know through email correspondences. I especially thank them for showing the utmost professionalism during all stages of this book project. I am sure our paths will cross in other academic collaborations and endeavors. I am grateful to Routledge’s Art History and Visual Studies editor Isabella Vitti for approaching me with the publication proposal and for her understanding that has pushed this book forward in the right direction in a record amount of time. I owe thanks to Katie Armstrong for all her help in the administrative and other official matters during the contract and production phases of this volume. I also thank the anonymous peer-reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions that have given me a smoother path to walk on. For the financial support of this project, I thank the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies for their generous research fellowship based on the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie SkłodowskaCurie grant agreement No 754513 and The Aarhus University Research Foundation. Finally, I extend sincere gratitude to the late Prof. David L. Craven for being the architect of my academic growth.

About the Editor

Tijen Tunalı is an academic, artist and curator. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the dialectical relationship of contemporary art and aesthetics to neoliberal globalization. It was supported by various fellowships from the institutions including the Latin American Studies Institute at the University of New Mexico, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, Terra Foundation, Tinker Foundation and Phyllis Muth Foundation. Her postdoctoral researches “Art and the City: Urban Space Art and Social Movements” and “Art and Gentrification in the Changing Neoliberal Landscape” were funded by LE STUDIUM/Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship of Val de Loire Institute of Advanced Studies in France and Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies COFUND Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship in Denmark, respectively. She has curated exhibitions in four continents and actively engaged in art biennials, such as the Bienal de la Habana 2009 and the Istanbul Biennial 2013. Most recently, she curated the exhibition “The Street Art of the Oaxaca Rebellion of 2006” in Pole des Arts Urbains/pOlau, Tours, France in May-June 2018. Tijen is the founder and organizer of “Art and the City: Urban Space, Art and Social Change” –the international conference series featuring the latest work and current thinking of artists, activists and researchers working on the intersection of urban art and resistance. Her writing appeared in many edited volumes and in ASAP Journal, Journal of Urban Cultural Studies, and Journal of Visual Art among others. With Prof. Brian Winkenweder, she is currently working on the volume Routledge Companion to Marxist Art History, editing the contributions of 40 Marxist scholars.

Contributors

Alexandre Grondeau is an assistant professor at Aix-Marseille University. He has a PhD in geography (thesis defended at Parix X Nanterre). He was previously an associate research professor at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-enYvelines. After having been a member of the Laboratory of Urban Geography of Nanterre, then of C3ED, he joined the laboratory TELEMME where he specializes in critical geography, through urban and economic approaches regarding territories of innovation and creativity. His researches notably focus on India, the United States and France. Dr. Grondeau regularly publishes scientific articles in national and international journals. He is the coauthor, with Guy Burgel, of Urban Geography published by Hachette Supérieur. David Todd Lawrence is an associate professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he teaches African-American literature and culture, folklore studies and cultural studies. Heather Shirey is a professor of Art History at the University of St. Thomas. Her teaching and research focus on race and identity, migrations and diasporas, and street art and its communities.Together, Lawrence, Lorah and Shirey direct the Urban Art Mapping research team. Urban Art Mapping is a multidisciplinary, multiracial group of faculty and students from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas. Student researchers include Martin Beck, Tiaryn Daniels, Summer Erickson, Ben Schroeder, Alice Ready, Emma Rinn, Hannah Shogren-Smith and Chioma Uwagwu. The group created and manages two street art archives: the COVID-19 Street Art database (https://covid19streetart.omeka.net) and the George Floyd and Anti-Racist Street Art database (https://georgefloydstreetart.omeka.net). Luke Carroll is a PhD student at the University of York. His PhD thesis “London and the Dreamworld of Gentrification” seeks to explore the role played by desire, fantasy, and aesthetics, in producing gentrification, and gentrifiers, in contemporary London, specifically, along the route of the A10, which stretches from the City of London to Tottenham. He has presented his work at Université Paris Nanterre’s “Political Culture and Political Movements in the Neoliberal City,” “Art and Gentrification in the Changing Neo-Liberal Urban Landscape” for the Association of Art History, and the Political Theory Symposium at the University of York. Luke’s broader research interests include Critical Theory, Commodity Aesthetics, Urban Sociology and the Philosophy of Walter Benjamin.

xii Contributors Marie-Pierre Vincent is a former student at the ENS Cachan, an agrégation holder in English, and currently a PhD candidate, in British civilization. She studies antigentrification resistance in Hoxton/Shoreditch in London (2008–2019) at Sorbonne Université (Lettres) and within HDEA research team. After a threeyear doctoral contract at Sorbonne Université when she taught British and American history to students of English, she joined Paris 1/Panthéon-Sorbonne as a teaching assistant in English for management students. She is also the author of an article in a French journal on a comparative case study on the cultural and social diversity between two cultural centers (le Centquatre in Paris and Rich Mix in London). Mathilde Vignau earned her PhD in geography in October 2019 at Aix-Marseille Université and within TELEMME laboratory with the thesis “Towards a Creative Geography: Impacts of Cultural and Creative Places, Activities, and Events on the PACA Region’s Development”. For five years, she was a teaching assistant in geography at Aix-Marseille Université. In August 2020, she joined the ESPI Group in Marseille as an associate professor in geography and urbanism. She is also a researcher at the ESPI2R laboratory. She is focused on urban and economic geography as well as territorial creativity, urban neoliberalism and radical geography. Michelle Veitch is an associate professor in art history at Humanities Department, Mount Royal University, Calgary. She specializes in contemporary Canadian art with a focus on site-specific practices and urbanization. Her research analyzes political aesthetics in public city space borrowing from geography studies and critical art discourse. Veitch has published articles in the journals Topia and International Journal of Canadian Studies and Racar. She has also coauthored publications, including an article for the journal, Fuse and an essay in the book, Global Indigenous Media (Duke University Press). In addition, she has presented conference papers for the Association of Art History (UK), the University Art Association of Canada, the College Art Association (US), the University of Tours (France), and the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada. She is currently completing a scholarly book on urban art hotels and bohemian spaces in Canada from the 1980s to the present under contract with McGill Queen’s University Press. Panos Leventis is a professor at the Hammons School of Architecture of Drury University in Springfield, Missouri. He served as Director of the Drury Center in Greece, and taught at the USC Architecture Program in Como, at McGill’s School of Architecture in Montréal, and at the University of Cyprus in Nicosia. Panos has lectured and participated in design reviews at the University of Michigan, the Pratt Institute, the University of New Mexico, the State University of New York at Albany, California State University in San Luis Obispo, Missouri State University, Mid-Sweden University, the University of Patras in Greece, the American College of Greece and the four accredited Schools of Architecture in Cyprus. He has been practicing as a licensed Architect in Cyprus, with built projects and awarded entries in national and international Architectural competitions. Panos’ research engages the past, present and future of

Contributors xiii Mediterranean cities. Departing from his dissertation, he authored Twelve Times in Nicosia. Nicosia, Cyprus, 1192–1570: Architecture, Topography and Urban Experience in a Diversified Capital City, published by the Cyprus Research Center. He has since been publishing on the topography of late medieval and renaissance cities in the eastern Mediterranean. Panos has additionally been researching socio-urban upheavals in the context of crisis, focusing on graffiti, street art and urban resistance movements as understood via the lens of public space and participatory urban processes. He has published and lectured on this work in Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Sweden and the United States. Paul Lorah is an associate professor of Geography at the University of St. Thomas. His work focuses on the relationship between conservation, public lands and local economies, landscape analysis, and the geography of street art. Rabea Berfelde is a PhD researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London (Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies). In general, her work takes an interdisciplinary approach and draws on critical and political theory to analyze the impact of financialization on everyday life in urban environments. Her PhD “In the Urban Factory. The Reconfiguration of Labour and Urban Space in Berlin” departs from the claim that urban space has been as fundamentally transformed by deindustrialization and neoliberalization, as has the nature of work. Combining fieldwork with philosophical and geographical analysis, she researches the reconfiguration of both labor relations and urban places of production and reproduction in Berlin. She has written and presented work on urban social movements, the financialization of housing, autonomous cultural production, feminist class politics and labor under platform capitalism. Rabea teaches seminars on global cultural politics, biopolitics and feminist critiques of capitalism at universities in both London and Berlin. Rabea is based in Berlin where she is involved in the Right to the city movements. Robin Balliger is an associate professor and chair of “Art, Place, and Public Studies” and Liberal Arts at the San Francisco Art Institute. She earned her PhD in anthropology at Stanford University and her research focuses on expressive culture in the context of neoliberal social and spatial transformations. Balliger’s current project is on the City of Oakland, California, particularly on arts, culture and racial politics in the context of urban restructuring. Dr. Balliger previously conducted extensive research in Trinidad on popular music, media expansion and identity formation in national/transnational space. She earned the Textor Award for Outstanding Anthropological Creativity, and she has received fellowships from Fulbright, MacArthur Foundation, National Science Foundation, Mellon Foundation and Wenner Gren. Her publications appear in The Global Resistance Reader, Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural Politics of a Transnational Festival, and Media Fields Journal, and Race, Poverty, and the Environment. Prior to attending graduate school, Dr. Balliger was a musician and activist in San Francisco. She cofounded Komotion International, a legendary artist collective, gallery and performance space that exemplified the radical politics and creativity of San Francisco’s Mission District. Website: https://robinballiger.com.

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Contributors

Susana Jiménez-Carmona is a graduate in philosophy (UNED, Spain) and has PhD in humanities and culture (Universitat de Girona, Spain). Musician and sound artist, she is a professor of “ethics and aesthetics of art sound” and “social implications of sound art” in the Online Master of Sound Art at the Universitat de Barcelona. She was the promoter and coordinator of El paseo de Jane in Madrid (2010–2016), participatory initiative inspired by Jane Jacobs. Between 2015 and 2019, she was part of Cuidadoras de sonidos—a project of sound art and activism about the city that sounds and that we listen to. She is currently collaborating with the project “Ecrire en commun(s). Arts, écologies transitions” of MUSIDANSE (Paris 8). She has published El paseo de Jane. Tejiendo redes a pie de calle (Madrid: Modernito Books, 2016) and Guía de cómo hacer un paseo de Jane (Madrid: Continta me tienes, 2017). She has collaborated to various books, including such as Musicología en el siglo XXI: nuevos retos, nuevos enfoques (Madrid: SEDEM, 2018), Vacío, sustracción, silencio (Ediciones Asimétricas, 2017), Imaginario al andar (Santa Cruz de Tenerife: TEA, 2017), and El segundo Heidegger: ecología, arte y teología (Madrid: Editorial Dykinson, 2012). She has also published in journals such as SoundEffects: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Sound and Sound Experience, Boletín de arte, Sonograma Magazine, Revista Arquitectura (COAM), AusArt Journal for Research, Panambí, revista de investigaciones artísticas, and HUM736 Papeles de cultura contemporánea.

Introduction: The Dialectic Role of Art in Late Neoliberal Urbanism Tijen Tunalı

Much has been written about how cities are central to the spatial development of neoliberalism, where the macro-politics of globalizing economies make and unmake landscapes and architectures within which the micro-politics of many millions of people’s day-to-day existences are lived out (Harvey 1978, 1990, 2012; Lefebvre 1974, 2000, 2003; Sennett 1994; Tonkiss 2005). A number of researchers have pointed out the contradictory nature of neoliberal urbanism, for instance, how it advocates for the development of innovative urban forms while building suburban enclaves, and how it calls for participatory communities and an egalitarian social vision but, at the same time, redesigns the urban space for elite consumers (Davis 1993; Dicks 2004; Fainstein 2010; Harvey 1989, 2012; Ley 1996; Low and Smith 2006; Smith 1996, 2002; Smyth 1994). Concurrently, urban art has long been discussed for toning down urban anxieties, boosting the economic environment of postindustrial cities, energizing communities and neighborhoods and enforcing policies for new urban planning (Guano 2020; Ley 2003; Mathews 2010; Zukin, 1987, 1995). As a response to this economic, political and aesthetic urban experience, a growing urban resistance and its aesthetic premises have become visible features of urban life. Art in the urban space engages the masses through creativity, originality and beauty and presents alternative forms of sociality. As such, art becomes an arena where the creative individual and community come together in a shared space for a recomposition of the shared sensorium. Yet, art enters the culture of the economy as soon as it establishes this social relation with the public. Therefore, art—as a part of both social and aesthetic power—has been a good resource for local governments to market their respective cities to real-estate investors, to corporate businesses seeking good public relations and to cultural tourists who contribute to the image of the global city. In the cities, attractive corporate-sponsored street art completes the pleasure of freshly brewed latte, while the fusion restaurants and art galleries compete for empty lots. Our senses and sensibilities in our daily life are more and more determined by the urban elite, namely urban planners, designers, policy-makers and technocrats. At present, from barbershops to restaurants, from hotel owners to music club proprietors, the citadins (urban dwellers), who take part in the commercial activities in the city, understand that art is a part of the “coolness” that makes the city an attractive tourist destination and a hotspot for young, middle-class professionals. The political projection of this development is recognized as hegemony over the sensorium of the urban space and thus everyday urban life (Markin 2013). Art has long been discussed as a factor for boosting the economic environment of postindustrial cities (Markusen and Schrock 2006), utilizing and normalizing the

2 Tijen Tunalı neoliberal urban planning (Guinard and Margier 2018; Mathews 2010) and contributing to gentrification and displacement (Cameron and Coaffee, 2005; Ley 2003; Rich 2019; Zukin, 1987, 1996). On the other hand, a number of research related to the social role of art emphasizes the therapeutic, unitary or reconciliatory attributes of art—arguing about art’s role to ease tensions between communities and city authorities (Bishop 2012; Burton, Jackson and Willsdon 2016). Nevertheless, such perspectives often do not take into account the multifaceted relationships of art to neoliberal urbanization as well as visible, corporal and embodied aesthetic experience in the urban space. The result is the marginalization of art’s role in the radical creation of common and shared spaces for socialization, mobilization and political action in the cities. In the wake of massive urban movements, uprisings and revolts targeting neoliberalism all around the world, there has been a growing interest to understand the social contextualization of art in the urban public realm. Currently, there is a pressing need to challenge the dominant arguments that reduce the complex and contradictory role of art to a straightforward phenomenon in a continuously evolving neoliberal urban landscape. The major contribution that this book intends to make is shifting the focus from both the utopian and dystopian visions of neoliberal urbanism and the malevolent and passive role of art in it to a view that recognizes art’s capacities of resistance agonism, contestation and re-appropriation in the urban space. In tandem with the neoliberal critique, there are compelling intellectual, social as well as artistic movements eager to reclaim equal access to urban space and resources for all urban inhabitants. The urban struggle based on the “right to the city,” democratic political participation and resistance to neoliberalism have evolved from claiming and redefining substantive rights of citizens to reproducing and re-appropriating the urban space and empowering dissenters as city dwellers (Harvey 2012; Irazábal 2008; Mayer 2009; Merrifield 2014; Purcell 2004). The city’s parks, streets and squares have been the central platforms for elevating these struggles in both the political and aesthetic realm. Notably, art in the rebel streets has performed in both the political constellations of local struggles and the grassroots politics of the urban social movements. For example, street art played an essential role during the Egyptian and Tunisian revolution (Abaza 2016), Spanish Indignados (RamírezBlanco 2018), Greek Aganaktismenoi movement (Tsilimpoudini 2016) and the Gezi Uprising (Tunalı 2018). Recently, the Black Lives Matter Movement leaves its mark in the urban space with street murals across the United States. Inspired by the urban social movements and other urban struggles emerging from the continuing politico-aesthetic urgencies, this book aspires to show that the aesthetic reconfiguration of the neoliberal city not only allows for a hegemonic restructuring of the urban environment but also facilitates the growth of counter-hegemonic aesthetic resistance. Cities and the Geographies of ‘Actually Existing NeoliberalismCities and the Geographies of ‘Actually Existing Neoliberalism. Regarding gentrification as a continuing and evolving process of neoliberal urban planning, the authors discuss the complexities of aesthetic disposition in the gentrified urban environment by analyzing the relations of art to both cultural capital and bottom-up resistance in the city. The specific aim of the book is twofold: (1) to rethink the changing and dialectic roles of art and artists in urbanism that put the interests of capital over the interests of ordinary inhabitants; (2) to reveal the potential of urban aesthetics in the formation of the agonistic public experience that

Introduction

3

heralds a democratic political culture in the urban space. We seek to elaborate an intersectional framework that examines “the right to the city” while offering a theoretical and visual analysis of the aesthetic formations that are positive resources for political culture to become visible and channel subjective dynamics into political participation and empowerment. Weaving together extensive social science findings—in urban sociology, human geography and cultural anthropology—with art research and theory, we hope to contribute to the analysis of gentrification in neoliberal urbanism from the perspective of artistic resistance. We do that with regard to the critique of neoliberalism, the urban agenda of neoliberal policy elites and widening class inequality in the cities. Neoliberalism had its heyday from 1989 until 2008, when the global economic crisis began with Wall Street’s fourth-largest investment bank, Lehman Brothers, was going bankrupt. The core of neoliberal philosophy involves liberating private enterprises from any restrictions and regulations imposed by states, and it has a pronounced preference for economic freedom over political freedom (Friedman and Rose 1980, 21). In the first instance, neoliberalism is a theory of political economic practices proposing that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade. Postwar economic developments witnessed the rise of the welfare state, with the distribution of state wealth across education, health and social security funds, but the neoliberal policies of the 1980s shrunk those funds in favor of new markets and international treaties. The state in the neoliberal system consists of the military, defense, police and legal structures and secures private property rights and guarantees—by force if need be—the proper functioning of markets. This ensures the quality and integrity of capital and not the citizens (Harvey 2006, 2). Infamously, David Harvey, as well as many other neo-Marxist scholars, have argued that neoliberalism arose to restore class power—the power that was threatened by the collapse of the Keynesian approach to managing capitalist accumulation based on social democratic systems and the Bretton Woods system, which had regulated international relations (Harvey 2005, 11–25). Neoliberal policies lead to the predominance of competition as a way of managing urban and rural spaces—in contrast to the principles of redistribution that were upheld in earlier eras—eras resulting in the transfer of many functions that were previously in the hands of the state to nonstate and quasi-state bodies—such as corporations and nongovernmental organizations—to respond to the needs of the citadins (Fawaz 2009). This new “liberal” regime of political-economic governance has enveloped cities in an ever-growing market-dominated power. Especially large cities have become increasingly important laboratories for a variety of neoliberal urban policy experiments and neoliberal urbanization has involved the creation of common spaces that guarantee the conditions for the production and reproduction of free-flowing capital. Milton Friedman, in his book Capitalism and Freedom (1962), criticized twentieth-century liberals for betraying freedom by viewing welfare and equality as either prerequisites for or alternatives to freedom (Friedman 1962). In The Road to Serfdom, published first in 1944, Friedman’s mentor Friedrich Hayek admonishes that government interventions and restrictions on the markets would lead to the loss of freedom in economic as well as political life, and therefore the state should concentrate only on tasks that create safety nets for neoliberal markets (Hayek 1994, 42–45). For Hayek, market freedom is essential for the capitalist market to expand

4 Tijen Tunalı endlessly: “Parties in the market should be free to buy and sell at any price, so long as they can find a partner to the transaction—free to produce, buy and sell anything that can be produced or sold at all” (Hayek 1994, 42). As much as this concept of freedom sounds like individual autonomy and self-determination, it refers only to the consumer’s buying capacity. As long as the consumer has enough money to make purchases, they can engage in any sort of “free” transaction. In his book Unequal Freedoms, John McMurtry notes: This measure of consumer freedom entails an unlimited inequality of freedom. The more money one has, the more freedom one is entitled to, from none at all to limitless rights to consume. This is the ground of individual freedom of citizens with its strong claims of equality of opportunity for all the same time. These contradictions do not detain market believers, for they know that the market confers on them the unlimited freedom to choose, to have, and to enjoy consumer goods the more money they have. (McMurtry 1998, 166–167) In this value system, our rights to partake in society depend on having “more” economic power that grants us the right to “freely” partake in the market system as consumers. The key here is the technique of transfer from citizen to consumer. What this concept of freedom does is to make individuals and communities subservient to their commodity value. In neoliberal logic, “free” societies should be exposed to political processes as little as possible and much is to be left to the “free” market, where individuals “freely” partake. With that, democratic life altogether changes its meaning. David Harvey is renowned for his work to establish neoliberalism as a system of deceit. His work redirects our perspective to recognize what appears to be about “freedom” is, in fact, “anti-democratic,” and what seems to be promoting equality instead restores and entrenches class power (Harvey 2006, 157–158). For example, what Harvey refers to as “conservative political reforms” is the shift from democratic society to a new type of neoliberal society, where the rulers reinforce counter-revolution through war and fascist repression, dead-end reformism of elections and control of grassroots action and civil society with the force of corporate initiatives (Harvey 2005, 47). In the same vein, Dag Einar Thorsen and Amund Lie observe that: … if the democratic process slows down neoliberal reforms or threatens individual and commercial liberty, which it sometimes does, then democracy ought to be sidestepped and replaced by the rule of experts or legal instruments designed for that purpose. The practical implementation of neoliberal policies will, therefore, lead to a relocation of power from political to economic processes, from the state to markets and individuals, and finally from the legislature and executives’ authorities to the judiciary. (Thorsen Dag and Lie 2009) Many scholars from a myriad of disciplines have underscored that neoliberalism not only fabricates the system of free trade agreements, finance market speculations, privatization and economic reforms but also constructs a new type of society with a new value system based on the principles of the market. Harvey, in his book Brief History of Neoliberalism, strongly argues that with the establishment of neoliberal

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market principles, we have moved away from a society marked by democratic governance to a new type of society in which the conditions for politics have been curtailed severely because of the conservative political reforms informed by neoliberal thought and theories (Harvey 2005, 47). Belgian psychologist Paul Verhaeghe draws significant connections between neoliberalism and psychosis and shows how the selfinterest incubated in such a society, claimed by neoliberalists to encourage innovation, simply serves to damage morality and reward psychopathy (Verhaeghe 2014). Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman succinctly summarizes the paradox of freedom in contemporary society: “Never have we been so free. Never have we felt so powerless” (Bauman 1988, 32). Bauman’s statement underlines that we are free to question religion, our society, our government, etc. because this kind of freedom is, indeed, prompted by indifference. In this new “liberal” environment, urban governance has been characterized by redevelopment, urban expansion and real estate speculation. The implications of these changes in the urban space have had exclusionary outcomes such as the privatization of public spaces and changes in urban policy that systematically neglect the needs of low-income residents. However, this is not to suggest that neoliberal urban development is happening evenly everywhere. As Lisa Lowe contends: “capitalism expands not through rendering all labor, resources, and markets across the world identical, but by precisely seizing upon colonial divisions, identifying particular regions for production and others for neglect, certain populations for exploitation and still others for disposal” (Lowe 2015, 150). Neoliberal urban planning arguably divides the cities into functional parcels that are associated with the different purposes essential for maintaining the capitalist and colonial divide in terms of ethnic segregation, domestic reproduction, labor division and accumulation of capital (Brenner and Theodore 2002; Smith 2002). Local residents, who have grown up in the areas chosen for urban development, are displaced due to rising rental prices, high costs of nearby facilities and an overall sense of being unwelcome. Class privileges play a central role in the neoliberal spatial restructuring that intensifies class and ethnic divides, which are reinforced through the intensive movement of capital. For Brenner and Theodore, the neoliberal urban reforms paved the way for the dialectically intertwined urban expansion that they termed “creative destruction”: … the (partial) destruction of extant institutional arrangements and political compromises through market-oriented reform initiatives and the (tendential) creation of a new infrastructure for market-oriented economic growth, commodification and the rule of capital (emphasis by authors). (Brenner and Theodore 2002, 362) In other words, as neoliberal entities, the creative industries—while being “creative”—are also “destructive.” The creative industries are part of the application of neoliberal hegemony to arts and cultural policy, and as such, they cannot but reproduce and endorse the exploitation and inequalities inherent in neoliberalism (Hesmondhalgh 2008, 567). As Mike Davis has argued, “the middle class has finally come downtown but only to bring suburbia with them. The hipsters think they’re living in the real thing, but this is purely faux urbanism, a residential mall” (Davis 2016). Richard Florida’s popular work The Rise of the Creative Class explains how

6 Tijen Tunalı neoliberal urban planning attracts the skilled and creative class to the city. For Florida, the city needs to provide the 3Ts: talent, tolerance and technology (Florida 2002). The “creative class” appreciates the vitality and the cultural and social diversity of the inner cities, encouraging ambitious authorities to develop design and planning strategies to promote the so-called urban renaissance that attracts the upper-middle-class (DETR, 1999). In sum, producing the neoliberal city is inevitably associated with class struggle. As Harvey explains: If urbanization is so crucial in the history of capital accumulation, and if the forces of capital and its innumerable allies must relentlessly mobilize to periodically revolutionize urban life, then class struggles of some sort, no matter whether they are explicitly recognized as such, are inevitably involved. This is so if only because the forces of capital have to struggle mightily to impose their will on an urban process and whole populations that can never, even under the most favorable of circumstances, be under their total control. (Harvey 2012, 115) It is evident that to restructure the economy according to neoliberal principles is a class strategy, so is the link between the neoliberal restructuring of urban space and gentrification (Lees, Slater and Wyly 2010; Smith 1979, 982). According to Smith, the neoliberal capital jumps from one area to another where the biggest economic returns are expected and where the investment is most profitable (Smith 1982, 151). Neoliberal urbanism creates new places and environments built for capital accumulation. This, according to geographer Loretta Lees, paved the way for “supergentrification”—a term she coined to explain the new wave of gentrification toward creating exclusive enclaves for the urban elite (Lees 2000). Gentrification in the name of urban clearance and rescaling to connect certain neighborhoods are some of the outcomes of the neoliberal urbanization that has transformed urban culture. This has twofold visible effects: the rise of the real estate enterprises and class affirmation by segregation. In addition to these visible effects of hegemony, the privatization of the public sphere and abolition of public services cripple the social life in the urban environment, thus depriving people of creating meaningful encounters with each other. City councils and developers promote gentrification as a “civilizing,” “purifying” or “sanitizing” process, using the terminology of “hygiene” and “cleanliness” to displace certain social groups (Danewid 2019). Even the term “gentrification” is often disguised by attractive terms like “urban renewal,” “revitalization” or “regeneration” (Lees et al. 2010, 447–448). Residents who live in the areas for urban redevelopment are forced to relocate due to rising rental prices, high costs of nearby facilities and an overall sense of being unwelcome. Class privileges are central to this spatial restructuring; thus, gentrification can be recognized as the intensification of class and ethnic divides through the movement of capital. The definition of gentrification varies, but most social science research focuses on gentrification as a physical, social and economic phenomenon that involves the movement of high-income residents into working-class neighborhoods or low-income areas, resulting in the displacement of residents. Gentrification is also understood as re-assertion, re-invigoration or reproduction of colonial

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relations that operate through, and are intertwined with, the reproduction of capitalism in the settler landscape (Blomley 2004). The heated analytical and political debates about gentrification and urban change, that continue for almost 40 years, have often focused on the deepening class polarization of urban housing markets, with much less attention paid to the increasingly sophisticated and creative array of methods used to resist gentrification. Even less attention has been paid to the role and political potential of art in urban resistance and spatial justice movements. Since the 1980s, most social science research on art and gentrification has concentrated on the integration of art into the market-oriented urban policy and new urban planning to help boost the economic environment of post-industrial cities, energize communities and neighborhoods and raise real estate value. When sociologist Ruth Glass coined the term “gentrification” in 1964, there was no discussion about artists driving up real estate values in the United States (Glass 1964). Glass observed that in inner London, “One by one, many of the working-class quarters have been invaded by the middle class–upper and lower … Once this process of ‘gentrification’ starts in a district, it goes on rapidly until all or most of the working class occupiers are displaced and the whole social character of the district is changed” (Glass 1964, xvii). In 1979, Neil Smith contested this understanding of gentrification and discussed that it is rather about the movement of capital, not people. He regarded gentrification as the return of capital to these areas that are productive for economic development. With his “rent gap” theory, Smith also showed that there are many agents involved in gentrification, he wrote: “to explain gentrification according to the gentrifier’s actions alone while ignoring the role of builders, developers, landlords, mortgage lenders, government agencies, real estate agents and tenants is excessively narrow” (Smith 1979, 540). For Smith, the rent gap occurs between the capitalized ground rent and the potential ground rent in depreciated areas. He writes, “Gentrification occurs when the gap is wide enough that developers can purchase shells cheaply, can pay the builders’ costs and profit for rehabilitation, can pay interest on mortgage and construction loans, and can then sell the end product for a sale price that leaves a satisfactory return to the developer” (Smith 1979, 545). His thesis solidified the argument that “The so-called urban renaissance has been stimulated more by economic than cultural forces”(Smith 1979, 540). However, soon after in the early 1980s, studies emerged that linked gentrification to the art establishments and artists. Sharon Zukin, in Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change, published in 1980, found that most manufacturers would have stayed in SoHo were it not for the law tweaks that allowed artists to create workspaces and the tax breaks that incentivized the conversion of industrial spaces into residential ones (Zukin 1987). Four years later, in a highly influential article titled “The Fine Art of Gentrification,” Rosalyn Deutsche and Cara Gendel Ryan discussed how, in New York City, when the art world moved into the Lower East Side, filled the freshly emptied apartments and cleaned up the area, it began to transform into a hip and expensive neighborhood (Deutsche and Ryan 1984). Since then many studies followed this argument and established a discourse on art and artists’ role as facilitators of gentrification (Cole 1987; Ley 2003; Mathews 2010; Rich 2019). A milestone in unraveling

8 Tijen Tunalı the potential role of artists fueling gentrification was identifying them as “bridge gentrifiers” (Zukin 1995, 111). The term attempts to communicate the lack of artists’ own actively intentional agency in facilitating gentrification. After the millennium, this role has served as the most persistent argument, although some alternative media on the internet continued to label the artists as gentrifiers. A stage-model type representation influences more recent research, which recognizes that artists are used by governmental interventionist schemes to promote gentrification (Hackworth and Smith 2001). Other social science research has recognized a second-stage model, where capital follows the artists into gentrified neighborhoods to commodify their cultural assets. Another model shows that gentrified environments lead to growth in the arts (Casellas, Dot and Pallares-Barbera 2012). Some of the later accounts chronicle artists not as facilitators of gentrification but as displaces themselves (Lefebvre 2003). Finally, the most recent study in the Urban Studies journal contests the artists’ role as facilitators of gentrification and argues instead that artists and the art establishment are drawn to already gentrified or gentrifying neighborhoods (Foster, Grodach and Murdoch 2018). There is a growing number of artists joining the anti-gentrification resistance everywhere, but it is especially noticeable in large cities like New York, Berlin, London, Barcelona, Istanbul and Delhi, which have been severely hit by the negative effects of gentrification. Arguably, the gentrified neighborhoods are suitable for art to test its role in the urban space, which, on the one hand, reduces citizens to consumers and, on the other hand, facilitates different social coexistences, autonomous networks, self-organized mobilizations and empowered communities. How do art and artists partake in the processes of gentrification and displacement? How does art resist gentrification rather than “mask the violence of displacement” (Gittlitz 2015)? What could be effective ways for artists to deal with their complicity in the production and marketing of the city? How could artistic expressions in the urban space reveal, delimit, question and resist the complexity of the urban crisis? What kind of political and aesthetic possibilities could emerge in the intersection of the spatial and dialogical premises of art and the ideological and economic premise of new urban planning? What kind of visual analysis method could be applied to discuss the visual impact of the commercial, artistic, political and visual language of the gentrified neighborhoods? The chapters in this book fulfill the need to reconceive innovatively, creatively and scientifically of gentrified neighborhoods not only as arenas for urban politics but also for aesthetic dispositive against those politics. They highlight the need for collaborative action to voice the unarticulated aspects of gentrification and challenge the forced displacement of already marginalized groups. The loss of public spaces, the exclusion of neighborhood residents from planning decisions and the forced relocation of poorer residents due to rising rent and rundown buildings are not the only social issues of gentrification and displacement. Neoliberal urban planning continues to divide cities into functional parcels that are associated with the different purposes essential for maintaining the system in terms of ethnic segregation, domestic reproduction, labor division and accumulation of capital. Such strategic principles of urban organization, structures and symbolic economies are made up of communicative signs and symbols reproducing the dominant socio-political premises and preferable images of the city (Nas 2011). Jacques Rancière’s theory of “distribution of the sensible” explains the ordering of sensuous production as the aesthetic regime that creates the conditions to perceive,

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think and act in a given socio-historical situation. For Rancière, aesthetics is a means of collectivism that forges the entire sensorium of a community by producing a world of audible, visible, exchangeable, communicable, transformable objects, things and experiences. In the configuration of that common social world, “the police (order)” organizes and commands the distribution of space and time, occupations and capacities as a way to create consensus and social hierarchies that make up our perceived social realities (Rancière 2010). Rancière calls this the “distribution of the sensible,” and it is in the sensory fabric of the urban space; politics is aesthetics (Rancière 2004). Neoliberalism, as a hegemonic politico-economic process, has also become a hegemonic consensus that has altered how we act and think about everything, everywhere. For Harvey, it is the new common sense “taken for granted and beyond question” (Harvey 2006, 145–146). Subversive aesthetic experience can affect the rational perception of social practices and norms and make us aware of the obscured conditions and modalities of the social order (Armstrong 2000; Rancière 2004, 2010). On this account, aesthetics also has the capacity to be an irresolvable force of disruption to the existing politico-aesthetic order. Art, as the arena of human creativity, imagination and sensibility can propose, show and enact ways of being and acting as political subjects by the way of such aesthetic properties. For Rancière, such politicization of ordinary citizens and their reclamation of the political space of visibility and speech belonging to them paves the way for true democratic representation and revolutionary politics. Another Francophone philosopher Chantal Mouffe writes on the instrumentalization of art by the contemporary hegemonic forces: “The aesthetic strategies of the counterculture: the search for authenticity, the ideal of self-management, the anti-hierarchical exigency are now used in order to promote the conditions required by the current mode of capitalist regulation, replacing the disciplinary framework characteristic of the Fordist period” (Mouffe 2005). Her work on the democratic public spaces contends: “What is urgently needed is to foster the multiplication of agonistic public spaces where everything that the dominant consensus tends to obscure and obliterate can be brought to light and challenged” (Mouffe 2005). Mouffe’s position about the role of art in the urban space is close to that of Rancière. She recognizes art’s capacity to form and reform democratic communities. She argues that “cultural and artistic practices could play an important role in the agonistic struggle because they are a privileged terrain for the construction of new subjectivities” (Mouffe 2005). Mouffe and Rancière ascribe to art a unique potential to instigate a disruption in the existing sensory and discursive regime and to contest the emergence of hegemonic consensus. The contributors in this book test the hypothesis that the use of space or spatial forms and sense-making by inhabitants could change as a result of the dialectical relation between the imposed spatial order and creative spatial practices that connect places and people. This volume presents many examples of art practices that fuse visual representation with direct action against gentrification in attempts to contest the imposed value order of neoliberal urbanism. The contributors extend the discussion of Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey by purporting that art engagements have been proliferating to aid “the dispossessed to take back control of the city from which they have for so long been excluded” (Harvey 1978). Urban space is a locus of social and political resistance for “the right to the city”—a concept for urban struggles coined by Lefebvre at the time of Parisian uprisings in 1968 (Lefebvre 1968). The urban environment has always been considered a physical expression of social relations,

10 Tijen Tunalı movements, and ideologies (Fainstein 2010; Harvey 1989). Therefore, changes to it provide some insight into broader political reforms that could produce and reproduce everyday urban life. Lefebvre considered the urban space a loaded ideological landscape that is socially produced (Lefebvre 1974). However, as Lefebvre’s descriptions of space as a social product infer, the citadins are also producers and activators of the urban space. To exercise the right to the city is to play an active role in shaping urbanism and urban life (Lefebvre 1968). In Lefebvre’s discussions, cities are increasingly shaped by global economic competition, local residents struggle to create and protect spaces of heterotopia (Lefebvre 1968). Harvey, in Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, explains this heterotopia: Lefebvre’s concept of heterotopia (radically different from that of Foucault) delineates liminal social spaces of possibility where “something different” is not only possibility, but foundational for the defining of revolutionary trajectories. This “something different” does not necessarily arise out of a conscious plan, but more simply out of what people do, feel, sense and come to articulate as they seek meaning in their daily lives. Such practices create heterotopic spaces all over the place. We do not have to wait upon the grand revolution to constitute such spaces. (Harvey 2012, xvii) The right to the city, then, is the right to reconstitute spaces of social and cultural reproduction in the city and is linked to struggles against neoliberal urbanism with reference to claims of the right to housing, education, health, culture, inclusion, participation and so forth. This “cry and demand” for the city, in the words of Marcuse, “is for the material necessities of life, the aspiration is for a broader right to what is necessary beyond the material to lead a satisfying life” (Marcuse 2012, 31). Harvey notes that “our political task, Lefebvre suggests, is to imagine and reconstitute a totally different kind of city out of the disgusting mess of a globalizing, urbanizing capital run amok” (Harvey 2012, xvi). Many contemporary studies on the link between urbanism and neoliberalism have followed Lefebvre’s vision of “right to the city” from radical viewpoints. For example, shouldering Lefebvre’s legacy, Edward Soja views neoliberal urban policies as the spatialization of neoliberalism with mounting social and spatial injustices (Soja 1996, 2010). His spatial critique and conceptualization of “spatial justice” solidifies the discussions that while capitalism commodifies spaces of daily life, it is confronted with constant dissidence outside the institutional political channels in everyday urban spaces. Harvey stresses that, at the heart of the spatial justice and other urban struggles, there is one collective aim: “their right to change the world, to change life and to reinvent the city more after their heart’s desire” (Harvey 2003, 25). The social consciousness of such a right is connected to the desire for self-determination in daily social relations in the city. It is thus plausible to state that such desire mobilizes people in the urban spaces because it corroborates the common right for the urban public space and the right to decide how to use that public space commonly. Desire to have power over the daily life in a city is an emancipating desire, hence often against immense efforts by the neoliberal reproduction of desire. The urban sensory environments must be seductive and pleasant so that the desire for consumption can be encouraged. The book opens with Luke Caroll’s chapter in

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which urban space is regarded as a setting for capitalist desires and life experiences. Drawing from critical theory, psychoanalysis, and Marxist theories of aesthetics, Caroll offers insights into an overlooked question inspired by the Frankfurt School, especially Walter Benjamin. He suggests that the aesthetics of the gentrified spaces and the “desirable” aesthetic sensibilities of gentrifiers are indicative of the form taken by alienation under contemporary capitalism. This theory provides insight into how gentrification is connected to a certain capitalist “desire” and its contemporary urban aesthetics. Caroll’s theorization of capitalist desire and gentrification offers a qualified framework and vocabulary to the discussions, especially generated by the discussions of the production of space disguising the social relations contained in common spaces. By highlighting the centrality of desire to gentrification, Caroll’s chapter creatively ignites discussions on the capitalist fetishization of the urban space and inspires new ways to combat gentrification through the reconstitution of desire rather than moralistic critique. The first part of the book continues with the discussion of how the neoliberal aestheticization of urban space both conceals and reveals important cultural contradictions in the neoliberal city. The following two case studies in Oakland and Marseille discuss the neoliberal motivations for using aesthetics as a strategy toward social exclusion and the management of the class and other social identities at the expense of growing cultural reification. Robin Balliger’s chapter analyzes the characterization of artists as “pioneer gentrifiers” in the gentrification literature through longitudinal ethnographic research, particularly by shifting the debate from the artist as a signifier to the embodied individual with neighborhood relationships that span many years. Balliger contrasts the everyday lives of artists in a neighborhood with arts-led revitalization strategies in Oakland’s Uptown District—one of the most extensive urban “restorations” in Californian history. Her research is especially significant in showing how the myopic discourse on artists as gentrifiers damages solidarity among artists and other low-income populations. Since the end of the 1990s, a number of the urban elite has been using creativity as a new urban planning tool to rehabilitate some disadvantaged neighborhoods. For a decade, Marseille, the second-largest city in France, has been redesigned radically and the connections between arts, culture and neoliberalism are increasingly visible. According to Mathilde Vignau and Alexandre Grondeau, two main tendencies exist the reinforcement of gentrification and urban neoliberalism through arts and culture and the permanence of creative resistance movements opposed to the drift of capitalism. Vignau and Grondeau’s long-lasting research project focuses on four distinctive neighborhoods located close to the city center of Marseille—places where arts and culture have been used to quickly transform city landscapes or functions since the city gained the European Capital of Culture label. The researchers discuss how in Marseille, and more particularly in La Joliette and Le Vieux-Port, the aesthetic dimension of art, culture and creativity has radically redefined the city center landscape and how that change occurs vis-à-vis neoliberalism. Vignau and Grondeau then analyze the antigentrification resistance movements in the form of graffiti, stickers, hip-hop music and alternative movies. They discuss that, especially the case of La Plaine neighborhood shows how those initiatives can serve sociopolitical protests engaged in by users and artists who fear the potential gentrification of the whole neighborhood. The new forms of agency and strategy of urban creativity in the form of graffiti, wall paintings, yarn bombings, stickers, urban gardening, street performances, tactical art,

12 Tijen Tunalı creative campaigns and theatrical actions—among others—demand active spectatorship and have a growing power to renegotiate space toward new forms of political participation. The second chapter highlights the diverse voices of the artists and tactics of resistance to the process of gentrification. Susana Jimenez Carmona analyzes the work of Ultra-Red, a recognized group of sound artists and activists with more than 20 members spread out between Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, and the UK. The group understands listening as a political action that always implies a relationship with others and with the environment. Since 1997, they have collaborated with the community members in Union de Vecinos during the mobilizations of Pico Also to defend social housing and confront the problem of gentrification. This example provides a critical approach to Ultra-Red’s controversy and the positions of the different parties involved in complicated relations between art and gentrification at present (Ultra-red, art galleries, some art critics and neighborhood associations). Marie Pierre Vincent’s case regards Ridley Road market, a daily retail market famous for its fusion of Afro-Caribbean, Asian and European goods, which has recently been severely altered by gentrification. Vincent analyzes two separate artistic projects documenting the market and the resistance to gentrification: Lucinda Rogers’ past exhibition of paintings, On Gentrification, displayed at the House of Illustration gallery (King’s Cross) and Donna Travis’ photographic work in progress, Dalston Stories, to be displayed this year in two separate galleries (a local gallery and a trendy one in gentrified Shoreditch). By analyzing the diversity of the artistic creations (ranging from visual to textual productions) and the impact of these works (through semi-structured interviews), Vincent examines the extent to which a new form of covert and disguised activism is produced. She further addresses the role and limitations of these white, middle-class, female artists using art both as a tool for reflection and a catalyst for resistance. Rabea Berfelde’s chapter examines the occupation of Berlin’s Volksbühne—a public theater with a history of radical cultural production—to consider the “right to the creative city” in times marked by the increasing financialization of the economy and its intimate link to urban real-estate speculation. Berfelde revisits the critique of the “creative city” paradigm that has been thriving in human geography debates over the last years. Her case study about Volksbühne’s occupation by the artists’ collective from Dust to Glitter demonstrates the contestations between “culturalization from below” through city dwellers and autonomous cultural scenes and “culturalization from above” through governmental bodies. Berfelde contributes to the discussion of the creative reproduction of urban space by arguing that the form of “communing” the artist-activists practiced during the occupation indicated an alternative understanding of the creative production of urban space. From an urban planning perspective, the capacity to involve diverse groups in participatory planning processes is useful to foster integration and consensus on public goals. Therefore, the integration of public, private, and civic actors in the process of community building is highly desirable for urban planners trying to advocate the effectiveness of policies and projects. However, there is also the other side of the coin: more and more urban communities and neighborhood organizations enact active resistance against gentrification. The neoliberal restructuring also results in a new social and urban order through which urban inhabitants reimagine and reinvent their role. This provides fertile ground to produce new subjectivities both integrating and resisting the ideas of the neoliberal city. The third part of the book

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delves into the discussion of active citizenship and neighborhood resistance shaped by the complexities of people’s lives, needs and desires, creating times and “spaces of collective lives.” The interdisciplinary team at the University of St. Thomas, led by art history professors Todd Lawrence, Paul Lorah and Heather Shirey, combine insights from art history, ethnographic research and spatial analysis, examining the potential of street art to activate community identity, and of sanctioned and unsanctioned art as a response to gentrification in the Midway neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota. The researchers show that recent economic development in an affordable area of working-class homes has instigated a greater instability in this neighborhood with growing racial and ethnic diversity. They discuss how, since the beginnings of gentrification, the Midway neighborhood has become a key site for counterhegemonic artistic expression and resistance. Gentrification is often discussed as a form of new-age colonialization both in academic and activist circles. For Liza Kim Jackson, gentrification is a strategy of the ongoing colonial relations—both symbolic and material—that gives rise to the settler city and persists as a method of disciplining the poor and indigenous bodies, spaces and lands through the capitalist way of life (Jackson 2017). Such discussions are valuable as they lead to broader political questions about socio-environmental and cultural life in the cities. Most gentrification theory has addressed the how, why and who of gentrification, but often ignored the indigenous production of public and cultural space. Michelle Veitch’s chapter focuses on the indigenous art Hotel Skwachàys Lodge on the Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada. She discusses how the relocation schemes further promote frontier and colonial discourses by establishing East Hastings, an economically depressed city district facing pressures of cultural urban redevelopment. Veitch shows that the artists Fred and Whitehead respatialize and re-historicize the hotel with their images and texts that incorporate heraldic crest art, oral traditions and ceremonial practices to decolonize such discourses. Integrating murals, poetic writings and woodcarvings into their room designs at Skwachàys Lodge, Veitch discusses how the artists engage in aesthetic resistance by redressing trans-indigenous cultural inheritances, ancestral genealogies, knowledge systems and clan lineages. The book concludes by conceptualizing gentrified neighborhoods not only as arenas for urban politics but also as settings for aesthetic resistance against those politics. Panos Leventis engages in one such story in the work of Astraki Strikes, a street artist working in the heart of Nicosia by analyzing her ongoing project “Mapping the Old City,” which has engaged an entire district of the Walled City of Cyprus since 2014. Leventis interprets this project as a community-building agent, one that resists the dominant socio-urban forces of redevelopment and instead showcases, celebrates and empowers unseen urban heroes of Nicosia—those who have stayed loyal to the city through decades of conflict and reconciliation, abandonment and social re-engagement. This book points to major shifts in our understanding of urban transformation in the changing neoliberal landscape and the role of art in it. Considering art as a crucial tool for new and agonistic forms of political engagement in the gentrified urban space is a novel critical approach to both the aesthetics of politics and urban space theory. The understanding of this capacity of urban artists and art is valuable not only to the field of the arts and visual studies but also to sociology, human geography, urban studies and urban planning.

14 Tijen Tunalı

References Abaza, Mona. 2016. “The Field of Graffiti and Street Art in Post-January 2011 Egypt.” In Routledge Handbook of Graffiti and Street Art, ed. J.I. Ross, 318–334. London: Routledge. Annunziata, Sandra, and Clara Rivas-Alonso. 2018. “Resistances to Gentrification and Displacement.” In Handbook of Gentrification Studies, ed. Loretta Lees and Martin Phillips, pp: 393–412. Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing. Armstrong, Isobel. 2000. The Radical Aesthetic. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1988. Freedom. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Bishop, Claire. 2012. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London and New York: Verso Books. Blomley, Nicholas. 2004. Unsettling the City: Urban Land and the Politics of Property. New York: Routledge. Brenner, Neil, Peter Marcuse, and Mayer Margit. 2012. Cities for People, Not For Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City. London: Routledge. Brenner, Neil, and Nik Theodore. 2002. “Cities and the Geographies of ‘Actually Existing Neoliberalism.’” Antipode 34 (5): 349–379. Burton, Johanna, Shannon Jackson, and Dominic Willsdon, eds. 2016. Public Servants: Art and the Crisis of the Common Good. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cameron, Stuart, and Jon Coaffee. 2005. “Art, Gentrification and Regeneration—From Artist as Pioneer to Public Arts.” European Journal of Housing Policy 5 (1): 39–58. Casellas, Antonia, Jutgla Esteve Dot, and Montserrat Pallares-Barbera 2012. “Artists, Cultural Gentrification and Public Policy.” Urbani Izziv Urban Challenge 23 (1): S104–S114. Cole, David B. 1987. “Artists and Urban Redevelopment.” Geographical Review 77 (4): 391–407. Danewid, Ida. 2019. “The Fire This Time: Grenfell, Racial Capitalism and the Urbanisation of Empire.” European Journal of International Relations 26 (1): 289–313. Davis, Mike. 1993. Planet of Slums. London: Verso. Engels, F. [1845]. Davis, Mike. 2016. “A Boom Interview: Mike Davis in Conversation with Jennifer Wolch and Dana Cuff.” Boom California. https://boomcalifornia.com/2016/12/29/a-boom-interviewin-conversation-with-jennifer-wolch-and-dana-cuff/. DETR. 1999. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions: Towards an Urban Renaissance: Sharing the Vision. http://www.regeneration.detr.gov.uk/urbanren/1.html. De Certeau, Michel. 1988. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Deutsche, Rosalyn. 1998. Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics. Cambridge: MIT Press. Deutsche, Rosalyn, and C.G. Ryan. 1984. “The Fine Art of Gentrification.” October 31, 91–111. Dicks, Bella. 2004. Culture on Display: The Production of Contemporary Visitability. Berkshire: Open University Press. Fainstein, Susan, and David Gladstone. 1997. Tourism and Urban Transformation: Interpretation of Urban Tourism.” In Cities in Transformation--Transformation in Cities, ed. Ove Källtorp, I. Elander, O. Ericsson, and M. Franzén, 119–135. Aldershot, Hans, UK: Avebury. Fainstein, Susan S. 2010. The Just City. Ithaca: Cornel University Press. Fawaz, Mona. 2009. “Neoliberal Urbanity and the Right to the City: A View from Beirut’s Periphery.” Development and Change 40 (5): 827–852. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books. Foster, Nicole, Carl Grodach, and James Murdoch. 2018. “Gentrification, Displacement and the Arts: Untangling the Relationship between Arts Industries and Place Change.” Urban Studies 55 (4): 96–118. Friedman, Milton. 1962. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Introduction

15

Friedman, Milton, and Friedman Rose. 1980. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Gittlitz, A.M. 2015. Evicted Utopias. http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/evicted-utopias/. Glass, Ruth. 1964. “Introduction: Aspects of Change.” In London: Aspects of Change, ed. Centre for Urban Studies, xiii–xlii. London: MacGibbon and Kee. Guinard, P., Margier, A. 2018. “Art as a New Urban Norm: Between Normalization of the City through Art and Normalization of Art through the City in Montreal and Johannesburg.” Cities 77, 13–20. Hackworth, Jason, and Neil Smith. 2001. “The Changing State of Gentrification.” Tijdshcrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 22: 464–477. Hancox, Dan. 2016. “Gentrification X: How an Academic Argument Became the People’s Protest.” http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jan/12/gentrification-argument-protestbacklash-urban-generation-displacement. Harvey, David. 1978. “The Urban Process under Capitalism: A Framework for Analysis.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 2 (3): 101–131. Harvey, David. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Harvey, David. 2003. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Harvey, David. 2006. “Neo-Liberalism as Creative Destruction.” Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography 88 (2): 145–158. Harvey, David. 2012. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London: Verso. Hayek, Friedrich. 1994. The Road to Serfdom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hesmondhalgh, David J. 2008. “Cultural and Creative Industries.” In The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Analysis, ed. J. Frow and T. Bennett, 553–569. London: SAGE. Irazábal, Clara, ed. 2008. “Citizenship, Democracy and Public Space in Latin America.” In Ordinary Places/Extraordinary Events: Citizenship, Democracy and Public Space in Latin America, 11–34. New York: Routledge. Jackson, Liza K. 2017. “The Complications of Colonialism for Gentrification Theory and Marxist Geography.” Journal of Law and Social Policy 27: 43–71. Kohn, Margaret. 2016. The Death and Life of the Urban Commonwealth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lees, Loretta. 2000. “A Reappraisal of Gentrification: Towards a Geography of Gentrification.” Progress in Human Geography 24 (3): 389–408. Lees, Loretta, Just Space and SNAG. 2014. Staying Put: An Anti-Gentrification Handbook for Council Estates in London. London: Antipode Foundation. Lees Loretta, Tom Slater, and Elvin K Wyly. 2010. The Gentrification Reader. New York: Routledge. Lefebvre, Henri. 1968. Le droit à la ville. Paris: Anthropos. Lefebvre, Henri. 1974. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Lefebvre, Henri. 2000. Everyday Life in the Modern World. Translated by Sacha Rabinovitch. London: Athlone. Lefebvre, Henri. 2003. The Urban Revolution. Translated by Robert Bononno. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ley, David. 1996. The New Middle Classes and the Remaking of the Central City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ley, David. 2003. “Artists, Aestheticisation and the Field of Gentrification.” Urban Studies 40 (12): 2527–2544. Low, Setha, and Neil Smith, eds. 2006. The Politics of Public Space. London: Routledge.

16 Tijen Tunalı Lowe, Lisa. 2015. The Intimacies of Four Continents. Durham: Duke University Press. Marcuse, Peter. 2012. “Whose Right(s) to What City?” In Cities for People, Not For Profit, ed. N. Brenner, P. Marcuse, M. Mayer, 24–41. London: Routledge. Markin, Pablo B. 2013. “The Growing Aestheticization of Society, Culture, and Everyday Life.” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/296637920_The_Growing_Aestheticization_of_ Society_Culture_and_Everyday_Life. Markusen, Ann, and Greg Schrock. 2006. “The Artistic Dividend: Urban Specialization and Economic Development Implications.” Urban Studies 43 (10): 1661–1686. Mathews, Vanessa. 2010. “Aestheticizing Space: Art, Gentrification and the City.” Geography Compass 6 (4): 660–675. Mayer, Margit. 2009. “The ‘Right to the City’ in the Context of Shifting Mottos of Urban Social Movements.” City 13 (2–3): 362–363. McMurtry, John. 1998. Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical System. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Merrifield, Andy. 2014. The New Urban Question. London: Pluto Press. Miles, Malcolm. 1997. Art, Space and the City: Public Art and Urban Features. London, New York: Routledge. Mouffe, Chantal. 2007. “Artistic Activism and Agonistic Spaces.” Art & Research: A Journal of Ideas, Contexts and Methods 1 (2). http://www.artandresearch.org.uk/v1n2/mouffe.html. Mouffe, Chantal. 2005. “Which Public Space for Critical Artistic Practices.” In Cork Caucus: On Art, Possibility and Democracy, ed. Shep Steiner and Trevor Joyce. Ireland: National Sculpture Factory. Nas, Peter J., ed. 2011. Cities Full of Symbols: A Theory of Urban Space and Culture. AUP: Leiden University Press. Pinder, David. 2015 [2013]. “Reconstituting the Possible: Lefebvre, Utopia and the Urban Question.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 39 (1): 28–45. Purcell, Mark. 2004. “Citizenship and the Right to the Global City: Reimagining the Capitalist World Order.” International Journal 27 (3): 564–590. Purcell, Mark. 2008. Recapturing Democracy Neoliberalization and the Struggle for Alternative Urban Futures. New York, NY: Routledge. Ramirez-Blanco, Julia. 2018. Artistic Utopias of Revolt: Claremont Road, Reclaim the Streets, and the City of Sol. London; New York, NY: Palgrave. Rancière, Jacques. 2004. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. London and New York: Continuum. Rancière, Jacques. 2010. “The Aesthetic Revolution and Its Outcomes.” In The Sublime, ed. Simon Morley, 67–69. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rich, Meghan A. 2019. “Artists Are a Tool for Gentrification: Maintaining Artists and Creative Production in Art Districts.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 25 (6): 727–742. Sennett, Richard. 1994. Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization. New York: W. W. Norton. Slater, Tom. 2009. “Missing Marcuse: On Gentrification and Displacement.” City 13 (2): 292–311. Smith, Neil. 1979. “Toward a Theory of Gentrification: A Back to the City Movement by Capital, Not People.” Journal of the American Planning Association 45 (4): 538–548. Smith, Neil. 1982. “Gentrification and Uneven Development.” Economic Geography 58 (2): 139–155. Smith, Neil. 1996. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London and New York: Routledge. Smith, Neil. 2002. “New Globalism, New Urbanism: Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy.” Antipode 34 (3): 427–450.

Introduction

17

Smith, Neil. 2007. “Toward a Theory of Gentrification: A Back to the City Movement by Capital, not People.” Journal of the American Planning Association 45 (4): 538–548. Smyth, Hedley. 1994. Marketing the City: The Role of Flagship Developments in Urban Regeneration. London: E & F. N. Spoon. Soja, Edward. 2010. Seeking Spatial Justice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Thorsen Dag, Einar, and Amund Lie. 2009. “The Neoliberal Challenge: What Is Neoliberalism?” http://folk.uio.no/daget/neoliberalism2.pdf. Tonkiss, Fran. 2005. Space, City and Social Theory: Social Relations and Urban Forms. Oxford: Polity Press. Tsilimpounidi, Myrto. 2015. “If These Walls Could Talk: Street Art and Urban Belonging in the Athens of Crisis.” Laboratorium 7 (2): 71–91. Tunalı, Tijen. 2018. “The Art of Resistance: Carnival Aesthetics and the Gezi Street Protests.” ASAP: Journal of the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present 3 (2): 377–399. Verhaeghe, Paul. 2014. What about Me? The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society. London: Scribe. Zukin, Sharon. 1987. “Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban Core.” Annual Review of Sociology 13: 129–147. Zukin, Sharon. 1995. The Cultures of Cities. Oxford: Blackwell.

Part I

Art’s Conflicting Relationship to Gentrification in the Twenty-First Century

1

Gentrification and the Critique of the Contemporary Urban Dream-World Luke Carroll

Introduction Central to gentrification is consumption, and fantasy lurks within consumption through enchantment and discipline of bodies into structures of desire. To understand the fan­ tasy of gentrified space is to, partially, understand its production. These phenomena will be explored through empirical engagement with gentrified spaces, and through walking interviews with subjects who “consume” it. A libidinal map will be produced, to better understand the ideological boon that gentrified space promises to these subjects for example the surplus it is perceived to have, which “typical” space lacks. Capitalism is reproduced, in part, through the production of desires and fantasies which motivate consumption and labor (Böhm and Batta 2010; Cremin 2011). However, there is no singular structure of desire into which all subjects are inter­ pellated (Lordon 2014). A libidinal map sketches out a particular structure of desire within this totality. The term “libidinal” signifies the process by which commodities become attractive or repulsive; able to spark desire or extinguish it. The rotations within fashion itself show this logic at its most elementary. A commodity is libidinally invested into while “in” and disinvested from when “out”; from aphroditic to ana­ phroditic, from desirable object to detritus (Benjamin 1999, 73–74). In some respects, fantasy is itself spatial; stretching across and unifying, disparate interlinking phenomena. With this in mind, the libidinal map will be drawn through sketching the interconnected fragments, which constitute the fantasy; the objects within gentrified space, and the places they orbit. Each section will trace the fantasies projected onto these elements of gentrified space and, by extension, late-capitalist space more broadly. In particular, I will outline the constitutive role played by fan­ tasies of labor, and temporality, in sparking the subject’s desire. Once complete, I will show the overarching constellation binding these fragments, arguing that the gen­ trifier’s fantasy is that of dichotomization, whereby subjects split capitalism into neat distinctions, for example, good/bad, real/unreal, and so on. The negative projections, the unreal and lacking, totalize into the fantasy of “Crass Capitalism.” This imagined specter makes the libidinal fragments of gentrified space possible—“gentrified” objects, and places, derive their desirability from its “lacking” characteristics. Consequently, gentrified space exists as a contemporary dream-world. One where the dream of a life beyond the alienation of late-capitalism is commodi­ fied, and these critical desires are twisted into violent agents of capitalistic urban restructuring. The content of this chapter—the gentrifier’s fantasy, desire, and so on—is missing from the gentrification literature due to over-reliance on either

22 Luke Carroll Bourdiesian, or economistic Marxist, ontologies. Consequently, this material con­ tributes to an understanding of gentrification unhindered by the deficiencies of these approaches. I do not suggest that these ontologies are redundant, rather that they are incomplete due to an abstraction of desire. By opening this theoretical ground, we can understand gentrification from a new perspective, while also providing correctives to previous paradigms. While this libidinal map helps illuminate desire, it needs to be recognized as an abstraction. The neat categorizations enabling the representation of fantasy si­ multaneously work to obscure reality. In social reality, where fantasy is lived and ossified, libidinal fragments cross-pollinate and merge. Fantasy is messy and in­ divisible. Attempts to overcome this limitation will be pointed out throughout. Likewise, lived fantasy is never as universal as my representation may suggest. My socially blind illustration of fantasy must be subject to rigorous intersectional cri­ tique. Who can access this dream? How does this dream tilt? These essential ques­ tions are beyond my scope. Finally, my aim here is not to produce an exhaustive account of this dream-world, but rather illuminate its existence. Sociological explanations of gentrification cluster around production and con­ sumption paradigms. Before discussing each, one should note that neither side usually wishes to abstract the other’s considerations entirely. An important point to stress following Chris Hamnett’s (1991) seminal paper, which represented the gentrification literature as populated with hard-line opponents. Slater (2006) has argued this re­ presentation was detrimental, contributing to a stalemate where many researchers lost interest in gentrification; viewing it as trapped in production versus consumption dogma. I aim to circumvent such representations, through highlighting that both paradigms under-theorize the desiring subject. Firstly, the production school. This paradigm is best characterized by Neil Smith’s “Rent Gap.” The “Rent Gap” seeks to explain gentrification by asking “what are the conditions of profitability?” (Smith 2005, 57). Such a question is relevant as, under a capitalist mode of production, land and the improvements built upon it, are produced and exchanged as commodities. Consequently, the built environment takes on the characteristics innate to the commodity form (Smith 2010). The land is valorized through being imbued with socially necessary labor-time, labor that is directed to­ ward the production of a use-value, such as a home. The land’s exchange-value is then aligned in accordance with this. These improvements are also subject to deva­ lorization, such as the decay produced via use itself.1 When the exchange value of the land falls, so too does the rate of profit. However, while “the capitalized land rent” falls, the “potential ground rent” may not. This is the exchange-value the landlord could acquire, should the land be put to its “highest and best use” (Smith 2005, 63). This term, borrowed from neo-classical economics, denotes the form land must take to generate maximum profit. The distinction between these two values “The RentGap” determines the likelihood of a space gentrifying. Consequently, gentrification is a product of value in motion.2 However, the economistic presuppositions of Smith’s account represent gentrification as a process without any consuming subjects (Hamnett 1991).3 The consumption school seeks to rectify this by considering the gentrifying subject. Such arguments follow that, as a “consequence of changes in the industrial and occupational structure of advanced capitalist cities” (Lees and Ley 2008, 90), the city has become postindustrial; entailing the expulsion of industry and working-class jobs. As postindustrial white-collar jobs

Contemporary Urban Dream-World 23 supersede the old blue-collar, the city becomes populated by middle-class workers, rather than working-class laborers. This new, and increasingly numerous, post­ industrial middle-class stratum, termed the “creative” or “cultural class” (Florida 2002; Ley 1996), has its own distinct habitus (Bourdieu, 2010). They seek to con­ sume places and commodities with high-levels of objectified cultural capital (Jager 2013; Ley 1996), such as gentrified space and that which it commonly contains, as a means of either pleasure (Caulfield 1989), social distinction (Ley 2003), or both. In short, changes in our social re/production have centralized a new dimension of the middle-class with a taste for gentrified space, and it is through their demand that gentrification is driven. The shared flaw within both these approaches is an abstraction of desire. Smith (2005) argues that the consumption school posits a kind of market voluntarism, whereby individual consumers determine the form taken by markets, thus abstracting away the requirements of capital in favor of privileging the power of taste. While I am somewhat sympathetic to Smith’s claim, it is apparent that his rent-gap falls into a similar logic. By lacking a substantial understanding of subjectivity, through his abstraction of the subject, Smith leaves us with two possible conclusions. Firstly, those subjects are fundamentally unimportant to the process of gentrification. Secondly, whilst important for the process, subjects have an “innate” desire to consume gentrified space. If we wish to maintain that subjects are important to gentrification, due to the necessity of value-realization through market exchange (Clarke 1991), it would appear that Smith naturalizes the process of gentrification through desire. The desire to consume gentrified space is assumed. The consumption school claims to illuminate this abstraction, through an evoca­ tion of middle-class taste disciplined via the habitus—for example, the subject of gentrification is middle-class, and the middle-class desire gentrified space. However, they simply replace one abstraction with another. The abstraction of the subject, by the production school, is replaced by an abstract subject. This is not an issue with the consumption school per se, but rather its heavy-handed use of Bourdiesian theoretical frameworks. A key flaw within Bourdieu’s ontology is, to use the language of ObjectOriented Ontology, an “over-mining” of objects (Harman 2011). This entails that an object is seen only through its social function. For Bourdieu, an object’s truth content is the role it plays in mediating, and reproducing, a social agent position within the symbolic order. While I do not deny the importance of an object’s place within a habitus, and correlating field, this analysis in isolation is incomplete; as critical in­ terpreters of Bourdieu have previously argued (Bidet 2008; Pensky 2004). To outline why we must apply Walter Benjamin’s critique of Kant’s transcendental theory of perception to Bourdieu’s framework. Benjamin argued that historical mutations in perception are “mythologies” embedded in the structure of knowledge and the products of culture4 (Osborne and Matthew 2015). Objects, and the per­ ceptive experience they produce, are historically grounded and mediated; they are symptomatic, in some manner, of a particular moment (Buck-Morss 1991; Miller 1996). While these symptomatic objects unavoidably become intertwined with social distinction and so can partially be understood through a Bourdiesian framework, it is an error to argue this approach is exhaustive.5 In short, just because gentrifiers ac­ quire cultural capital through the consumption of their dream-objects, such as arti­ sanal coffee or vinyl records, this does not mean there is no historical reason why these objects have become the standard by which cultural capital is currently accrued.

24 Luke Carroll In effect, objects, and places, have a certain surplus, which cannot be captured by a Bourdieusian analysis and it is within this surplus that desires, in part, lurks. Consequently, the gap to be filled is in understanding the production of the gen­ trifying subject, through interrogating the desire to consume gentrified space: the aesthetic it emanates, the cultural artifacts it contains, and so on. In effect, to syn­ thesize production and consumption approaches through desire. While I aim to re­ open theoretical space within the study of gentrification, I do not wish to suggest current paradigms have no explanatory value. It is essential to recognize that gen­ trification, like any social phenomena, can only be understood through interlacing approaches—political-economy, class identity, desire, and so on. Each approach re­ veals elements of gentrification while simultaneously obscuring others. Importantly, the flaws within one are negated through the insight provided by opposing para­ digms. In this light, we can see the following as tracing the inner workings of the habitus, the libidinal material upon which some consumptive regimes of distinction are built. While beyond the direct focus of this chapter, this theoretical intervention provides the groundwork for further research into the immaterial labor (Lazzarato 1996), or representational space (Lefebvre 1991), which necessarily stands behind rent-gaps; areas that the traditional labor theory of value, which informs Smith’s work, eschew. By tracing the desire to consume gentrified space, understanding the ideological appeal that drives libidinal investment, we gain greater understanding of gentrifica­ tion. This bracket of knowledge has been under-researched. Not for lack of critical knowledge potential but rather as the term “gentrification” is perceived as unclean, to such an extent that studying the gentrifier’s subjectivity is seen as compromised (Slater 2006). This discourse represents the gentrifier as urban folk-devil, an immoral perversion driven by a sense of revanchism, rather than as a historical symptom. My point is, of course, not to belittle the everyday struggles that gentrification causes; it is the innate violence of gentrification that motivates critical investigation. Instead, I wish to move past the moralistic appraisals of the gentrifying subject—which do nothing to criticize, or challenge the process itself—and to instead reveal the gentrifier as a desiring machine, interpellated by a structure of feeling. As Walter Benjamin argued, “If one wishes to destroy something, one must not only know it; if the job is to be done well, one must have felt it” (Benjamin 2002, 176), thus let us descend into the gentrifier’s fantasy. This analysis rests on 25 interviews conducted between January and August 2019, spread equally between two case sites in North East London—Shoreditch and Dalston. I chose Shoreditch, due to its position as an archetypal “gentrified” space within the urban-imaginary. Like a magnified image, within Shoreditch, one finds the fantasies, aesthetics and desires of gentrified space synthesized in carnivalesque form. If gentrification is a crime scene, it is in Shoreditch that the criminal, in their selfconfidence, was least careful about leaving behind clues. Dalston became the second case site after concrete engagement with Shoreditch, in which it was frequently re­ ferenced as Shoreditch’s successor. The interviews followed a semi-structured ap­ proach, in which I sought to address key themes—primarily around the interrelated notions of desire, aesthetics, identity and place. I sampled participants who had a concrete relationship with the case site, in terms of either work, leisure or habitation. The majority of participants6 fell into typical categories of gentrifiers, as measured by the consumptive school; new-comers, young, marginally to moderately affluent socio-

Contemporary Urban Dream-World 25 economically, cultural consumer, and so on—for example, an urban stratification within the “new” middle class (Savage et al. 2013), at times, intertwined with the precariat. Participants were accrued by producing and distributing a poster to cafes, campuses and bars, within the case sites, and snowballing from the respondents. All interview data has been anonymized. When studying desire, and correlated fantasy, it is necessary to structure metho­ dology appropriately. Rather than operationalizing traditional semistructured inter­ views, each was conducted while walking through a case site. Walking interviews allow for a greater sensitivity to place, and participants find it easier to evocate while materially engaged with the object of study; contrasted to a static interview (Evans and Jones 2011). Likewise, this method resonated with the semistructured interview format. A place becomes an active participant within walking interviews, the sights and mémoire involontaire it produces help guide the discussion and investigation (Anderson 2004). An overly structured interview would have obscured this benefit; through silencing the place itself. Finally, the act of walking fosters the relationship between researcher and participant, as each shares the walking experience. While making the interview more pleasant for those involved, it also develops trust, which is essential when seeking to uncover the sensitivities of subjectivity (Figure 1.1).

A Libidinal Map through Gentrified Space I’d like to teach the world to sing (sing with me) in perfect harmony. I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. That’s the real thing. I’d like to teach the world to sing (what the world wants today) in perfect harmony. I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. It’s the real thing. Coke is what the world wants today. Coca-Cola is the real thing. Coke is what the world wants today. Coca-Cola is the real thing. “Hilltop” 1971. Coca-Cola Advertisement. Objects are semiotically sticky, they get filled with meaning(s) that cannot be found within the material qualities of the object itself. For instance, in the aforementioned Coca-Cola advertisement, we can see an attempt to fill an object, the commodity of Coke, with particular semiotic connotations. Hays discussed this as the attempt, by Coke, to distinguish itself as the authentic Cola—at the time, the business was seeking to differentiate its commodity from the well-known Pepsi, but also more localized regional competitors (Hays 2005). The primary meaning, while difficult to entirely pin-down, chrysalises through the line “Coke, it’s the real thing.” Unlike the other objects, Coke is the real form of Cola drinks—the others are fallacious, soulless, unreal. This advert has since been canonized, ceasing to be perceived as a work of immaterial labor7 and instead closer to an objet d’art. While it may tell us something of the structure of feeling in which it was produced, and received, for now let us focus on its primary ontological claim—Coke, a mass-produced, homogenous, corporatecommodity, is the real thing, the authentic object. Let us consider the following passage, which touches on a participant’s perception of commodities such as Coke-Cola. This interview, with Annette, a motivational speaker in Shoreditch, took place while walking down Brick Lane:

26 Luke Carroll A: I’ve got a real appreciation for effort that’s been put in to make things that are real and feel like people have put their heart and soul into it. But when something’s just mass-produced, like pink paste just pressed into a t-shirt shape {McDonalds Nuggets}, or whatever, there’s no effort or energy that’s gone into it. When drawn into contrast, these two excerpts display the ontological battlefield upon which this analysis rests; what makes an object, or a place, real? For the par­ ticipants, objects such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds Nuggets, or Primark Clothes are unreal. They, of course, do not doubt the material existence of these objects. Instead, the source of this unreality is subtler. These objects lack that certain something, the Agalma, or Objet Petit A (Lacan 2015), and without it, these objects are perceived by the subjects as unreal and hence undesirable. Within the space of fantasy, it is this apparent lack that gentrified objects, and places, claim to fill, for example, while CokeCola is no longer the “real thing” perhaps Dalston Cola is. Let us return to Annette and tease out the logic of this fantasy. The subject has outlined two interconnected dynamics, which produce unreal objects. Firstly, ob­ jects produced without any “effort or energy.” For Annette, objects produced without “effort” are not imbued with the agalma, and are consequently undesir­ able. The fantasy produces her perception that “real” objects are only made by particular forms of labor. To understand the perceived nature of this labor, let us consider a corollary dynamic within this fantasy—the laborer must work with exuberance. While the unknown laborer in a Primark sweatshop may produce objects with physical effort, their labor is still seen as lacking. To unravel the fantasy logic, let us consider the following interview with Tom, a shoe seller, and semi-professional musician, who is based in Dalston: T: And you see that, whether it’s going to, like, an independent bakery, and you see how they’re getting up at 6am. They’re putting so much effort in and you can see they’re making stuff with love. Versus, chains…it feels like there’s less love in there. It’s just mass produced. For Tom, the mass-produced object may be produced by effort, but it is not an effort driven by love. It is seen as lacking, it becomes unreal. Objects produced by this lacking labor are subsequently themselves constituted with a fundamental lack; for example, for the subjects, objects produced by “soulless” labor are themselves soulless. Due to this perceived ontological lack, the participants find these objects undesirable. For instance, Coca-Cola, due to the conditions of its production—miserable mechanized laborers and unfeeling machines—is, within the gentrifier’s fantasy, denied the very ontological integrity and libidinal appeal it once rallied behind. The question then becomes if certain objects are perceived to be constituted with an anaphroditic lack, then which kind of objects are not? How does an object gain the agalma which causes it to be perceived as real, and con­ sequently desirable? Let us examine the role played by “effort” and “love” within this fantasy. Consider the following statement from John, a Barista in Dalston, which took place while walking down Kingsland Road: J: I think people are starting to see through the bullshit a little bit … they are willing to go— “Okay, maybe the idea of the cheapest most reproducible product is

Contemporary Urban Dream-World 27 actually a bad thing. It’s actually not good to have this constant easy access to stuff. Maybe there should be a bit more of a focus on craftsmanship, a focus on a skilled trade.” You know, the idea of being an awesome baker wasn’t as much of a thing 15–20 years ago; now there’s loads of places you can go to get dope bread and like these people who are artisanal brewers and baristas who focus on specialty coffee and shit. John simultaneously devalorizes the “bullshit” objects of mass-production, while valorizing their perceived opposite—for example, the “craft good.” Once more re­ inforcing the importance of the imagined conditions of production, but now from the positive perspective within this fantasy. The “bullshit” object, produced by “unreal” labor, finds its antithesis—the “real” object, a thing necessarily produced by “real” labor. John, alongside the other subjects, desires objects, which are seemingly produced by skilled, and loving, labor8; “real labor” is thus a fantasy rooted in ideas of the craftsman. The objects produced by this “real labor” are seen as imbued with its perceived ontological integrity. In contrast, the objects produced by the dehumanized, and invisible, workforce standing behind modernity’s social-reproduction may be consumed out of necessity, but they are required not desired. This is the libidinal space of the artisanal object, echoing the ideas of William Morris and the ill-fated Morris and Co. However, real objects are not limited to the traditional arts and crafts objects—for example, decorations, textiles and embroideries (Crawford 1997; Cumming and Kaplan 1991)—but rather as James, a student who recreationally consumes Dalston, articulated: J: These are the interesting versions of the norm. These are the beers that I can’t just sit here and have eight pints of. So, you know, fuck it - I’m gonna have one of them, I’ll enjoy it for something else. Not just a conduit for being social, having a drink, and getting drunk, you know what I mean? The real object is one of craft, of so-called artisanal production, but specifically the transubstantiated form of everyday objects. Carlsberg is delibidinized by craft ale, and Starbucks is rejected for specialty baristas. For the subjects, the everyday objects of capitalism are the unreal form of “real” objects; the objects that look and feel similar to the imposters, but with the agalma that only “real” labor can provide.

A Place with a Trace We can see similar fantasies projected onto place. To excavate these, let us turn to an interview with Frances. A mature student studying at Goldsmiths, her primary engage­ ment with Shoreditch was consuming it recreationally, particularly Boxpark and the areas around Brick Lane. The following was a discussion of, while within, Dray Walk: F: I think people like it because it’s unique. It’s quite functional but now this has been reused. Even if it’s just a restaurant, because of the place they have their own histories and stories. So, it means that they are quite unique, and so people will love this kind of place. Also, I think these industrial buildings were things that weren’t so respected by society. They used to be things people wanted to hide in the city. But now history and the design of the buildings themselves are respected by the public.

28 Luke Carroll Within gentrified spaces, you are regularly confronted with a familiar aes­ thetic, renovated industrial buildings, which have been transformed from their previous use-value to another. Usually from use-values of production to those of consumption—for example, the factory becomes a cafe—mirroring wider postindustrial urban shifts (Hannigan 1998; Lloyd 2010). Previous discussions on these urban forms, academic and otherwise, seem to argue that brute economic practice drives such transformations (Hubbard 2016). This argument can be summarized as the ruins of the industrial era, now less central to urban capital accumulation, drop in economic value hence they are purchased and repurposed into a more profitable form. However, like the similar “rent-gap” argument, when used in isolation, such analyses simplify the phenomena. Crude econo­ mistic and Bourdiesian ontologies abstract away the importance of consumption in producing space through simplification and abstraction.9 Let us return to our consuming subjects. Earlier, Francis articulated the significance of a place being somehow imbued with history, suggesting that such characteristics draw her as a consuming body. The importance of historical traces, in alluring the gentrifier, is echoed in discussions with other participants. For in­ stance, the following interview with John: J:

I like how they’re using old parts. You know, don’t let things go to waste because it keeps some of the history. You get to see how it used to be. For example, where I live used to be like, an old kinda like factory building, and all sorts. I really like that as it reminds of how in New York, they used their warehouses to become flats and things like that. That’s what I like.

L: Is there an appeal to living in an ex-factory rather than a high-rise? J: Yeah, definitely. Younger people definitely have this attraction to living somewhere that’s cool and been used. I think, I don’t know what it is, but certain people I know, and myself, have an infatuation with things that have been used before. So like industrial stuff, or things that have been abandoned, reclamation and re-usage is something that just strangely appeals, I think it’s nice to have somewhere that’s had a bit of history and it’s honestly nice to live somewhere that’s not just been knocked down and rebuilt. Historical traces work to signify the previous lives, or stories, of a place. Examples range from the over-top glorification of a previous life—such as naming the “new” place in the spirit of the old for example “The Truman Brewery,” which now functions as a trendy office space—to more subtle traces; the maintenance, or recreation, of original artifacts and quirks.10 For the gen­ trifiers, these traces signify the right kind of story; for example, this place is somehow beyond what exists now, it has roots which draw from history. These are places that have been used, like a piece of vintage clothing, and this is signified by the traces left behind. Before moving on, let us briefly visit Mark, a Herbalist in Shoreditch: L: So talking about the shopfloor, what were your design decisions? M: Well, in terms of furniture, we don’t want an Ikea shop. All these pieces are individual, they are all vintage/antique, when I say vintage I mean G-plan, 50s

Contemporary Urban Dream-World 29 vintage. We just like the wood effect, and yeah, the vintage side of it, the reuse of furniture which looks nice, but is also individual, it isn’t mass produced. Here, the fantasies of objects and places combine. For Mark, whose shop lacked any substantive traces of previous use, the “real” (temporal) objects themselves are uti­ lized to function as historical traces. By filling his shop with “antiques,” he sub­ stituted the place’s lack of trace. My point here is twofold11: (1) That certain objects can “do the work” to satisfy the spatial fantasies of the gentrifiers. (2) To highlight the blurred relationship between different levels of fantasy projection.

Places of Labor Within a capitalist economy, it seems odd to suggest that places of labor are valorized by the gentrifiers. Within the capitalist city, it is difficult to find a place which isn’t a place of labor, for example, a place that is actively produced by, and contains within it, specific moments of labor. However, my articulation here should be understood in reference to the gentrifier’s fantasy valorization of particular forms of labor—for example, “real” labor—and, by extension, the devalorization of other particular forms of labor. The following is a spatial corollary to these fantasies of labor. A common sight in gentrified space are places, which display their own conditions of production, for example, a bar where you sit among the kegs, or a deli where you eat on the kitchen surface. This situation seems to contrast profoundly with Marx’s observations of capitalist production: Accompanied by Mr. Moneybags and by the possessor of labor-power, we therefore take leave for a time of this noisy sphere, where everything takes place on the surface and in view of all men, and follow them both into the hidden abode of production, on whose threshold there stares us in the face “No admittance except on business.” (Marx 1976, 279–280) Within gentrified space, we are increasingly privy to this once hidden abode. The following interview, with Talia, a tattoo artist, took place within “Unto This Last.” Named after Political-Economic text by John Ruskin, this workshop, situated on Brick Lane, produces handcrafted furniture. Part of its design, as clarified by the owner, is the visibility of the workshop itself, which opens into the shop it stocks: L: What do you like about it? T: Well the fact we can see in is really cool. There’s that transparency there as a company, right? Everything is matching, all the symmetry and stuff and the sense that it is handmade, you can really get that. L: What’s the appeal of being able to see in? T: Well a lot of places, say, you can’t see your food being made. And so you don’t know what’s going on with it. But with this you can see every stage of the procession, you can see the ball to the buck. The things there, standing up and not having anything done to them. And then the woman standing something in the front, and a full cupboard in front of that. Here we see a valorization of the production process itself. Being able to “see” production infuses the place with a greater degree of transparency and honesty. It

30 Luke Carroll seems to express a marked shift from the norms of consumerism, which is referenced indirectly by Talia’s suggestion that not being able to see production entails you “don’t know what’s going on with it.” One could read this as Talia valorizing being able to “check on” the conditions of production, however, the latter part of the dialogue is suggestive of another dynamic. She discusses the appeal of seeing a woman standing, laboring, surrounded by the objects of her craft. To uncover the fantasy logic more sufficiently, let us pivot to Roger, a Deliveroo worker: R: Which has its own microbrewery behind a piece of glass. All the beer is on tap. It’s kind of like: “Sick! They’re made over there, and I can drink it here. That’s cool, you made it, nice!” L: Why is that important to you? R: As soon as you see how it’s been made, you want it! Even if it’s like a petrol canister, I don’t even have a car! Once you see it being made, you’re like—cool! The fantasy valorizes the image of labor. The act of laboring has produced a fantasy image within the subject’s perception. Within such places, commodities produced by the workers are inseparable from the aesthetic of their production. Likewise, this element of a commodity’s aesthetic is not unknown to employers. As shown by Unto This Last’s own recruitment: Experience in lean manufacturing would be most welcome. As we manufacture directly in front of the public, we are looking for people interested in client service as well as in production. (As of February 14th, 2020, Unto This Last listed on its website) Of course, a glass fronted workshop in Shoreditch is an extreme example. However, rather than disregarding such an urban formation as an anomaly, Unto This Last should be considered a magnified image of this spatial tendency. Returning to Roger; it becomes clear that, like objects and stories, only particular kinds of labor have a desirable image. It is “real” labor, which produces desirable objects, alongside a desirable aesthetic. L: Imagine if McDonald’s is made of glass. Would that increase the appeal of McDonald’s burgers for you? R: No. I mean they’re pretty grim anyway out there, you know, I mean. I think McDonald’s is also one of those examples of people where we know nobody chooses to work for McDonald’s, you know what I mean? You don’t do that because it’s your calling in life. Some people will, but 99 percent of the people in there don’t have. I have no problem with people feeling that’s what they want to do. Great. You’re doing what you want. But I think for most people it’s a for-now job that pays the bills, where they probably feel exploited or under-valued quite a lot of time. Within this fantasy, “unreal” labor produces not only undesirable objects but also an undesirable image of production. There is no appeal in the perception of such labor, instead it is something that must remain hidden. As before, this negative dimension of fantasy works to structure the positive, for example, the McDonalds job must be unfulfilling, so I do not wish to see it, while the kind of labor in Unto This Last is real,

Contemporary Urban Dream-World 31 therefore I desire to see it. Of course, the actual conditions of labor are imperceptible in both—while there may be glass covering the workshop, we cannot see the supply chain, the labor-contract, the disposition of the managers—all we see, and all the subject desires to see, is the tip of the production process, for example, the body engaged in real labor (Figure 1.1).

Reading Desire with Walter Benjamin The economic conditions under which society exists are expressed in the superstructure; precisely as, with the sleeper, an overfull stomach finds not its reflection but its expression in the content of dreams…The collective, from the first, expresses the conditions of its life. These find their expression in the dream and their interpretation in awakening. (Walter Benjamin 1999, 392) G: It is this need for people to define themselves against what’s over there (points to the Gherkin). Which is this absolute, arguably, soulless corporatist world. You could argue it’s that kind of fighting back…All the untidiness feels like a fuck you to what’s over there. Well if not a fuck you, just a clear statement that you’re not over there anymore. George, a consumer of Shoreditch who works in “The City.”

Figure 1.1 The aestheticization of labor, 2019. Photograph. Shoreditch. ©Luke Carroll.

32 Luke Carroll The fantasy of gentrified space cannot exist without reference to its “Other.” All fantasy requires an “Other” against which to define itself (Fink 1997); just as language itself, the material building blocks of fantasy, can only give meaning within a chain of signification. The Other, while appearing to be totally exterior to the content of the fantasy, is in fact entirely interior; it is essential to its func­ tioning. This “Other,” within the fantasy of gentrified space, has been present throughout this chapter; however, it has yet to be named, brought together, and understood. To finalize our understanding of the overarching positive fantasy, it is essential to render this negative “Other” legible. For the subjects, this “Other” is the lacking form of an object, place or practice. For example, while the “real” object has a soul, the “Other” is that which does not. It is the specter that haunts the gentrifiers imagination, and that “pushes” them to desire the libidinal constellation of gentrified space. Let us consider the following interview with Matt, a Barista in Peckham, who consumes Dalston recreationally: M: I think that central London is just kind of crass, it’s almost like crass capitalism, it’s so decadent. The place that sums it up is fucking M&M world. It’s this souvenir shop for a product that has no connection to London, just money for money’s sake; it’s fucking idolatry. You know “Look at this soulless product, go to the church of this product. Where you can spend 100s of pounds on M&Ms.” Who asked for this? What need is this fulfilling in society, other than continuing to buy things, to perpetuate this cycle of spending money for money’s sake? This “Other,” As Matt calls it, is Crass Capitalism, although Everyday Capitalism would be equally appropriate. It is the capitalism of mass-production, brands, exchange-value, alienated labor, homogeneity, sterility and instrumented rationality. For the subjects, it is a soulless capitalism12—a capitalism that fails to spark real desire within the subjects, due to the lack within the objects, places and practices it re/ produces. This lacking “Other” is what allows the subjects to see the libidinal fragments within gentrified space as a whole. The places, objects, and people, within gentrified space strive to negate the imagined characteristics of Crass Capitalism. Its objects, places and even practices13 are considered ontologically lacking in some manner—homogeneity, sterility, artificiality and so on—and so undesirable; the constellation of gentrified space claims to provide a corrective to this lack. For instance, while the mass-produced objects have “no story,” no substantive meaning beyond the commodity form, tem­ poral objects and places do; they become “real” through time and obsolescence. While the laborers working within Crass Capitalism are perceived as nothing but alienated abstract labor-time incarnate, the laborer within the gentrified constellation is viewed as concrete, an artisanal worker, a craftsperson; a logic reflected by the valorization of the “real” objects it produces, alongside the image of this production itself. In reality, life is more complex, each moment within this fantasy is circumspect when interrogated with material reality. Behind the surface, all fantasy appears flimsy, but it still puts bodies in motion. Regardless of its “truth,” this fantasy logic is the libidinal sub­ terranea of gentrified space. It draws consuming subjects to it by the promise of filling the perceived lack within Crass Capitalism.

Contemporary Urban Dream-World 33 With the form of this fantasy illuminated, we must now uncover its content. For Walter Benjamin (1999), the form of a commodity’s aesthetic, and the fantasies that surround it, exists as investigative material. A world of commodity fetishism re­ produces itself through utilizing the dormant utopian desires of the collective; “wish images”: “the disguised representations of genuine wants and aspirations that remain thwarted under capitalism” (Gilloch 2002, 127). While the commodity distorts and twists these wish-images into the value-form, it cannot abolish them, as they are crucial in nurturing the subject’s desire to consume (Buck-Morss 1991). From this angle, commodity-aesthetics take on new significance. Filled with traces of desire, they promise for something currently denied by material reality. Thus, the commodity-aesthetic becomes a clue to read the material reality of the moment, it expresses curvatures within our structure of feeling (Williams 1980). Consequently, they are not just a negative illusion,14 but rather a dialectical moment; pulled between the contradictions of the commodity form, and the innate requirements of profit; reproducing the social relations of the present yet only able to achieve this task by pointing to the negation of existing social reality (Gilloch 1996; Goebel 2009). These wish-images, central as they are to accumulation, unavoidably become ossified in space; the dream-worlds, where the historical subject chases wishes15 in an attempt “to overcome and to transfigure the immaturity of the social product and the in­ adequacies in the social organization of production” (Benjamin 1999, 4). While we may intuitively disregard the gentrifier’s dichotomization of capitalism’s assemblages as traces of so-called ethical consumption, we ought to recognize the wish-images within the fantasy, and even within gentrified space itself. It exists as a dream-world, in which fundamentally utopian impulses—more satisfying work, more meaningful objects, places and lives—lie ossified and dormant. The gentrifier desires the libidinal constellation of gentrified space not to displace and destroy, to gentrify, rather they are drawn to its ideological promise of a life beyond the everyday ar­ rangements of late-capitalism. Of course, this dream-world is simply a different kind of capitalism; one accessible to those privileged enough to dream away alienation. Those who cannot, experience this dream-world as a nightmare, a process of psychic and corporeal displacement from one’s world as it is transubstantiated into a place for dreamers. The gentrifier is a tragic figure within the urban lifeworld; these people consume a commodified “anti-capitalism,” a dream “escape” from alienation,16 and in doing so function as active subjects within the capitalistic restructuring of the urban. Gentrified space must be stripped of its aura, while simultaneously unleashing the critical desire that lies sleeping, and neutralized, within it. The first tremors of awakening serve to deepen sleep (Benjamin 1999, 391).

Conclusion The superstructure of society does not mechanically reflect its constitutive economic base but rather it expresses it. The experience of life under late-capitalism is expressed by the dream-world of gentrified space. Within it, we find a phantasmagoria of li­ bidinal wish-images, each expressing elements of our historical moment and promises of its negation. Firstly, we saw how the gentrifier’s fantasy divides objects into the categories of real (desirable) and unreal (undesirable), with the former being

34 Luke Carroll produced by real, and the latter by unreal, labor. Secondly, we saw this fantasy logic mirrored in space. Places were valorized when they displayed, or were somehow produced by, real labor. Likewise, a place became desirable when it displayed traces of its history, signifiers of its “story,” to mark it against the non-places of latecapitalism. When these fragments of the libidinal map are arranged into a con­ stellation, we see the gentrifiers desire for that, which appears oppositional to “Crass Capitalism.” For these consuming subjects, the fantasy objects, places, and practices, of gentrified space, stand as correctives to the constitutive lack within this imagined “Other.” Within this fantasy, we can see that desire for gentrified space is, in part, driven by dreams of life beyond late-capitalism. Yet this “escape” is itself a com­ modified experience, which sublimates the slow violence of displacement into the perception of a faux utopia; a desire to negate alienation, in part, fuels gentrification and the capitalist city. In order to analytically represent fantasy, it is necessary to discipline it into un­ derstandable categories. However, social reality renders these distinctions tenuous and interlocking. Different dimensions of fantasy blur, cross-contaminate and act simultaneously. Consequently, we must recognize that the lived experience of the gentrifier, their fantasy life-world, which I have sought to ossify by analysis, is messier than my representation would suggest. The neat distinctions cannot exist outside of abstraction. Yet, this necessarily imperfect representation still touches at the center of fantasy, allowing us to see, albeit awry, the desire to consume gentrified space. However, the universal character of this representation requires substantive inter­ sectional critique. For instance, the paradoxical relationship of race and gentrification—in which gentrification feeds off cultural diversity while ethnically cleansing—must be investigated to understand that which is obfuscated by the dream. Likewise, the gendered experience of this dream-world has not been touched upon, fundamentally limiting the concrete explanatory value of my analysis. Desire, and fantasy, could not be grasped sufficiently by existing research para­ digms within the gentrification literature. Consequently, our understanding of the importance of symptomatic, and sometimes clichéd, tendencies that gentrified space exudes has been hindered. This chapter has aimed to approach gentrified space with such theoretical deficiencies in mind. This research, while far from exhaustive, has opened the epistemological room to see gentrified space through the eyes of those who consume it; and the unavoidable fantasies that stand as lenses before their perception. Further research can build upon this epistemological terrain; to chart questions regarding the delibidinization of gentrified space—how does capitalism work to steadily disrupt the dream-world? Such research would reveal how such spaces die, becoming “past it,” and how new manifestations of the dream-world are produced. Likewise, it is essential to provide further correctives to the rent-gap ap­ paratus. What role is played by immaterial laborers in capturing and utilizing wishimages to produce libidinal rent-gaps? Finally, it is important to recognize that gentrification is modular; the dream-world is only one form it takes. Gentrification, the process of rising exchange-values dis­ placing bodies and destroying lifeworlds, is baked into the logic of capitalism. Within a capitalist political-economy—in which value, profit, and accumulation are the governing forces—the violence of gentrification and the struggle against it, like poverty, ecological destruction, or any of capitalism’s death drives, is eternally upon the horizon. Gentrification is present from Cornwall, where fishermen are driven

Contemporary Urban Dream-World 35 further from the sea as their cottages are transformed into the Bourgeoisie’s secondhomes (Dykes and Walmsley 2015; Paris 2008), to University cities where student demand makes homes increasingly unobtainable for permanent residents (Chatterton 2010), to the Global South where the flows of global capital intensify neocolonial restructuring (López-Morales 2015); gentrification is capitalism’s logic expressed in space. The dream-world is simply one module within this totality. Thus, to reduce gentrification to the dream-world is to reify this process; to abstract the violence innate to capitalism through centralizing one manifestation. However, while not the root of all gentrification, this chapter has shown the libidinal role played by the dream-world in producing gentrified urban space. Likewise, gentrifying spaces be­ yond the urban are, in part, filled, and driven, by the aesthetic, fantasies and desires of the dream-world—a relationship that must be explored through further research—in one interviewee’s words: “The idea of what Brick Lane is has been spread to the world.”

Notes 1 Smith utilizes a traditional labor theory of value here. It fails to take into account how immaterial labor, which changes how land is perceived, also increases exchange-value. 2 The production school also highlights the importance of the state in producing/closing rentgaps (He 2007; Smith 2002)—third-wave gentrification. This discussion is beyond my scope; however, my forthcoming critique does not seem undermined by this necessary abstraction. 3 This is a salient critique, as the gentrifying subject plays an essential role in enabling value to be realized through exchange (Clarke, 1991) and consequently the process of production as a whole. 4 Not only is our perception, as Kant argued, unable to properly access its intended object; “the thing in itself.” Our perception itself is also locked behind the restriction of history. The manner in which we perceive, even an appearance, is a historical mediated process (Osborne and Matthew 2015). 5 This is the primary flaw within the majority of consumptive-based approaches to gentri­ fication. As such, these investigations mistake a partial explanation of gentrified spaces reproduction for an exhaustive explanation of its production. In effect, the habitus helps us understand how a social form reproduces itself but not, in isolation, why a social form exists or why it changes. 6 Two interviewees had been born in Dalston and had chosen to move back there. 7 Immaterial labor is the work undertaken to produce economic value through the man­ agement of perception (Lazzarato 1996). Advertisers ought to be seen as the quintessential form of immaterial laborers. 8 This is not simply “affective labor” (Blackman and Venn 2010). Rather, “Real Labor” is imagined by the subject to be exuberant, artisanal and so forth. 9 The moment of production requires consumption to materialize. Consequently, to reduce production to “economic” forces is to simplify the nature of production and the politicaleconomy (Baudrillard 2019; Marx 2005). As argued within the literature review, to reduce consumption to simply middle-class “distinction” obfuscates the phenomena; it simply gives an economistic framework new language. 10 Labor-time is also utilized to distress a space, giving it the appearance of being a historical trace. 11 There is also a question of how this interacts with the habitus but investigating the re­ lationship between these forces is beyond our current scope. 12 “No-Logo” (Klein 2009) is a useful symptomatic text, which expresses the fantasy of “Crass Capitalism.” 13 The fetishization of independent businesses reflects the fantasy logic of “Real Labor,” alongside an aestheticization of use-value itself, but this is beyond our current scope.

36 Luke Carroll 14 Like more orthodox-critical theorists of commodity aesthetics argue, for example, Adorno (2001), Haug (1987) and Marcuse (2013). Instead, this chapter’s Benjaminian perspective is closer aligned to Bloch’s (1995) dialectical approach to commodity aesthetics: the aes­ thetic is recognized to be both anticipatory and compensatory. 15 Like the Parisian Arcades for the nineteenth century (Benjamin 1999). 16 The dream-world is not the world. It is an image of escaping alienation and “capital”—the social relations, which produce this expression of discontent still exist, while extending through the production of new forms of alienation, for example, displacement.

References Adorno, Theodor W. 2001. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. London: Routledge. Anderson, Jon. 2004. “Talking Whilst Walking: A Geographical Archaeology of Knowledge.” Area 36 (3): 254–261. doi:10.1111/j.0004-0894.2004.00222. Baudrillard, Jean. 2019. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. London: Verso. Benjamin, Walter. 1999. The Arcades Project. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Benjamin, Walter. 2002. Selected Writings: 1935–1938, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Bidet, Jacques. 2008. “Bourdieu and Historical Materialism.” In Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism, ed. Eustache Kouvélakis, 587–603. Boston: Brill. Blackman, Lisa, and Couze Venn. 2010. “Affect.” Body & Society 16 (1): 7–28. doi:10.1177/ 1357034X09354769. Bloch, Ernst. 1995. The Principle of Hope. Cambridge: MIT Press. Böhm, Steffen, and Aanka Batta. 2010. “Just Doing It: Enjoying Commodity Fetishism with Lacan.” Organization 17 (3): 345–361. doi:10.1177/1350508410363123. Bourdieu, Pierre. 2010. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Abingdon: Routledge. Buck-Morss, Susan. 1991. The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. Cambridge: MIT Press. Caulfield, Jon. 1989. “Gentrification and Desire.” Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne de Sociologie 26 (4): 617–632. doi:10.1111/j.1755-618X.1989.tb00437. Chatterton, Paul. 2010. “The Student City: An Ongoing Story of Neoliberalism, Gentrification, and Commodification.” Environment and Planning 42 (3): 509–514. doi:10.1068/a42293. Clarke, Simon. 1991. Marx, Marginalism and Modern Sociology. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Crawford, Alan. 1997. “Ideas and Objects: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain.” Design Issues 13 (1): 15–26. doi:10.2307/1511584. Cremin, Colin. 2011. Capitalism’s New Clothes: Enterprise, Ethics, and Enjoyment in Times of Crisis. London: Pluto Press. Cumming, Elizabeth, and Wendy Kaplan. 1991. The Arts and Crafts Movement. London: Thames and Hudson. Dykes, Stephanie, and Andreas Walmsley. 2015. “The Reluctant Tourist? An Exploration of Second Home Owners’ Perception of Their Impacts on North Cornwall, UK.” European Journal of Tourism, Hospitality, and Recreation 6 (2): 95–166. Evans, James, and Phil Jones. 2011. “The Walking Interview: Methodology, Mobility and Place.” Applied Geography 31 (2): 849–858. doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.09.005. Fink, Bruce. 1997. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books. Gilloch, Graeme. 1996. Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Contemporary Urban Dream-World 37 Gilloch, Graeme. 2002. Walter Benjamin: Critical Constellations. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Goebel, Rolf J. 2009. A Companion to the Works of Walter Benjamin. Camden, NJ: Camden House. Hamnett, Chris. 1991. “The Blind Men and the Elephant: The Explanation of Gentrification.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 16 (2): 173–189. doi:10.2307/622612. Hannigan, John. 1998. Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis. New York: Routledge. Harman, Graham. 2011. “The Road to Objects.” Continent 1 (3): 171–179. http://www. continentcontinent.cc/index.php/continent/article/view/48. Haug, Wolfgang Fritz. 1987. Commodity Aesthetics, Ideology & Culture. New York: International General. Hays, Constance L. 2005. The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company. New York: Random House. He, Shenjing. 2007. “State-Sponsored Gentrification Under Market Transition: The Case of Shanghai.” Urban Affairs Review 43 (2): 171–198. Hubbard, Phil. 2016. “Hipsters On Our High Streets: Consuming the Gentrification Frontier.” Sociological Research Online 21 (3): 1–6. doi:10.5153/sro.3962. Jager, Michael. 2013. “Class Definition and the Aesthetics of Gentrification: Victoriana in Melbourne.” In Gentrification of the City, ed. Neil Smith, 94–107. London: Routledge. Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Klein, Naomi. 2009. No Logo. London: Flamingo. Lacan, Jacques. 2015. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book VIII: Transference. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lazzarato, Maurizio. 1996. “Immaterial Labor.” In Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics, ed. Paolo Virno and Michael Hardt, 133–151. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lees, Loretta, and David Ley. 2008. “Introduction to Special Issue on Gentrification and Public Policy.” Urban Studies 45 (12): 2379–2384. doi:10.1177/0042098008097098. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. Ley, David. 1996. The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ley, David. 2003. “Artists, Aestheticization and the Field of Gentrification.” Urban Studies 40 (12): 2527–2544. doi:10.1080/0042098032000136192. Lloyd, Richard. 2010. Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City. New York: Routledge. López-Morales, Ernesto. 2015. “Gentrification in the Global South.” City 19 (4): 564–573. doi:10.1080/13604813.2015.1051746. Lordon, Frédéric. 2014. Willing Slaves of Capital: Spinoza and Marx on Desire. London: Verso. Marcuse, Herbert. 2013. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. London: Routledge. Marx, Karl. 1976. Capital: Vol. 1. Translated and edited by Ben Fowkes. London: Penguin Books. Marx, Karl. 2005. Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy. London: Penguin Books. Miller, Tyrus. 1996. “From City-Dreams to the Dreaming Collective: Walter Benjamin’s Political Dream Interpretation.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 22 (6): 87–111. doi:10.1177/ 019145379602200604. Osborne, Peter and Charles Matthew. 2015. “Walter Benjamin.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, Metaphysics Research Lab. https://plato.stanford.edu/cgibin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=benjamin.

38 Luke Carroll Paris, Chris. 2008. “Re-Positioning Second Homes within Housing Studies: Household Investment, Gentrification, Multiple Residence, Mobility and Hyper-Consumption.” Housing, Theory and Society 26 (4): 292–310. doi:10.1080/14036090802300392. Pensky, Max. 2004. “Method and Time: Benjamin’s Dialectical Images.” In The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin, ed. David Ferris, 177–198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ruskin, John. 1985. Unto This Last and Other Writings, ed. Clive Wilmer. London: Penguin Books. Savage, Mike, Fiona Devine, Niall Cunningham, Mark Taylor, Yaojun Li, Johs Hjellbrekke, Brigitte Le Roux, Sam Friedman, and Andrew Miles. 2013. “A New Model of Social Class? Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey Experiment.” Sociology 47 (2): 219–250. doi:10.1177/0038038513481128. Slater, Tom. 2006. “The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30 (4): 737–757. doi:10.1111/j.14682427.2006.00689. Smith, Neil. 2002. “New Globalism, New Urbanism: Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy.” Antipode 34 (3): 427–450. doi:10.1111/1467-8330.00249. Smith, Neil. 2005. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London: Routledge. Smith, Neil. 2010. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. Williams, Raymond. 1980. Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays. London: Verso. Veblen, Thorstein. 2005. Conspicuous Consumption. London: Penguin Books. Zukin, Sharon. 2008. “Consuming Authenticity: From Outposts of Difference to Means of Exclusion.” Cultural Studies 22 (5): 724–748. doi:10.1080/09502380802245985.

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Proximal Disruptions: Artists, Arts-Led Urban Regeneration and Gentrification in Oakland, California Robin Balliger

Introduction The relationship between art and society has been a contested question throughout the modern era. European fine arts served as signs of cultural superiority in colonial strategies of power and in global hierarchies of development and modernization. However, twentieth-century avant-garde art movements aimed to “disrupt” normative social values and spark revolutionary consciousness. In the “culture wars” of the 1980s, transgressive artworks were labeled offensive by conservative politicians who then deployed art in national strategies of moral panic, which led to the defunding of government support for the arts in the United States and increased privatization. Concurrently, scholars described New York artists living in low-income neighborhoods as “pioneer gentrifiers” and aligned them with the movement of upper-middle-class whites back to the urban core, as global cities became central to new socio-spatial order (Smith 1996; Zukin 1989). The late-1990s “dot com” boom displaced low-income artists in San Francisco even as it heralded the Bay Area as the quintessential location for the “Creative Class” (Florida 2008, 2014), because of its diversity and history of radical social movements. The anti-establishment image is particularly attractive to the information technology sector, as they appropriate the concept of “disruption” for cultural capital (Bourdieu 1984; Wu 2002). In the Urban Dictionary, Valerie Morghulis defines “disrupt” as a “self-soothing word used by the super-rich to deny that they are literally the reason for the problem and are making it worse.” The tech takeover of San Francisco since the Great Recession has driven rents to the highest in the United States (Maharawal and McElroy 2018; Walker 2018), but much gentrifi­ cation discourse still focuses on artists. I am interested in how and why artists were thrust to the center of world historic urban processes, by academics, activists and in popular journalism, during the global reassertion of class power known as neoliberalism (Brenner and Theodore 2002; Brown 2015; Harvey 2006). At least four contradictory perspectives circulate re­ peatedly in contemporary discourse on the arts: first, artists and “creatives” are celebrated for providing the necessary setting for burgeoning technology firms and their “disruptive” aims; in other words, artists are essential for progressive capitalist industries and redevelopment of postindustrial space. Second, artists are vilified as gentrifiers—white and middle-class, but edgy; artists occupy a unique pioneering position in urban revitalization processes. Third, artists are saviors of civic life, especially for struggling, disinvested neighborhoods; this perspective emerges with “social practice art,” which condemns art’s high modernist emphasis on criticality by

40 Robin Balliger urging re-engagement with the “community” to ameliorate structural socioeconomic problems (Bishop 2012; Burton, Jackson and Willsdon 2016). Fourth, radical art is dead; especially in cities like San Francisco, artists have been displaced by high rents and evictions, thus producing a profound sense of loss, while vanquishing radical art scenes from their historic roles.1 In sum, the arts figure prominently in contemporary discourse on urban trans­ formation, but in contradictory ways, as artists are blamed for gentrification, arts-led revitalization strategies are championed for struggling post-industrial cities (Cameron and Coaffee 2005; Evans 2009; Peck 2005). In this article, I contest the reductiveness of these positions through situated research on artists and art festivals in Oakland, California. Directly east of San Francisco, Oakland is a diverse, mid-size city un­ dergoing rapid economic, cultural and demographic change in relation to the regional economy of the tech industry. I critique the characterization of artists as “pioneer gentrifiers” in the gentrification literature through longitudinal ethnographic research on artists in a disinvested, mixed-use part of West Oakland, particularly by shifting the debate from artist as signifier to artists as embodied individuals with long-term neighborhood relationships. I contrast the everyday lives of artists with arts-led re­ vitalization strategies in Oakland’s Uptown District, one of the most extensive urban “restorations” in California history. Uptown has seen tremendous growth in marketrate construction projects, trendy retail stores, restaurants, clubs and art spaces; however, poverty and crime in Oakland often threaten the city’s “hipster” image. Positing a direct relationship between artists and gentrification has become an assumed truth in much urban scholarship, but profound transformations in the Bay Area prompt reconsideration of the arts in contemporary life. Situated research on neighborhood artists and Uptown art festivals reveals analytical problems with em­ ploying the term “gentrification” as the primary lens through which to analyze contemporary conflicts over culture and place. Oakland is an extremely unequal city where urban governance functions through spatial segregation between upper-middle class enclaves and the racialized poor. Seeking to co-opt a monthly grassroots gallery crawl known as the Art Murmur, the City of Oakland promoted an adjacent street festival (First Friday) in Uptown as a rebranding strategy after violent police re­ pression during Occupy Oakland, but the City simultaneously produced a recurring free event that draws multiple populations. The City aims to control the event by curating a normative vision of cultural uplift while disciplining vernacular Black culture and radical artistic expression. However, artists also use the event for political purposes beyond city-sanctioned performances and the event brings together diverse populations in unprecedented ways. The Bay Area tech industry appropriates the term “disruption” to resignify digital platform-based capitalist competition as in­ novation, but face-to-face events like the Art Murmur produce new proximal en­ counters in ways that disrupt spaces of race and class segregation. By analyzing artists’ lives, artistic practices and the multiple effects of large-scale art events, I bring greater complexity to gentrification debates in Oakland and contested questions of community, exclusion and emergent social formations.

Trouble on the Frontier Why are artists viewed as central to the gentrification process in much of the literature, given the profound political economic restructuring of urban space in neoliberalism?

Proximal Disruptions 41 The foundational literature on artists as gentrifiers was based on lower Manhattan in the 1980s and 1990s, but labeling artists as gentrifiers continues in recent scholarship (Kratke 2012; Lin 2019; Tracy 2014).2 The basic argument is that the presence of artists in disinvested inner-city neighborhoods creates attractive cultural capital that valorizes property, thus positioning them as “pioneers” in the gentrification process (Deutsche and Ryan 1984; Smith 1996, 2002; Zukin 1989, 1995). Other analyses barely mention artists and instead provide detailed accounts of the political and eco­ nomic transformation of New York into a “global city” (Brash 2011; Moody 2007; Sassen 2006). While much of Manhattan had already been gentrified (including areas with no relation to the arts), Neil Smith argued that “gentrification and art came hand in hand” (1996, 18) and artists on the Lower East Side were the “shock troops” of reinvestment (Smith, Duncan and Reid 1994, 156). The term “frontier” is one of the most powerful tropes in Western history; beyond associations with settler colonialism in the United States, terms such as “savagery” are invoked to oversimplify global political conflicts and to legitimate urban policing of disinvested minority neighborhoods. Neil Smith deploys the term “frontier” in his historical analysis of capital accumulation that shifts from literal geographic ex­ pansion to late-capitalist internal differentiation of urban space, a process in which inner city capital assets are devalued so real estate investors make enormous profits later when property values rise (Harvey 2006; Smith 1996). Since the fine arts are quintessentially on the side of “culture” in Western epistemology, it is through the dualism of savage/civilized, that the “artist” becomes identified with white pioneering gentrifiers. Non-white artists and the vibrant artistic scene at the Nuyorican Café are omitted in the New York gentrification literature, as the very term “artist” is coded young, white and male. The lack of intersectional analysis excludes the fact that some artists grew up in lower Manhattan, and that artists of all races have multiple identities, which may include squatter, political activist, poor, female and queer. While artists are glossed as producers of “chic” cultural capital in lower Manhattan, this literature includes almost no empirical evidence. In Loft Living (1989), Zukin mentions a handful of neo-expressionist painters (a group that hardly represents artists as a whole). Both Zukin and Deutsche draw on art criticism and oped Village Voice articles; Deutsche and Ryan (1984) count galleries in the East Village, but a gallery is a business not an artist. Artists often drop out of Smith’s analysis, as he defines gentrification as a process “by which poor and working-class neighborhoods in the inner city are refurbished via an influx of private capital and middle-class homebuyers and renters” (1996, 32). Beginning in 1985, “Operation Pressure Point” was a gentrification-inspired crackdown on drugs in which police officers were stationed at almost every intersection, 24 hours a day, for 18 months; essentially it took an occupation army to “win” the Lower East Side for gentrifica­ tion. Other texts, especially Janet Abu-Lughod’s (1994) excellent analysis of the 1987 battle for Tompkins Square Park, present a nuanced understanding of artists in this neighborhood, particularly their alliances with the homeless, squatters, anarchists and others who fought the colonization of local space by real estate investors and the state (Starecheski 2019; Tobocman 1999). Similarly, in San Francisco during the first dot-com boom in 1998, anarchist-artists fought gentrification through the “Mission Yuppie Eradication Project.”3 The New York literature lacks empiricism, and while Zukin develops important work on the symbolic economy (1995, 2010), the reliance on optics is problematic.

42 Robin Balliger “Artist” functions as a core signifier in much gentrification literature, but who counts as an artist and how is the presence of artists ascertained? Too often, artists are confused with “hipsters,” the contemporary urban, middle-class flaneur whose status is based in visual display, with identifiable trendy hairstyles, clothes and so on, and who visibly participate in new spaces of consumption (Lin 2019). Very few artists in the area of my research in West Oakland emphasized personal visual style. Similarly, most artist warehouses have no identifiable characteristics and thus do not contribute to urban cultural capital; artists have existed invisibly in West Oakland for decades, with no correlation to changes in property values. The language of the “Wild West” is often used in mass media and social media posts about Oakland in explicitly racist terms, to stereotype poor Black neighbor­ hoods as lawless, violent and in need of intervention. Since the late-1990s, the Bay Area has suffered through volatile housing markets, including speculation, subprime loans, the foreclosure crisis, displacement and resegregation, and the financialization of real estate, and San Francisco and Oakland are among the top-ten most unequal cities in the United States (Schafran 2018; Stein 2019; Stout 2016; Walker 2018). At the peak of the foreclosure crisis, West Oakland had a 19.3% vacancy rate, compared to 6.3% citywide, and Oakland’s Black population fell from 36% in 2000 to under 25% in 2015 (Walker 2018, 207). Even with extreme housing pressures from the tech sector, the Bay Area press continued to attack artists. However, popular discourse vilifying artists as gentrifiers fell silent after the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland. Contrary to the spectacle of middle-class artists fueling gentrification, most Bay Area artists struggle for affordable space and often live in crowded, unsafe buildings. The Ghost Ship artist warehouse fire tragically claimed 36 lives in 2016, making it one of the deadliest fires in U.S. history, while exposing multiple failures by City authorities to ensure public safety.

From Working-Class Community to Advanced Marginality in West Oakland Affordable housing is a serious problem in the Bay Area, but the narrow focus on “gentrification” obfuscates structural violence that disinvested Oakland neighbor­ hoods have suffered since at least the 1980s, including poverty, unemployment, drug addiction, street violence, high incarceration rates, under-resourced schools, en­ vironmental health concerns and food deserts (De Giorgi 2017; Gilmore 2007; Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 2004; Webb 1998; Whittle et al. 2015).4 West Oakland includes at least three different sections, and the mixed-use neighborhood I research is in north-west Oakland between “Dogtown” (Clawson) and “Ghost Town” (Hoover/Foster). The area near Filbert Street, 32nd Street, and San Pablo Ave. includes older African American homeowners, several industrial artist warehouse spaces and one loft development, but it is dominated by people on the street with drug addictions, and prostitution has been rampant for fifty years. Next, I provide an overview of the factors that drew artists to former industrial buildings in West Oakland. Historically, Oakland’s character emerges from the changing need for labor in articulation with the spatialization of racial oppression in the United States. War industries during World War II provided employment and new opportunities for African American migrants escaping the Jim Crow south. A multi-ethnic, but mostly

Proximal Disruptions 43

Figure 2.1 Disinvestment at 32nd Street and San Pablo Ave., West Oakland. March 8, 2016. Photograph: Robin Balliger.

Black working-class community emerged in West Oakland with a vital cultural scene, until job loss from early deindustrialization after World War II (Rhomberg 2004). Racist housing policies meant that African Americans received little of the capital investment made in residential property between 1945 and the 1960s (Self 2003). Police oppression and deteriorating neighborhood conditions prompted the forma­ tion of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in 1966, including innovative “Service to the People Programs” such as free breakfasts for children (Hilliard 2008; Seale 1991). Civil Rights struggles paved the way for Black political leaders and from 1970 to 1990 Black professionals in Oakland more than tripled, but “benefits did not trickle down to the poorest minorities in the city, who remained highly segregated and continued to suffer accumulated disadvantages” (Douzet 2012, 255). In the 1980s and continuing into the present, the neoliberal rollback of state resources, along with an influx of drugs and violence, decimated working-class neighborhoods, and much of the Black middle class moved out of West Oakland, leaving a precarious underclass (Wacquant 2008) (Figure 2.1). In the late-1990s, dot-com-fueled real estate inflation pushed many activists and artists out of San Francisco to Oakland or out of state (Solnit and Schwartzenberg 2000). Artists seeking space for their practices found deindustrialized parts of West Oakland challenging, but more affordable. Difficult conditions on Filbert St. fostered

44 Robin Balliger supportive social relationships among artists and long-time residents. The foreclosure crisis in Oakland was twice the national average and caused severe displacement (more than gentrification in this period) along with hundreds of abandoned build­ ings.5 West Oakland was on the front lines of collapsing urban infrastructure, with concentrated poverty, a peak for homicides in 2006, and municipal abandonment. Anger over similar conditions across the city fueled the Occupy movement in Oakland, which was arguably the most militant in the United States. Property data from a house in the area of my research illustrates market volatility, with no relation to the presence or absence of artists. After 2015, inflated rents have forced out many working-class residents, artists and grassroots art spaces. 3151 FILBERT ST., West Oakland—Actual Sale Prices (source: Zillow, Inc.) 1993 1997 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2015 2018

$19,668 $85,000 $495,000 $603,000 $235,200 $78,000 $237,000 $540,000 $770,000

+332% +482% +22% −61% −75% +204% +128% +43%

In contrast to conditions in West Oakland, in the late-1990s, former Mayor Jerry Brown initiated an ambitious urban redevelopment plan for the downtown area. Brown’s “K10 Project” aimed to attract 10,000 new residents to “Uptown” by constructing new apartment buildings, creating an arts and entertainment district, and restoring the Fox Theatre for $75 million (which reopened as a concert venue in 2009). After Occupy Oakland and the hipster trend in Uptown, the New York Times declared “Oakland, the Last Refuge of Radical America” (Mahler 2012) and Oakland has been listed as an international tourist destination. Aside from com­ mercial spin, Oakland is still rather gritty for the “Creative Class,” with one of the highest robbery rates in the country. Below I discuss the lived relationships of artists and other residents in West Oakland and contrast this with City-sponsored arts-led revitalization initiatives in Uptown.

Social Relationships in a Disinvested West Oakland Neighborhood I bring specificity to debates about artists and gentrification by focusing on regional political-economic change concerning the everyday lives of artists in a West Oakland neighborhood. I employ a situated, longitudinal approach to better understand the identities of various artists, their actual practices, and their relationships with other residents in a poor mixed-use neighborhood. I draw on over 15 years of ethnographic research and interviews with artists, neighborhood residents and street people. Importantly, I define the term “artist” as people who are dedicated to creating art—visual art, music, performance, dance, spoken word—the vast majority of whom are not professionals. In the United States, only about 1 in 100 self-described artists make a living through their art. The term “artist” is too often confused with the term “creative,” and although Richard Florida lists artists among three subcategories of

Proximal Disruptions 45 the Creative Class, his list primarily refers to petty-bourgeois professionals who work as commercial designers, computer programmers, architects and even bankers, business managers and so on. Scholars have critiqued the slipperiness of Florida’s occupational categories (Ross 2009) and Kratke argues, “diverse new weapons of financial mass destruction exist against the backdrop of the ambiguous meaning of a ‘creative age’ which is more ideological than factual” (2012, 139). My research revealed that artists are more likely to be the victims of gentrification than to cause it. Artists in this area had been displaced from San Francisco in three different time periods that were all affected by housing issues: the mid to late-1980s included some of the first affordable artist compounds in the East Bay, in the late1990s San Francisco rents skyrocketed during the first dot-com boom, and after 2010, many artists were displaced during the current tech boom. One resident noted, “There’s a long history of artists in West Oakland—they are just tucked away.” The first artists on Filbert St. arrived in the 1980s and lived in a building professionally converted from a sign factory to artist studios that were rented, not owned. Conversions of this type were rare at the time, and the new residents were mostly white, practicing artists with progressive politics. Aware of their racial difference, these artists actively sought to build relationships by hosting neighborhood events, inviting neighborhood children to do art in their studios, and they developed strong alliances with many African American homeowners on the block. This impoverished area never developed “bohemian” amenities. Most people in the neighborhood differentiated between low-income artists and recent middle-class gentrifiers who are “uptight” and “wreck it” (i.e., wreck the freer environment where people can play loud music, live cheaply in raw warehouse spaces and practice a street ethos of not calling the police). A racial identity always includes other aspects of difference by class, political ideology and so on, and several people describe these differences among whites. One artist mentioned “seeing more and more out-of-place looking white people, like on bicycles,” which addresses recent infra­ structure redevelopment (“green gentrification”) as part of the West Oakland Specific Plan.6 Another artist told me a humorous story about a new class of people in the area: There was this one guy from San Francisco who bought a {loft} unit and he was going to bike everywhere … cause, you know, “it’s, like, green! I’m down with Oakland!” (laughs) So he’s biking in Oakland at two in the morning … but now he has a BMW, he bought a brand new BMW! Decided he needed a car … People don’t get it, right?7 TNW is an African American man whose family has lived on the block since the 1970s. He discussed how “gentrification” would be fine if it benefited neighborhood residents, but that rarely happens, and newer gentrifiers lack consciousness and respect.8 RB: TNW:

The problem is by the time the place gentrifies, it’s not even the same … most people are gone or dead or … Exactly. They have a bunch of newer people … they don’t have the same feeling. People want to try and come and change things that have been in place for 50 years … and you gonna resent them.9

46 Robin Balliger Richard Florida’s term “Creative Class” attempts to gain symbolic capital from the term “artist,” but occupational categories must be disaggregated in terms of their class status and relationship to property. On the mixed-use blocks of Filbert St., these differences were stark because professional “creatives” owned their unit in an upscale loft condo development at one end of the block that features a gated courtyard and palm trees. While this space originally housed artists who were renters, most of the current owners do not actually live in their studios and only use this space for daytime work in professional fields; they live in upper-middle-class areas of Oakland. In in­ terviews, loft owners told me interesting stories about how they traverse extreme differences in class and race every day, and how unequally these neighborhoods are treated by the City of Oakland in terms of basic services. In contrast to the loft owners, the majority of artists in the area occupy squatted buildings or lease warehouses that they converted to habitable space through their own labor, which was often hazardous and took years of effort. These artists are young men and women, mostly white, but not all. A Black artist with an MFA from a prestigious East Coast college lived in one warehouse space where he also worked as a DJ and held small events. Across the street, a Caribbean musician of African descent held band rehearsals in his living room while neighbors gathered in front of the house to enjoy the sounds of reggae and soca music. The largest artist warehouse on the block is the 5,000 sq. ft. ABC Arts Space, leased by a sculptor named Connor in 1999 when he was evicted from San Francisco. In contrast to Zukin’s (1989) descriptions of New York artists doing expensive conversions for their SOHO lofts, it took Connor years to make the warehouse even modestly habitable, since there were no bathrooms, bedrooms or kitchen. After finding a rat carcass, he learned that the building was infested with large, aggressive Norwegian rats (as opposed to smaller roof rats). They had to remove 2,000 sq. ft. of rat feces, about a foot deep in a drop ceiling, and during the feces removal process, one person contracted a serious disease and was hospitalized for weeks. Converting a warehouse space may sound romantic from a comfortable distance, but the actual labor is difficult, dangerous and timeconsuming work. Some of Connors’s artworks are large and need significant space, in addition to requiring an extensive tool shop to grind metal, flame torch weld and so forth. ABC includes a large outdoor space that was ideal for these projects. One of the first art and music events they did was the “Homeland Security Show,” a response to re­ pressive governmental security initiatives after 9/11 and neighborhood residents were always invited in for free. ABC artists often involve high school students from nearby McClymonds, one of the poorest Oakland high schools. Radical Black hip-hop group The Coup filmed a video for their song “The Guillotine” at ABC and along Filbert St. They creatively transformed the “Wizard of Oz” story into a winged monkey critique of capitalism. Having access to this large warehouse space facilitated production of radical art that now has 500,000 views on YouTube while demonstrating the po­ tential for radical multiracial artistic collaboration (Figure 2.2). Anthropologists have shown how people of different ethnic backgrounds living in struggling urban neighborhoods often find “domains of commonality” (Glick Schiller and Caglar 2016) and new community formations are organized around shared problems (Susser and Tonnelat 2013). New urban sociabilities were evident in the everyday relationships among artists and long-time residents in this impoverished neighborhood, as almost everyone knew each other and shared phone numbers.

Proximal Disruptions 47

Figure 2.2 Still image from “The Guillotine” music video by The Coup, 2012. Source: Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acT_PSAZ7BQ.

Extreme disinvestment and the gradual passing of an elder generation of African American homeowners contributed to destabilized conditions in which we “needed each other.” Everyone depended on an informal system of alert and mutual aid, which included acting as “first responders” since there was frequent street violence, but ambulances were notoriously slow. Artists were first on the scene of a brutal assault on an African America man in his 60s who runs a small used appliance business. Artists provided social and material support for the most abandoned people, including informal apprenticeships, since many artists have carpentry and building skills. Similarly, people on the street alerted artists and other residents about possible thefts and a large arson fire that broke out on the block during the fore­ closure crisis. To summarize the main points from my research, artists who moved into dein­ dustrialized buildings in this mixed-use neighborhood in the 1990s and early 2000s formed strong relationships with longstanding residents who suffered from severe municipal neglect. These low-income artists were not middle-class “gentry” and many suffered displacement from San Francisco. Artists and warehouses in the area had no visible “hipster” markers and never contributed to the “revitalization” stage of gentrification as no cafés or chic businesses opened, in fact drug dealing and homelessness increased after 2010 as other parts of Oakland gentrified. In the context of disinvestment, alliances and mutual aid emerged across differences of race, thus disrupting historic patterns of racial segregation in Oakland. There was almost no support for poor Black residents from District Representatives, even after years of phone calls, petitions and meetings to improve everyday conditions. Artists cited the importance of a low-cost, supportive environment for being able to develop artisti­ cally and most feared being displaced again. I contrast my descriptions of everyday

48 Robin Balliger life for artists and residents in West Oakland with the city-authorized display of art and culture through the Art Murmur in Uptown.

Art Murmur and First Friday Street Festival in Uptown The urban redevelopment plan initiated by former mayor Jerry Brown in the late1990s aimed to attract thousands of new residents to Oakland and to create a thriving arts and entertainment district. This vision for Uptown appears to be realized now, with tremendous growth in apartment construction, trendy retail stores, res­ taurants, clubs and legal art spaces. This process conforms to arts-led regeneration strategies, “where the main driver of gentrification is ‘public policy’ which seeks to use ‘positive’ gentrification as an engine of urban renaissance. This involves the use of public art and cultural facilities as a promoter of regeneration and associated gen­ trification” (Cameron and Coaffee 2005, 39). While the Oakland Art Murmur and First Friday Street Festival in Uptown partially conform to this script, the articulation with Black culture in Oakland creates a particular context and multiple meanings that have changed over time (McElroy and Werth 2019). The Oakland Art Murmur began in January 2006 when eight art spaces in the Uptown area decided to hold concurrent openings on the first Friday of each month. One block of 23rd St. near Telegraph Ave. was blocked to traffic to increase pe­ destrian space, and for music performances by African-American youth and others. I attended the Art Murmur often in the early years and it attracted 100–200 people, with no police presence. Art galleries were packed with an enthusiastic, diverse, stylish crowd that was uniquely Oakland. It is critical to situate the Art Murmur in the racialized geography of Oakland; while official City discourse celebrates Oakland’s diversity, extensive informal segregation produces little interaction among different groups. In interviews, many working-class Black residents stated they had no contact with whites outside of public school, the police and state agencies. Because of the small scale of the Art Murmur, it created a unique opportunity for people to mingle in a positive, creative atmosphere. The term “cultural regeneration strategy” is a highly variable category; at one extreme, cities franchise museums like the Guggenheim (Dávila 2008; KirshenblattGimblett 1998; Zukin 1995), but in Oakland, the Art Murmur grew from grassroots efforts. Several artists I interviewed in West Oakland were involved in the early Art Murmur. Connor was among the first organizers, and he drew on previous experience doing politically relevant, energetic events in San Francisco. Yeah, it was like we had all moved here because we couldn’t afford to make art in San Francisco, and I got here and there was nothing happening. And my approach was to make something happen! That’s what we decided to do and the Art Murmur was right in line with the same thing, all these people had been doing stuff in the shadows, so we thought let’s make a night where we can go to each other’s spaces and see what’s going on and open it up to the public.10 The homegrown quality of the Art Murmur created a less high-brow and more in­ viting approach for Oakland as a whole. For example, Classic Cars West is a working auto repair garage with art on the walls, but it mainly features classic cars on display and a beer garden outside. The unusual space bridges the art scene and working-class

Proximal Disruptions 49 car club enthusiasts by rendering the cars as aesthetic objects. Overall, the Art Murmur serves a wide spectrum of emerging artists, “outsider artists,” and the event brings attention to minority artists through significant exhibitions such as “In Search of Sheba: Black Women Artists” (2014) and “Black Artists on Art: The Legacy Exhibit” (2015). However, this event was located in Oakstop, one of several new “coworking” spaces in Uptown that explicitly combine “creativity” and “en­ trepreneurship.” Szeman has shown how contemporary business environments aim to redefine “work” as a fulfilling creative endeavor while domesticating “what was once dangerous or revolutionary about art” (2010, 33). Beyond the Uptown district, a few satellite spaces in West Oakland participate in the Art Murmur and in July 2015, I visited the American Can building, an enormous warehouse that was converted to artist studios years ago. Walking into the space from a dirt driveway I heard classical music, turned a corner and saw a full orchestra, which was wonderfully unexpected. The Awesome Orchestra Collective includes trained musicians who perform symphonic works in an open rehearsal atmosphere. The conductor wore sandals, baggy shorts and an orange t-shirt, and as they played, a young boy danced expressively. Artwork in the raw space included an installation of black kites each representing an extinct animal in a powerful memorial display. The success of the Art Murmur attracted the attention of City officials desperate for an image make-over after out-of-control police violence during the Occupy Movement in 2011. The City initiated an adjacent street festival named First Friday, art spaces in the area doubled, and about ten blocks of Telegraph Avenue were closed to traffic to accommodate pedestrians, music performances, crafts vendors and food trucks. By January 2013, First Friday attracted 20,000 people; multiple stages in­ cluded diverse music styles, along with impromptu street performers, comedians and hip-hop dancers. One young artist from West Oakland worried about how this local event had become a popular tourist destination: I liked the Art Murmur when there were roughly 1,000 or 1,500 people, but nowadays when there’s over 20,000 people there you feel a little bit like an alien in your own town … Some of us also understand it’s a stimulating thing. If I didn’t live here I would think this was genuinely exciting—a fun crazy get together where there’s a metal band a hundred feet from the amplifiers of a hip-hop group, and it’s just a mess of sound. But, you wonder who all these people are. Is it actually good for the City? I don’t know, but I do know that a lot of galleries are popping up and that’s something I can’t argue with regardless of what the art it. As an artist I want help, need help, and want more opportunities.11 The distinctive marketing of cities emerges from the neoliberal language of com­ parative advantage, but for Oakland city officials, this is a tricky situation. As First Friday gained in popularity, the demographics included an increasing percentage of underclass youth. Essentially, the City held a free party and the masses showed up, especially since Oakland provides so few recreational opportunities in poor Black neighborhoods. Rather than improving the City’s brand through a smooth coopta­ tion of the positive sign of the Art Murmur, the event began to put Oakland’s con­ tradictions on stage. During the February 2013 First Friday event, there was a shooting that left 18-year-old Kiante Campbell dead. While homicides are all too common in Oakland’s poor neighborhoods, this occurrence at First Friday alarmed

50 Robin Balliger

Figure 2.3 “Each 1 Teach 1” live style writing at First Friday. March 1, 2013. Photograph: Robin Balliger.

city officials, and First Friday organizers debated how to keep the event inclusive while trying to control the “youth hot zone” (Werth and Marienthal 2016). The City instituted a long list of changes for the next First Friday event, including increased security, ending early and cutting the size by half. Culturally, the event would now be “tightly curated” and push the “agenda of peace” (Figure 2.3). The event on March 1 was more subdued than the previous freewheeling, largescale festival. There was only one main stage, named the “Peace Stage” and hip-hop artists seemed to be carefully chosen. Many police patrolled the crowd, whereas they were on the periphery before, and First Friday “block coordinators” wore green tshirts that read “Respect Our City.” An energetic crowd surrounded a DJ at 23rd and Telegraph who was playing popular Black music with “explicit” lyrics. The large crowd of mostly Black youth shouted enthusiastically when they heard “I’m Different” by 2 Chainz. Suddenly the DJ muted the song and said, “We just got a complaint from the City of Oakland sayin’ we can’t play this kind of music” followed by a loud “BOO!” from the crowd. The DJ continued, “We got 20 minutes left—they shuttin’ us down at 9 o’clock.” Soon, police were telling every vendor to pack up. Debate about First Friday increased, often divided by race, as many Black residents see it as a “positive thing” for Oakland, whereas young white radicals who have recently moved to Oakland view First Friday as gentrification. Koreatown is situated at the north end of the festival, and on March 1, a storefront for the redevelopment

Proximal Disruptions 51 organization Koreatown Northgate Project (KONO) was vandalized and then cele­ brated on an anarchist website. This debate is complicated by the fact that young white anarchists would be viewed as gentrifiers by many Black residents, but the debate also foregrounds the clash over culture, as described in a post by Boots Riley, a militant rap artist and filmmaker from Oakland: Is this really what Oakland anarchists have to say about gentrification? Vandalizing KONO? What the fuck? I mean, I guess why not, but First Friday is gentrifying? I’ve been there a lot and yeah, there are lots of hipsters. But everyone has been coming out. That’s why it’s so big! So much to the point that some real Oakland shit is starting to spill over, like that shooting last month that left some motherfucker dead. It’s not the Olympics, it’s not fucking warped tour. It’s more like Occupy without so much bullshit anarchist posturing and better art. It just shows how many anarchists aren’t from fucking Oakland, and don’t know what a good time is.12 I visited the makeshift sidewalk memorial to Kiante Campbell and was struck by a nearby billboard-size ad for the Uptown apartments that features silhouettes of two people enjoying their new pad. The silhouette emerged in Western art as an in­ expensive portrait or scene painted in a solid color, where the outline provides identifying characteristics of the subject and the interior is featureless. Despite the black color, these figures were marked as white by their hair and facial profile so the silhouettes “hail” the desired tenant without risking charges of racial discrimination. In Uptown, Black people are displaced from the land, but Blackness is retained as sign value. The silhouettes serve gentrification in Oakland by actively generating dis­ appearance and presence, as state and corporate interests retain Blackness as cultural spectacle that aligns with Richard Florida’s “cool-cities” script—but gun violence shatters this regime of representation. The city’s symbolic valorization of street arts and culture is failing because it cannot be appropriated within the liberal discourse of “urban renaissance”; instead, the Art Murmur has made visible urban inequalities and the continuing struggle for a livable city. First Friday eventually regained popularity, but many of the original art galleries have been evicted or displaced in this period of rampant gentrification. Ironically, some galleries close the night of the Art Murmur due to the large crowds, and posters for Saturday afternoon “Artwalks” advertise a subdued atmosphere: “No street party, no crowds, just great art and crafts!” which is coding for white, middle-class homogeneity. Since 2017, more market-rate apartment development in Uptown has occurred than in any Bay Area city and the City of Oakland has increased corporate sponsorship to fund First Friday. Street space is cordoned off to accommodate highend sake tasting and new foodie restaurants proliferate in the area. However, in 2015, a large-scale mural in support of the Palestinian struggle was painted in Uptown; artists included Emory Douglas (Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party) among others. While cultural programming at the event still avoids Black youth music, the street festival continues to provide a unique setting for interactions across race and class divides, and regularly includes hundreds of people dancing to funk DJs and doing the “Cha Cha Slide.” The First Friday in June 2017 focused on Juneteenth (celebrating emancipation from slavery) and other artist-activists have used the fes­ tival as an unauthorized political platform, such as a large projection on a building

52 Robin Balliger

Figure 2.4 Protesting factory farms at First Friday, Oakland. May 3, 2019. Photograph: Robin Balliger.

stating “FUCK TRUMP.” On May 3, 2019, animal rights activists from “Anonymous for the Voiceless” staged a performance with blindfolded individuals holding TV screens showing pigs being slaughtered in factory farms. At the end of the night, I saw a group of kids from a scraper bike crew riding their illuminated bicycle creations toward East Oakland; in silence and darkness, they rode single file back to segregated neighborhoods after a street party that, at least temporarily, disrupts normative race and class divisions (Figure 2.4).

Conclusion Through longitudinal ethnographic research, I contest the claim in many urban ana­ lyses that artists serve as “pioneer” gentrifiers in the transition from disinvestment to investment in inner-city neighborhoods. While gentrification is a major problem in contemporary Oakland, vilifying artists shifts analysis away from capitalist and state interests, and the narrow focus on gentrification obscures the decades-long destruc­ tiveness of disinvestment and structural violence. Artists are embodied urban subjects and I describe their face-to-face relationships in a poor neighborhood, where practices of mutual aid emerged in the context of neoliberal neglect. My research on artists in disinvested neighborhoods shows they often form relationships with the most aban­ doned and disparaged population of heroin users, chronically unemployed, sex

Proximal Disruptions 53 workers and others. Affordable neighborhoods are vitally important for artist com­ munities and gentrification is not only an economic phenomenon, it replaces cultural vitality with homogenization and the “gentrification of creation” (Schulman 2012). It is critically important to parse differences among conflated terms such as hipster, yuppie, the culture industry, the art world and the “creative class.” State re­ development projects based on strategies of “arts-led revitalization” should not be confused with the presence of artists in a neighborhood. The discourse on artists as gentrifiers works against solidarity among artists and other low-income populations. Increasing urban precarity necessitates rethinking political alliances, and how “ev­ eryday life honed out of conditions in which poverty and violence are imbricated depends on ethics and aesthetics carved through improvisations and innovations on the given categories of kinship or community” (Das and Randeria 2015, S8). Cultural strategies that promote gentrification displace low-income artists, thus eliminating artistic expressions that may serve radical social movements. Broad political economic forces drive gentrification, but the focus on artists pro­ vides insight into the relationship between the arts and social life in the twenty-first century. The term “disruption” has been appropriated from radical art movements by tech entrepreneurs aiming to resignify an age-old feature of capitalism: “The bour­ geoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of produc­ tion, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society” (Marx and Engels 1978, 476). Tech-driven “disruption” of unionized labor and regulatory frameworks is rebranded as innovation, while “creativity” strategies for redevelopment promote art as urban uplift in public relations campaigns. Controlling art and culture has become a central governance strategy in many urban contexts, by promoting neoliberal values against radical expressions and underclass solidarities.

Acknowledgments I am grateful for thoughtful comments on this chapter by Paulla Ebron, Eddie Yuen, Laura Fantone, Dale Carrico, Isis, Tijen Tunali and anonymous reviewers. Special thanks to the San Francisco Art Institute for funding and support.

Notes 1 Steven Edelstone. 2016. “The Strange is Gone from San Francisco: How Rising Rents have Ravaged the Music Scene in the City by the Bay.” Spin, May 31; Karen Heller. 2019. “How San Francisco Broke America’s Heart.” The Washington Post, May 25. 2 For popular press on artists as gentrifiers, see Hillel Aron. 2016. “Boyle Heights Activists Demand that All Art Galleries Get the Hell out of their Neighborhood,” LA Weekly, July 14; Peter Moskowitz. 2017. “What Role do Artists Play in Gentrification.” Artsy, September 11. Recent work on Bay Area gentrification targets bicycling infrastructure and urban farming. 3 http://www.foundsf.org/index.php?title=Mission_Yuppie_Eradication_Project. 4 Alameda County Public Health Department. 2006. “Violence in Oakland: A Public Health Crisis.” Alameda County Violent Death Reporting System 2002–2004, December. De Giorgi (2017) cites 48% unemployment, 44% of families below the poverty line, and a 50–70% probability of incarceration among Black men without a high school diploma. 5 Deutsche Bank conducted the majority of foreclosures in Oakland between 2007 and 2011, and 93% of investor-acquired properties were in the same neighborhoods previously

54 Robin Balliger

6

7 8

9 10 11 12

targeted by predatory lenders. Urban Strategies Council. 2012. “Who Owns Your Neighborhood: The Role of Investors in Post-Foreclosure Oakland.” June. The “West Oakland Specific Plan” states that no policies would result in “direct dis­ placement,” but “would likely contribute to current gentrification trends.” “West Oakland Specific Plan. 2014. Final Environmental Impact Report,” SCH#2012102047, prepared for the City of Oakland by Lamphier-Gregory. May: 4–14. Interview with Dana, neighborhood resident, July 13, 2017. Names of all residents and some locations have been changed for anonymity. The discourse on gentrification in the Bay Area flattens understandings of specific neigh­ borhood changes and desires. In my interviews, most residents interpret the term “gen­ trification” cautiously but positively; they believe improvement only accrues to whiter, middle-class areas. See multiple positions in the literature: Deutsche (1996), Lees, Slater and Wyly (2010), Freeman (2006), Slater (2006), Zuk et al. (2015), Peterson (2012) and Schulman (2012). Interview with TNW, neighborhood resident, June 2, 2019. Interview with Connor, neighborhood resident, February 28, 2014. Interview with John, neighborhood resident, February 6, 2014. Anarchistnews.org, March 1, 2013.

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Proximal Disruptions 55 Florida, Richard. 2014. The Rise of the Creative Class … and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, and Everyday Life—Revisited. New York: Basic Books. Freeman, Lance. 2006. There Goes the Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. 2007. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, and Opposition in Globalizing California. Berkeley: University of California Press. Glick Schiller, Nina, and Ayse Caglar. 2016. “Displacement, Emplacement and Migrant Newcomers: Rethinking Urban Sociabilities within Multiscalar Power.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 23 (1): 17–34. Harvey, David. 2006. “Neo-Liberalism as Creative Destruction.” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, Vol. 88 (2): 145–158. Hilliard, David. 2008. The Black Panther Party: Service to the People Programs. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1998. Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kratke, Stefan. 2012. “The New Urban Growth Ideology of ‘Creative Cities.’” In Cities For People, Not For Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City, ed. Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, and Margit Mayer, 138–149. New York: Routledge. Lees, Loretta, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly, eds. 2010. The Gentrification Reader. New York: Routledge. Lin, Jan. 2019. Taking Back the Boulevard: Art, Activism, and Gentrification in Los Angeles. New York: New York University Press. Maharawal, Manissa and Erin McElroy. 2018. “The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project: Counter Mapping and Oral History toward Bay Area Housing Justice.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108 (2): 380–389. Mahler, Jonathan. 2012. “Oakland, the Last Refuge of Radical America.” New York Times, Aug. 1. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1978. “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” In The MarxEngels Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Robert Tucker, 473–500. New York: W.W. Norton. McElroy, Erin, and Alex Werth. 2019. “Deracinated Dispossessions: On the Foreclosures of ‘Gentrification’ in Oakland, CA.” Antipode 51 (3): 878–898. Moody, Kim. 2007. From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present. New York: The New Press. Peck, Jamie. 2005. “Struggling with the Creative Class.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29 (4): 740–770. Peterson, Marina. 2012. “Utopia/Dystopia: Art and Downtown Development in Los Angeles.” In Global Downtowns, ed. Marina Peterson and Gary McDonough, 209–233. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Rhomberg, Chris. 2004. No There There: Race, Class, and Political Community in Oakland. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ross, Andrew. 2009. Nice Work If You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times. New York: New York University Press. Sassen, Saskia. 2006. Cities in a World Economy. London: SAGE. Schafran, Alex. 2018. The Road to Resegregation: Northern California and the Failure of Politics. Oakland: University of California Press. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy, and Phillipe Bourgois, eds. 2004. Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell. Schulman, Sarah. 2012. The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press. Seale, Bobby. 1991. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton. Baltimore: Black Classic Press.

56 Robin Balliger Self, Robert. 2003. American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Slater, Tom. 2006. “The Eviction of Critical Perspectives from Gentrification Research.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30 (4): 737–757. Smith, Neil. 1996. The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London: Routledge. Smith, Neil. 2002. “New Globalism, New Urbanism: Gentrification as Global Urban Strategy.” Antipode 34 (3): 427–450. Smith, Neil, Betsy Duncan, and Laura Reid. 1994. “From Disinvestment to Reinvestment: Mapping the Urban ‘Frontier’ in the Lower East Side.” In From Urban Village to East Village: The Battle for New York’s Lower East Side, ed. Janet Abu-Lughod, 149–167. Cambridge: Blackwell. Solnit, Rebecca, and Susan Schwartzenberg. 2000. Hollow City: The Siege of San Francisco and the Crisis of American Urbanism. London: Verso. Starecheski, Amy. 2019. “Squatters Make History in New York: Property, History, and Collective Claims on the City.” American Ethnologist 46 (1): 61–74. Stein, Samuel. 2019. Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State. London: Verso. Stout, Noelle. 2016. “Petitioning a Giant: Debt, reciprocity, and mortgage modification in the Sacramento Valley.” American Ethnologist 43 (1): 158–171. Susser, Ida, and Stéphane Tonnelat. 2013. “Transformative Cities: The Three Urban Commons.” Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 66: 105–132. Szeman, Imre. 2010. “Neoliberals Dressed in Black; or, the Traffic in Creativity.” English Studies in Canada 36 (1): 15–36. Tobocman, Seth. 1999. War in the Neighborhood. New York: Autonomedia. Tracy, James. 2014. Dispatches against Displacement: Field Notes from San Francisco’s Housing Wars. Oakland: AK Press. Wacquant, Loic. 2008. Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Walker, Richard. 2018. Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area. Oakland: PM Press. Webb, Gary. 1998. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. New York: Seven Stories Press. Werth, Alex, and Eli Marienthal. 2016. “‘Gentrification’ as a grid of meaning.” City 20 (5): 719–736. Whittle H.J., Kartika Palar, Lee Lemus Hufstedler, Hilary K. Seligman, Edward A. Frongillo, and Sheri D. Weiser. 2015. “Food Insecurity, Chronic Illness, and Gentrification in the San Francisco Bay Area: An Example of Structural Violence in United States Public Policy.” Social Science and Medicine 143: 154–161. Wu, Chin-Tao. 2002. Privatising Culture: Corporate Art Intervention since the 1980s. London: Verso. Zuk Miriam, Ariel H. Bierbaum, Karen Chapple, Karolina Gorska, and Anastasia LoukaitouSideris. 2015. “Gentrification, Displacement and the Role of Public Investment: A Literature Review.” Report, Berkeley: University of California. March 3. Zukin, Sharon. 1989. Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Zukin, Sharon. 1995. The Cultures of Cities. Oxford: Blackwell. Zukin, Sharon. 2010. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. New York: Oxford University Press.

3

Arts, Culture and Neoliberalism: Instrumentalization and Resistance in the Case of Marseille Mathilde Vignau and Alexandre Grondeau

Introduction Since the end of the 1990s, arts, culture and creativity in general have been used by a growing number of local decision-makers or urban planners to rehabilitate neigh­ borhood. The urban planners wanted to follow the “good advice” given by some academics who sometimes appear as professional advisers or consultants. In fact, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, several researchers have taken a strong interest in various issues concerning either the creative city (Landry and Bianchini 1995), the creative class (Florida 2002, 2004) or urban development through new kinds of re­ sources and people such as the “manipulators of symbols” (Reich 1997) or the “Bobo’s” (Brooks 2000). Most of these researchers wanted to demonstrate how culture and creativity can offer new potentials for declining urban city-cores. Since the middle of the 1990s, a lot of scientific contributions have presented the arts and cultural fields—as well as the attraction of the most creative people—as key tools that could be used to induce a local development within urban spaces in general and more specifically, in declining territories. Based on this idea, local decision-makers and urban planners at an international scale have undoubtedly agreed to transform some parts of the cities they manage into new creative cores. In so doing, they follow a desire to make these parts of cities more attractive. The growing importance of urban creative transformations is reflected in many ways within cities. In our view, two of them need careful attention. The first and obvious issue appears with the implementation of big urban projects, such as the construction of a new cultural or recreational institution. For instance, this is particularly the case with the famous example of Frank Ghery’s Guggenheim Museum, which radically transformed the destiny and the image of the former in­ dustrial city of Bilbao in Spain at the end of the nineties. The influence and success of this initiative have been so relevant that we currently use the expression “Bilbao effect” to refer to the results of urban cultural and creative revitalization elsewhere in the world (Plaza 2000, 2006, 2007). Moreover, the ambition of attractiveness defended by local decision-makers is also visible through the revitalization of former industrial waterfronts and their trans­ formation into big sportive or creative areas. If this ambition is not new and first appeared in Baltimore during the 1960s (Gravaris-Barbas 1992), we can see its constant application through the years, especially within European cities (e.g., Barcelona, Cardiff, Glasgow and Marseille). Besides these urban transformations, the mayors and other political actors who manage urban territories often decide to use a

58 Mathilde Vignau and Alexandre Grondeau more subtle way to make cities both creative and attractive. This second technique involves the ambition to acquire a label that can valorize cities’ creative skills. It is argued further that two examples manifest this ambition very clearly. The first one is visible on a European scale with the title of European Capital of Culture having been attributed to one or several cities each year within Europe since January 1985 (European Communities 2009). The second example is actual proof that this phenomenon has sprawled worldwide with initiatives such as the UNESCO creative cities network, which was created in October 2004. By joining this network, cities of the five continents can enhance their public image by valorizing their skills in one of the seven following categories: crafts and folk art, design, film, gastronomy, literature, media arts or music. This second example is a testament to the importance of this method for local decision-makers since recent years have witnessed an effective multiplication of the number of creative cities on the international scale. Indeed, while in 2013 only 34 cities were granted this label inside the UNESCO network, in 2016, we have seen an unprecedented expansion; in a single selection, 47 cities in 33 different countries were granted the label (UNESCO 2016), bringing their total number to 116. This dynamic tends to have been generalized since UNESCO recently declares on its official website: “Following the 2017 call for applications, 64 Creative Cities from 44 countries have been designated by UNESCO Director-General on 31 October 2017.” But the tremendous interest given to arts, culture and creativity by local decision-makers, urban planners as well as academics does not mean that current urban practices and methods are flawless. Indeed, even if creativity in all its forms (i.e., arts and all kind of cultural fields as well as scientific innovations) seems to play a crucial role in urban spaces’ metamorphosis, numerous academic works have criticized and nuanced its actual impact on territorial development (Clark 2004; Nathan 2005; Scott 2006; Vivant 2006, 2009). With regard to this subject, we defend the idea that the transformation of urban spaces through the expansion of artistic and creative initiatives is a limited strategy for several overriding reasons, the first of which is its reinforcement of the neoliberal city (Harvey 2005, 2007; Scott 2007). The latter is mainly characterized by the growing privatization of urban territories, aestheticization and the growing crim­ inalization of poverty through an impressive multiplication of direct and indirect means of social control. To discuss these urban evolutions, we will focus on one specific case, which is Marseille, the second-largest French city in terms of in­ habitants, located in the South-Eastern part of France. For several years, we have paid careful attention to scientific publications on this subject and the progressive “crea­ tive evolutions” of several neighborhoods in Marseille.1 Analyses clearly show that, as far as creative or artistic amenities emerge within public spaces, there is also a growing accentuation of socio-spatial injustices resulting from two main territorial processes known as urban neoliberalism (Brenner and Theodore 2002a, 2002b, 2005; Harvey 1985, 2014; Recoquillon 2014; Semmoud et al. 2014) and gentrifi­ cation (Glass 1964; Smith 1982, 1996). All in all, it seems that, as far as local decision-makers try to develop and valorize brand new recreational areas, an in­ sidious form of selling these places also appeared and can have social negative effects. To struggle against this, several initiatives concurrently appear within some neigh­ borhoods, the ambition being to use arts and creativity as a counterforce to defend a new right to the city (Lefebvre 1968). With this idea in mind, the case of Marseille is interesting in many ways. Indeed, urban neoliberalism started there in the early 1990s

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when the French state launched a broad urban program called Euroméditerranée. This project consisted of two distinct phases. First, the original project, Euroméditerranée I, extended over a 310-hectare area, including 2.7 km between the Fort Saint-Jean and the district of Arenc (second dis­ trict), also including the district of Belle-de-Mai (third district). Then, in 2009, the scope was extended to the North through the Euroméditerranée II project, which covers a 480-hectare area. The completion of this second stage is expected in 2020 (Ronai 2009). As it was presented in 1995, Euroméditerranée aims to be a territorial transfor­ mation project for both the impoverished and marginalized neighborhoods in Marseille (Bertoncello and Dubois 2010). Its goal is also to reshape the entire EuroMediterranean interface, which was then under construction (Bertoncello and Rodrigues-Malta 2003). Initially, three major missions structure the actions carried out through the Euroméditerranée project. First, there was an economic action aiming at the creation of a real business district in Marseille. Second there was a developmental project aiming to attract new users such as residents, investors and tourists, who would be attracted to the city through the implementation of large structural amenities mainly dedicated to culture, leisure and consumption. Finally, the third mission of Euroméditerranée was to strengthen or modernize the transport infrastructures within Marseille, which has the reputation of being the single most grid-locked city in Europe. To sum up, the Euroméditerranée project embodies capitalist and neoliberal dogmas through the projected reorganization of the old waterfront and the creation of a brand-new economic center similar to La Défense in Paris or the City in London. This new perimeter is clearly dedicated to financial and consumption activities which can be reinforced using artistic and creative initiatives. This has particularly been the case since 2013 when Marseille, along with more than 90 other cities nearby, organized the European Capital of Culture for one year. Through this huge cultural event (called Marseille-Provence 2013 or MP 2013), the connexions between arts, creativity and neoliberalism have been more and more obvious and led to the ex­ istence of two antagonist tendencies. Firstly, despite various positive effects on Marseille-Provence’s image or economy, we have noticed a progressive reinforcement of gentrification and urban neoliberalism, which is often hidden behind joyful and entertaining artistic or creative initiatives. Secondly, as a response to these negative impacts, we have seen the resurgence and entrenchment of strong artistic resistance movements, which are totally opposed to the urban neoliberalism model and to the application of all the capitalism’s drifts to the urban organization of cities. Most of the time, these artistic movements use street art as a main avenue to express and defend what could be called the right to the creative city. In order to analyze the use of arts and culture in both of the tendencies just men­ tioned, this chapter is divided in two parts and focuses on four distinctive neighbor­ hoods located close to Marseille’s city core (see Figure 3.1). The first two neighborhoods are La Joliette (second district) and Le Vieux-Port (first district), which are both known as places where arts and culture have been used to quickly transform city landscapes or functions, especially since the city obtained the European Capital of Culture label. Among the most salient social effects of this transformation are an increase in territorial injustices and segregation. On the other hand, some neighborhoods in Marseille firmly express artistic opposition to gentrification or urban neoliberalism. Consequently, it is

60 Mathilde Vignau and Alexandre Grondeau

Figure 3.1 Location of the four study cases analyzed in Marseille, 2020. ©Mathilde Vignau.

interesting to study the case of Le Panier [literally: “the basket”] (first district), which is the oldest neighborhood in Marseille, and La Plaine (fifth district), an area that is currently the target of a big urban redevelopment project that has been rejected by many users and shopkeepers. With these points in view, we pursue three main goals in this chapter. First of all, we want to show how, in Marseille and more particularly within La Joliette and

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Le Vieux-Port, the aesthetic dimension of arts, culture and creativity has radically redefined city core landscapes and functions. Secondly, we want to explain how and why these urban policies based on creativity have increased urban neoliberalism. Finally, we want to analyze the resistance movements (Maisetti 2014), which are mainly based on street art initiatives or popular culture (graffiti, stickers, hip-hop music, alternative movies, etc.) and which defend the right to a creative city that stands in opposition to gentrification and neoliberal urban processes. Mobilizing a methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative resources including dis­ course analyses,2 photographs and questionnaires,3 our discussion has two distinct parts. The first part will focus on the progressive instrumentalization of arts and creativity by local decision-makers or urban planners, showing—thanks to the first two case studies—how such urban policies and strategies can increase urban neoli­ beralism. The second part will present the last two case studies with the aim of demonstrating what artistic resistance movements have arisen in Marseille and establishing why they constitute a claim for a new right to the creative city.

When the Instrumentalization of Arts and Creativity in Urban Policy Leads to the Neoliberal City This first part will primarily demonstrate how local decision-makers and urban plan­ ners can use creative tools to justify some big, non-neutral and most of the time, segregated projects, which progressively transform urban public places into neoliberal neighborhoods. To illustrate this hypothesis, we will present two study cases: La Joliette, included inside the perimeter of Euroméditerranée and Le Vieux-Port, which has known a real “metamorphosis” (Dedeban 2013) as the host of major spectacles during the big cultural event MP 2013. To be more precise, among our four study cases, La Joliette is the district most closely connected to the Euroméditerranée project. In Marseille, a large part of this neighborhood includes a specific perimeter called La Cité de la Méditerranée, which is one of the most important cultural projects within Euroméditerranée. This distinctive perimeter emerged as a real territorial objective in the first half of 2000. According to the people in charge of it, the main idea was to radically transform a non-attractive site into a new place dedicated to leisure, arts and creativity (Bertoncello, Rodrigues-Malta and Dubois 2009). Through this first ex­ ample, it appears that La Joliette as a former, abandoned waterfront has finally been turned into one of the most creative and cultural areas within the whole city of Marseille. Through La Cité de la Méditerranée and some of the most famous cultural amenities (i.e., MuCEM, Villa Méditerranée and Musée Regards de Provence), the neighborhood of La Joliette quickly became one of the main—not to say one of the only—cultural, creative and recreational cores in the second-largest French city. But behind this wonderful and attractive transformation, one cannot forget that this neighborhood formerly was one of the poorest in the city core, and some stigmata (especially old and dilapidated housings) remain to prove it. Moreover, the fast and radical changes that occurred in La Joliette are also characterized by a very significant increase of neoliberal methods such as the very important multiplication of CCTV cameras. The first subpart given ahead will discuss this specific point. With regard to Le Vieux-Port, we also notice a radical urban transformation that was mainly designed through the prism of the MP 2013 cultural event. This neigh­ borhood has been hugely transformed by urban planners and local decision-makers.

62 Mathilde Vignau and Alexandre Grondeau Here, they have defended the idea according to which cultural tourism and a creative economy could induce a local development inside a district which was until then—and since the very important industrial crises that began in the 1970s—only faintly dynamic, especially for a place, which is irremediably the territorial heart of Marseille. As we will see in our second subpart, the creation of one of the largest European public places (as it is presented on the dedicated website to Le Vieux Port4) meant to host the biggest events during MP 2013 appears at the same time to be the very symbol of an economic renewal and neoliberal ideology.

La Joliette: The Ex-Nihilo Creation of a New Creative Core Under Control In the mid-1990s, in Marseille, the French state launched the urban project called Euroméditerranée to an effort to correct the bad image of the city by taking the op­ portunity to transform available abandoned areas near the seaside. At the heart of this urban project, La Joliette constitutes a very interesting neighborhood because of the huge transformations that occurred there. In this chapter, we will more focus specifi­ cally on La Cité de la Méditerranée, which quickly became a brand-new area devoted primarily to three kind of activities linked to culture, leisure and consumption. Even if the idea of creating La Cité de la Méditerranée emerged quite a long time before the cultural events of 2013, the metamorphosis of this area inside La Joliette was un­ doubtedly accelerated with the title of the European Capital of Culture and the or­ ganization of MP 2013 festivities. Indeed, to enhance the cultural offerings of the second-largest French city, several creative amenities have been built there within a very narrow perimeter. Among them we find, for example, MuCEM (one of the few French National museums outside of Paris), the Villa Méditerranée, and the Musée Regards de Provence, which together form a new creative core inside La Joliette neighborhood. But aside from this cultural transformation, we also notice the building and inauguration of three new shopping centers shortly after MP 2013 (Les Terrasses du Port, Les Docks Village and Les Voûtes de la Major). In our view, this suffices to reveal the real political ambition behind the so-called urban cultural project that aimed to be La Cité de la Méditerranée with its implementation of a new creative center. With the concentration of three new shopping centers in the same neighborhood, it became obvious that the functions of the former abandoned waterfront had changed. La Joliette slowly but surely became a new consumption area, which participates in the consumer city (Glaeser, Kolko and Saiz 2001) and pursues the aim of becoming a new entertainment machine (Lloyd and Clark 2001) through big and numerous cultural, commercial and touristic amenities. On the one hand, if we analyze the results of our 203 surveys concerning the users’ degrees of knowledge and visits, the ambition to create new functions inside both La Joliette and La Cité de la Méditerranée seems to have been successfully realized. By the way, among the answers of our questionnaires we note that 69.95% of the survey respondents used to visit Les Terrasses du Port. This percentage rises to 77.72% when it comes to MuCEM and to 78.33% when it comes to the Docks Village. But this positive result, which obviously has an impact on the local economy by creating new consumption in brand-new cultural, touristic and commercial amenities has its own territorial “dark side.” On the other hand, if we take a closer look at the huge metamorphosis of the La Joliette neighborhood, we observe that the project whereby

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the area is prequalified in terms of culture and leisure reinforces the characteristics of the neoliberal city for several reasons. Firstly, the functions and amenities that were created participate in an effective homogenization of landscapes with the progressive implementation of the typical business districts’ skyline and the use of internationally renowned “starchitects” such as Zaha Hadid (who in 2006 designed the CMA-CGM tower, which was the first symbol of the Euroméditerranée project) and Rudy Ricciotti (who designed MuCEM). Moreover, one notes the progressive spread of public-private partnerships, another sign of urban neoliberalism. And above all, La Cité de la Méditerranée as well as La Joliette neighborhood are engaged in amplifying security policies that affect the whole city. Indeed in 2018, the number of CCTV cameras doubled in Marseille to reach a total of 1,000 (Carpentier 2016; Penverne 2014). To be more precise, in the area ranging from Les Terrasses du Port to MuCEM, we counted around 50 CCTV cameras. This trend is particularly visible around the Marseille Cathedral and around the Voûtes de la Major, the facade of which houses a dozen different cameras. By becoming one of the cultural centers during the MP 2013 events, La Joliette has attracted more and more users and tourists and has undoubtedly contributed to local development. But at the same time, relying on cultural, creative and leisure amenities, local decision-makers have put in place a new consumption area, which gives priority to homogenization and security, becoming as a result, the first obvious embodiment of neoliberal city in Marseille. Whereas the positive results and the advantages of this transformation may be real, they are not great enough to justify the drawbacks of urban neoliberalism especially when we know that La Joliette still grapples with such serious social problems as poverty and poor health. It appears that the big cultural event of MP 2013 has led to huge urban transformations, which have finally impacted the social organization of La Joliette neighborhood. One of the main aims of MP 2013 was to include everyone, and more specifically to get the less well-off people participate in the spectacles and events staged during the year of Marseille’s status as European Capital of Culture. This ambition is even more questionable as we can find similar situations in other neighborhoods, such as Le Vieux-Port.

Le Vieux-Port: A Neoliberal Metamorphosis Linked with the MP 2013 Cultural Event The case of Le Vieux-Port is interesting because it clearly manifests both the will of decision-makers to transform the city center thanks to a big cultural event and the progressive neoliberal metamorphosis of Marseille. With regard to this neighborhood located in the first district, things started in March 2012, when the municipality along with other local authorities financed a huge urban renewal project, which definitively announced the break with Marseille’s old image. At the heart of this urban project, we find the construction of one of the largest public places in the city-large even relative to national and European standards. The responsibility for the design of this project was given to the French landscape architect Michel Desvisgnes. The project was intimately linked with the organization of the big cultural event MP 2013. On the website dedicated to Le Vieux Port, we can read statements that confirm this idea.5 One of the most important positive results of this urban project, which has been accelerated by MP 2013, is the reduction of space allocated to cars, thereby contributing to the aesthetization of a formerly congested area. Moreover, this new

64 Mathilde Vignau and Alexandre Grondeau public place is enhanced with the creation of the Ombrière by the British starchitect Norman Foster. This “strong architectural signature”6 quickly became a meeting place for many users during and after MP 2013. Nowadays, the large pedestrian square serves as a gathering place especially during important events (we think, for example, of the celebration of sport victories and recently to that of the French soccer team at the FIFA World Cup in July 2018 when hundreds of supporters gathered below the Ombrière to sing, take pictures and celebrate the victory). This successful urban transformation also has negative impacts. Indeed, when we analyze more precisely the transformation of the whole area, we quickly observe the insidious signs of neoliberal ideology. Among them, the most visible are the effective absence of public benches and the use of segregating public furniture (Thonnelier 2013) with, for instance, benches separated with two or three parts by armrests to prevent users from stretching out. This is one of the main proofs of poverty exclusion in this neigh­ borhood. Unfortunately, this kind of socio-spatial practice is not new. They have been studied by several researchers such as O’Sullivan (2007) who analyzed the criminalization of homeless people in France and Europe, and Loison-Leruste (2014) who focused on poverty exclusion in Paris. Moreover, here again, the emergence of the neoliberal city is reinforced by the increase in the number of CCTV cameras. Finally, the case of Le Vieux-Port neighborhood shows how decision-makers and urban planners can use a big cultural and creative event (MP 2013) to justify and accelerate a territorial metamorphosis which at the same time brings about a real change of image, but also an effective reinforcement of neoliberal ideology within city cores. The territorial observations that we have carried out within the La Joliette and Le Vieux Port neighborhoods allow us to suggest that in Marseille, culture and creativity often serve as pretexts to legitimize questionable neoliberal urban policies. In our view, the urban practices used in these two perimeters contribute to the transformation of the originally popular public space into a gleaming territorial showcase around which the stigma of poverty—which remains significant—is un­ doubtedly not welcome. The redevelopment of Marseille to host the festivities during the MP 2013 cultural event shows that arts, culture and creative initiatives can be used by local decision makers as the new Trojan horse of urban neoliberalism. It seems to us that the territorial transformations carried out within the frame­ work of a labeling policy are threatened by unequal neoliberal methods which ac­ centuate socio-spatial segregation in a city that is already highly fragmented. However, these observations and the resulting problems do not always find an echo outside the academic sphere, many local decision-makers in charge of major cul­ tural or urban projects appear to be oblivious to the socio-spatial fractures they induce or strengthen. The example of the MP 2013 cultural event has shown the limitations of the cultural labeling process. And when the latter tends to make the city and its public space aseptic and over-controlled, one can think that it is not surprising to witness the resurgence and persistence of artistic resistance movements that denounce and contest the implementation of the neoliberal city.

Resurgence and Permanence of Artistic Resistance Movements Defending a New Right to the Creative City Having shown how arts, culture and creativity could be instrumentalized by urban policy makers through the implementation of a big cultural event and could lead to the

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neoliberal city, we want to focus on an opposite strategy through which artistic and cultural fields can be used to defend a more popular culture as well as a new right to the creative city. Thus, in this second part of the chapter, we will see what sorts of artistic resistance movements or initiatives can denounce the progressive institutionalization of the creative city by resisting its territorial consequences. To analyze this tendency, we will focus on two other neighborhoods, namely Le Panier, located in the second district and La Plaine, located between the first, fifth and sixth districts. Le Panier is the oldest neighborhood in Marseille. After a long period of fear and disaffection, Le Panier appears to have become one of the most famous and oft-visited places in the second-largest French city. This neighborhood is particularly interesting in our study because it is a perimeter where several street artists actively struggle—through graffiti and all kinds of street arts—to defend a non-institutionalized culture that is against gentrification, uberization (because of the constant increase of Airbnb housing in Le Panier) or the “moving upmarket” tendency (Grondeau, Boulpicante and Pondaven forthcoming; Rousseau 2014). As for La Plaine, this neighborhood is currently threatened by an urban re­ habilitation program, which catalyzes lots of frustration and protests, which also take the form of street art. Indeed, in November 2018, the mayor of Marseille, JeanClaude Gaudin, decided to erect a wall all around the area concerned by the urban project, his goal being to prevent the place from being the locus of demonstrations or violent acts. In an almost immediate answer to this action, street artists and citizens started to cover the wall with various stickers and paintings clearly denouncing the insidious gentrification process led by the municipality in this initially popular neighborhood. Our aim in the two following subparts is to develop the theory of a new right to the creative city. It is our view that this theory is founded on two ele­ ments. On the one hand, it discusses the artists’ will to defend practices often un­ dervalued in official cultural programs. On the other hand, it shows how alternative practices such as street art—which has historically been considered a delinquent and illegal practice (Keizer, Siegwart and Steg 2008; Thompson et al. 2012; Kelling and Wilson 1982)—can be used as a political tool to highlight a number of socio-spatial issues such as gentrification. To sum up, it seems that the artists denounce the actions of everyone involved in contested urban projects. This militant commitment in the arts is also visible by the strong criticism of local decision-makers and elected re­ presentatives, as is often the case in the case of Marseille, where the mayor’s policies have often been contested.

Le Panier: An Open-Air Street Art Gallery Against Gentrification Historically, Le Panier, located in the second district, is the oldest neighborhood in all of Marseille. It was founded in 600 BC by The Phocaeans (Greek settlers) who built the Greek colony Massalia. Nowadays, after centuries of evolution, Le Panier is still considered to be the historical core of Marseille. It benefits from a recognizable mor­ phology with very narrow, winding streets and a specific architecture, which makes it look like a typical Provencal village. But at the same time, the image of this neigh­ borhood has been negative for a long time. Because of a clear lack of investments and renovation policies from the municipality, Le Panier quickly became one of the poorest neighborhoods within Marseille and cultivated a bad reputation. However, since the mid-1990, with the emergence of the Euroméditerranée program and the

66 Mathilde Vignau and Alexandre Grondeau decision-makers’ deep ambition to restore Marseille’s media image, Le Panier has been the center of several urban policies aimed by attracting new residents and users (Baby-Collin and Bouillon 2017). But despite the renovation of housing, the moving upmarket tendency or even the progressive uberization process, we cannot say that gentrification has really taken place in this historical neighborhood (Géa 2017). Indeed, while there has been an obvious increase of population in Le Panier since 1998 and while its reputation has clearly improved since the end of the 2000 and especially since 2013, we observe the continuity of resistance movements defending popular culture and massively rejecting attempts at gentrification. Among these resistance movements, artistic initiatives and especially street art are particularly visible. At the end of the 20th century, Le Panier slowly became a new centre for street artists. Unlike other neighborhoods, such as Le Cours Julien and La Plaine (fifth and sixth districts) Le Panier was not originally involved in street art initiatives. However, following the progressive changes of its morphology and functions (this neighbor­ hood became a very important touristic spot in Marseille), there have been several indicators of its transition from an old, and so to speak, dangerous place to a street art core. From there, two different types of street art, such as tags, graffiti and frescos or artistic paintings (see Figures 3.2 and 3.3) slowly but surely found a place within Le Panier. They announced a kind of resistance against instrumentalized creativity as well as a declaration of the famous Right to the city. (Grondeau and Pondaven 2018; Lefebvre 1968)

Figure 3.2 Example of Graffiti in Le Panier, 2016. Marseille. ©Mathilde Vignau.

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Figure 3.3 Example of frescos in Le Panier, 2016. Marseille. ©Mathilde Vignau.

In this regard, one notes first of all the gradual appearance of tags and graffiti that often convey messages defending a strong sense of belonging, using a specific voca­ bulary only understood by real natives. With this in mind, in the first picture above, one can read the sentence “Panier en Force,” which means approximately “Power to Le Panier.” This sentence expresses the inhabitants’ strong feelings of pride and their intimate connexion with this neighborhood. On another wall, we can read the sen­ tences “we take the street and we keep it” and “Refugees welcome, tourists go home.” Here again, the feeling expressed is one of pride and a kind of rebellion against new residents, those to whom the streets do not belong according to the original in­ habitants. Such declarations also express the actual rejection of massive tourism, which is clearly denounced. Tourism deserves less attention than the refugees’ crisis in Europe. Finally, this form of street art sometimes (but not always) denounces the progressive metamorphosis of the neighborhood and its touristic function (by the way, it should be recalled here that a tourist train frequently passes through Le Panier and is not really accepted by the residents who deem these touristic tours as a visit to the zoo). But this kind of graffiti and tags are not the only artistic resistance initiative visible in Le Panier. Another very important form of street art is the frescoes and huge paintings, which are omnipresent and make the neighborhood look like an open-air street art gallery. Most of the time, these paintings are realized directly on the housings’ walls and are not legal (but they are more and more accepted by decisionmakers who well understood their touristic interest).

68 Mathilde Vignau and Alexandre Grondeau It is our view that this form of street art makes manifest an artistic resistance movement in favor of underground and noninstitutionalized creativity. However, it also presents a real paradox involving two aims: on the one hand, the desire to remain a popular and (so to speak) underground neighborhood, and on the other, the artists’ desire to become famous and well known by the largest possible audience. To illustrate this point, we can mention that for a few years, guided street art tours make it possible for tourists to visit Le Panier with a street artist who explains the meanings of tags, graffiti, paintings and frescoes. This kind of new initiative has generally been criticized by the original street artists. For instance, to repeat the words from a graffiti artist in Le Panier: If you answer to specifications, it's no longer graffiti. You can do performances, but most often you do the decoration that meets specifications and ideas of people who have nothing to do with the environment, so we do not call it graffiti anymore, but decoration instead. (Grondeau et al. forthcoming)

La Plaine: Struggling Against an Urban Planification Project through Street Art Protest Our last case study focuses on La Plaine, and more specifically, the public area called Place Jean Jaurès, which is located between the first, fifth and sixth districts. This neighborhood is very close to le Cours Julien, which is the historical core for street art in Marseille. The case of La Plaine is currently very interesting to study because it shows an active opposition and resistance against an urban planning project led by the munici­ pality and SOLEAM.7 This urban planning decision involves the requalification of the Place Jean Jaurès, which was traditionally a marketplace on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. Before this urban transformation project, La Plaine was considered the last popular neighborhood within the core of the city (Dell’umbria 2006). In 2015, the municipality started to develop a strategy to enhance the public infrastructures (public lighting, green spaces, etc.) and above all to reduce drastically the space allocated to cars as part of a pedestrianization process. Although several users and shopkeepers all around the Place Jean Jaurès agreed with these public investments aimed at improving an area that had clearly been neglected, they also feared the gentrification process that could take place after the urban renewal work was completed. Thus, several demonstrations against this urban planning project took place. But in October 2018, SOLEAM started the construction work. Following this, the protests became larger and at times far more vehement, which led to the erection of a wall all around the building zone in November 2018. Almost immediately, this concrete barrier was taken over by users and street artists who firmly denounced the municipal project, the Mayor’s decisions concerning the whole requalification program and above all the wall’s building. The latter was deemed an act of “high treason” (see Figure 3.4), which led to La Place Jean Jaurès being considered the first urban Zone to Defend in France. This zone symbolized well the embodiment of struggles, protests and citizens’ resistance. Here again, several forms of street art coexist, and we can find on the wall tags, graffiti, paintings and stickers. Most of the time, the paintings and messages express a very strong political engagement and denounce the government’s policies through

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Figure 3.4 Using street art to denounce the “high treason” of the municipality in La Plaine, 2016. Marseille. ©Mathilde Vignau.

pop culture and well-known characters (e.g., Rick from the TV serial Rick and Morty) calling them a “death project” as well as an “assassination policy.” Other forms of street art are even blunter and directly single out the unwanted gentrification process. The street art initiatives in La Plaine directly target the mayor, Jean-Claude Gaudin. On this score, one can read graffiti such as “Gaudin, your ship (i.e. the town hall) is sinking” or “La Plaine, I love you, F*** Gaudin!” This example shows a genuine protest that has been well-organized within l’Assemblée de La Plaine, which gathers the neighborhood’s inhabitants to discuss urban planning projects and official decisions, functioning as a new alternative and democratic agora. This citizen assembly is very interesting, and its existence under­ scores a true lack of communication between the municipality, SOLEAM and the residents or users. By the way, in 2019, the Observatoire du Développement Local within TELEMMe laboratory dealt with this issue in depth, showing that 88% of the users consulted (to be more precise, 203 residents and 110 nonresidents), and holds that their opinion regarding the urban transformation of La Place Jean Jaurès has not been considered. Moreover, 55% have a negative opinion of SOLEAM.8 These opinions are even more interesting in that a majority of the users surveyed consider La Place Jean Jaurès to be a popular area whose main functions are dedicated to family, culture and leisure. Its progressive transformation could change the profile of La Plaine neighborhood and lead to renewed, active protests against SOLEAM. All in

70 Mathilde Vignau and Alexandre Grondeau all, the case of La Plaine shows us how artistic and creative initiatives can serve sociopolitical protests engaged in by users and artists who mainly fear the potential gentrification of the whole neighborhood in the wake of the work planned at the end of 2019.

Conclusion To conclude, for more than two decades, Marseille has been a city undergoing constant urban transformation. Most of the urban and territorial projects led by local decision-makers and urban planners aim to change Marseille’s media image. To achieve this, the municipality as well as other local authorities often consider arts, culture and creativity to be the main tools to use in transforming neighborhoods in decline. In our first two case studies, we have shown how political initiatives make use of artistic, cultural and creative projects. Our analysis brings forth the fact that recreational and leisure activities are often valorized in order to justify bigger urban projects whose territorial consequences are not always positive. Thus, in La Joliette, the emergence of a brand new creative and commercial center has affected the landscapes and functions of this originally poor neighborhood, which has been turned into an over controlled temple of consumption. Whereas this former aban­ doned waterfront was considered unsafe, unattractive and unpopular only a few years ago, nowadays, the process of gentrification appears to be a great threat in the coming years. When it comes to Le Vieux-Port, we have shown that the creation of a large public place in order to welcome people and spectacles during MP 2013 has been conducted in accordance with neoliberal ideology. Here, the most visible characteristics of the neoliberal city are the constant stigmatization of poverty as well as the increase of CCTV cameras. Denouncing these negative consequences, several voices are rising up to defend a new right to the creative city. Our last two case studies show what kind of artistic resistance movements and rebel streets exist in Marseille. We speak about a new right to the creative city in reference to radical thought (Harvey 1985, 2010, 2011; Lefebvre 1968). For us, the claim for this new urban right is visible in both Le Panier and La Plaine. Concerning Le Panier, we have seen that several street artists actively work there to denounce the progressive gentrification of the neighborhood. Through different kind of street art practices, these artists want to defend a more popular creativity, one remote from the official variety valorized during the MP 2013 cultural event. In La Plaine, the artistic resistance movements are linked with the re­ qualification project in la Place Jean Jaurès where several users took over the “wall of shame” erected by the municipality at the end of 2018. In both cases, the will to struggle against urban homogenization, elite culture and lack of public consultation is central. But as we begin to see, the threat of institutionalization is still serious and street art may soon become another important touristic tool serving the very projects that it had contested. For instance, such is the case with the transportation project called “L2,” which consists in the construction of a new highway in order to relieve traffic congestion in Marseille. This project involves a public-private partnership between the French state, the PACA region, and one of the French firm Bouygues’ subsidiaries. But as a matter of fact the L2 project has been blamed and rejected by many users since 1933. In order to develop social inclusion through this transpor­ tation project, Bouygues’ subsidiary has decided to develop street art initiatives along

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with an association called Planète Émergences. Today, all along the highway walls, we can admire several huge paintings and frescoes, which have been realized by various street artists (Grondeau et al. forthcoming). The wide variety of urban pla­ nification projects that are currently using arts, culture and creativity in Marseille brings different issues to mind. In light of these results and considerations, it appears that, in the second-largest French city, to some extent, some forms of creativity could be considered to be a symptom of neoliberal urban planning.

Notes 1 All the results and the arguments presented in this chapter are based on various academic studies that we have led since 2013. They include, for instance, the writing of a PhD thesis entitled “Towards a Creative Geography: Impacts of Cultural and Creative Places, Activities and Events on PACA Region’s Development,” realized by Mathilde VIGNAU under the supervision of Boris GRÉSILLON and Alexandre GRONDEAU, between 2014 and 2019. Moreover, since 2014, Alexandre GRONDEAU has directed and supervised several works on street art initiatives in Marseille city-core, especially through the Observatoire du développement local PACA. 2 In this chapter, the discourse analysis exploited is mainly led from 30 semi-directive inter­ views with local actors in politics, institutional or cultural fields, and from a regional daily press review based on the study of La Provence. 3 In 2016, after conducting a survey by questionnaire in the perimeter called La Cité de la Méditerranée, which is including into the Euroméditerranée project and La Joliette neighborhood, we have collected more than 200 answers among various users which have been used to produce statistical analyses. Moreover, the report directed by Alexandre GRONDEAU in 2019 about the requalification of La Place Jean Jaurès in La Plaine neighborhood also used here. It includes 313 answers by questionnaires. 4 http://www.vieuxportdemarseille.fr. 5 “… It’s about freeing the public space and creating one of the largest squares in Europe. The Quai de la Fraternité (or Quai des Belges) will be the big festive square, the agora of Marseille Provence 2013, the European Capital of Culture.… Marseille and its agglomeration needed such a project, conveying pride and image.” (http://www.vieuxportdemarseille.fr this website has been deleted in February 2019. However, some websites like https://web.archive.org/ allow us to access the archives and former documents). 6 Ibid. 7 SOLEAM (Société Locale d’Equipement et d’Aménagement Urbain de l’Aire Métropolitaine) is a local public company, which has been created in March 2010 and which is currently in charge of La Plaine—Place Jean Jaurès requalification urban project. 8 These results are extracted from a study realized under the supervision of Alexandre Grondeau, TELEMME and the Observatoire du Développement in 2019. This work in­ cludes a total of 313 surveys by questionnaires (203 from inhabitants of La Plaine and 110 from users).

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Part II

Alternative Voices, Visualities and Performances Against Gentrification

4

A Listening Against Gentrification: Ultra-Red in Boyle Heights and Elephant & Castle Susana Jimenez-Carmona

Red Lines (Introduction) This paragraph was written by the collective of artists and activists known as Ultra-Red and published on October 12, 2017, on the online version of the X-TRA magazine, as an answer to an article delivered by Travis Diehl (2017), one of the members of the editorial board of the latter LA magazine devoted to contemporary art: But is it enough for artists to be aware of the reality of their complicity? Exactly. In 2012 Ultra-red convened School of Echoes Los Angeles to cultivate a network of popular educators and organizers committed to moving beyond complicity. And in 2015 School of Echoes organized L.A. Tenants Union. Today, L.A. Tenants Union has hundreds of active members across the city (many of whom are artists). L.A. Tenants Union has seven neighborhood chapters, or Locals, that meet twice a month. These Locals organize tenants building by building to defend and nurture the community. L.A. Tenants Union has eight committees handling such things as policy and research, media, social housing research, immigrant defense, and Language Justice. The union’s outreach committee provides support to autonomous tenants unions around California and as far away as Virginia. All of this work is driven by an understanding that acknowledging complicity is not enough. It is not enough to acknowledge complicity as an artist or even as a renter. Substantive change requires organizing a movement. We invite you to become a member of L.A. Tenants Union and get involved in that movement. (Ultra-Red 2017b) Diehl’s article, “An Ultra-red line,” is focused on the protests and debates originated by the opening of different art galleries in Boyle Heights. Diehl carries out a critical reading of those who oppose galleries and, particularly, of Ultra-red’s stance. For him, this collective places itself in an inconsistent and complicit position toward what it condemns with its participation in the Boyle Heights Alliance against Artwashing and Displacement (BHAAAD), while still belonging to the world of art. Diehl points out as an outstanding example of this complicity the fact that the struggle against gentrification actually becomes an artistic object in the installation Los Angeles Library for Anti-Gentrification, 2012–2017, included in the exhibition Talking to

78 Susana Jimenez-Carmona Action: Art, Pedagogy, and Activism in the Americas of the Ben Maltz Gallery. The “red line” that headed Diehl’s article was staged with the picket lines formed in front of the 356 Mission Gallery in February 2017 (this gallery closed in April of the following year). These picket lines not only represent the opposition of the neighbors to the dialogue proposed by this and other art galleries of the area, but also establish an inside and outside, which forces artists to align themselves with one of the sides: the “good” side of those who fight against gentrification (the neighbors) and the “bad” side of those who collaborate (owners and the financial world). According to Diehl, this whole situation would just constitute mere rhetoric which resorts to the weapon of the workers’ struggle to exploit the ambiguous relationships established between the artists and the different social classes, together with the conflicts (or feeling of guilt) which the latter would prompt.1 The author quotes Dont Rhine’s words (member of Ultra-red) to insist on the fact that the complicity with capitalist structures and dynamics, which one tries to challenge is unavoidable. Diehl points out that Ultra-red wants to be outside the world of art but is inevitably inside it and questions if “it is enough for artists to be aware of the reality of their complicity.” Insisting on the nonsense of this binary approach, he closes his article by transforming the picket lines that define the disputed frontiers on the territory into arrows aimed at the inexorable and unstoppable progress, which cannot be paused or bent and only leaves the possibility of weaving in more or less creative ways. Ultra-red’s answer was not the only one Diehl’s text received. Only a few days after its publication, Nizan Shaked (professor of contemporary art history, museum and curatorial studies at California State University Long Beach) sent an answer to XTRA’s editor accusing him of adopting a fake “centrist” liberal stance (Shaked 2017). According to Shaked, Diehl forgets to acknowledge the real problem caused by gentrification: the eviction and displacement of those who live in the neighborhoods affected by the latter. It is not a matter of a rhetorical discourse, which may be solved with artistic metaphors, but about specific and material problems that deeply affect the life of the neighbors. Neither is it a situation in which both parts (neighbors and art galleries) can be compared or paralleled. The most perverse example of Diehl’s misunderstanding relies on his comparison between the rejection of art galleries in Boyle Heights, some of their façades marked with the inscription “white art” and the racist redlining suffered by the racialized communities who have lived in Los Angeles since the middle of the twentieth century (at present the majority of them are Latins, though in previous periods, they lived together with the Russian, Jewish and African American communities). Redlining is the practice of arbitrarily denying or limiting financial services to specific neighborhoods, generally because its residents are people of color or poor. Applied since the 1930s, this discriminatory practice has been decisive in the disinvestment and subsequent gentrification suffered by many of these neighborhoods (Smith 2005). Boyle Heights has not remained unaware of this redlining, which hinders or prevents the people affected from having access to mortgages or loans that allow them to own a house; improve its situation; start a business; or gain access to social, sanitary or educational services.2 Although since 1968, the redlining practice was officially banned, the disinvestment and abandonment caused by the public administration and owners have been the norm in Boyle Heights, together with measures no less harmful for the neighborhood: the construction of big communication routes such as the Golden Estate Freeway or the East Los Angeles Interchange, which caused not only

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the demolition of houses and isolation of some areas of the neighborhood but also the exposure of the neighbors who endured to high levels of pollution (Estrada 2005); extremely violent policies to fight the drug problem; and successive endorsement of revitalization plans, which have systematically dismantled public housing (some of which will be detailed further on since the members of Ultra-red Los Angeles have been involved in the struggles against these plans). According to Ultra-red’s answer to Diehl, being aware of their complicity as artists or tenants is not enough, as it is necessary to become directly involved in the collectives fighting against gentrification and trying to change the situation. As a matter of fact, for Ultra-red, their practices as artists and activists are closely linked. They are not two parallel and differentiated levels, but rather two aspects of themselves that feedback each other without ignoring the contradictions that this process brings. Indeed, according to these militant-sound researchers, “the point is not to invent a new language or a new sound on behalf of listeners. Rather, the object contributes to the collective’s efforts at world-making” (Ultra-Red 2013, 39). Before analyzing in detail Ultra-red’s work and trajectory, it is necessary to explain why have we chosen this exchange of texts from X-TRA among the different and not few articles published both in the general and specialized press regarding the opposition of Boyle Heights neighbors to the opening of art galleries in their neighborhood. Indeed, one of the reasons is that they offer a close and quick picture of what is happening in the east side of Los Angeles, an area that has become a benchmark in the struggle against gentrification, a struggle directly linked to the work of the collective of artists and activists we want to analyze here. But, above all, these three texts clearly highlight the main stances usually adopted from the art sphere with regard to gentrification: the acceptance of its inevitability from allegedly neutral positions, the condemnation of the complicity of the art world in its alliance with the investment capitals and the need of becoming involved in this struggle beside those who have everything to lose, despite individual interests. This latter demand includes both rejecting to participate in those galleries and contributing to their closure. However, the claim under which art galleries are required to leave the neighborhood they are contributing to gentrify is not new. It also happened in the 1980s in the Lower East Side (New York), as analyzed by Rosalyn Deutsche and Cara Gendel Ryan in “The Fine Art of Gentrification”: At this moment in history artists cannot be exempted from responsibility. According to Carol Watson, the best thing the artists of this city can do for the people of the Lower East Side is to go elsewhere. She realizes, however, that the hardest thing to ask individuals is not to act in their own best interest. Nonetheless, they need to decide whether or not they want to be part of a process that destroys people’s lives. “People with choices,” she says, “should choose not to move to the Lower East Side.”3 (Deutsche and Ryan 1984, 42) This fundamental text from Deutsche and Ryan reflects the relationship between the opening of art galleries in this New York area and the whole artistic movement, which emerged with gentrification, as well as the reactions to this relationship from the art world. It is interesting to see how many of these reactions have not changed very much over time. Anyhow, the accusation of naivety toward the few who

80 Susana Jimenez-Carmona opposed the inevitability of this process by condemning the disastrous consequences of the same for the previous inhabitants of the neighborhood has disappeared along the way (Deutsche and Ryan 1984, 99s). Another bibliographic reference on gentrification, which analyzes in detail what happened in the Lower East Side, is The New Urban Frontier. Gentrification and the Revanchist City, by Neil Smith, one of the texts included in the Los Angeles Anti-Gentrification Library, Ultra-red’s installation mentioned by Diehl.

Structural Adjustments Ultra-Red was created in 1994 in Los Angeles by Dont Rhine and Marco Larsen, active members of the ambient music scene and different organizations engaged with social and neighborhood movements. And it is within the intersection of artistic and political/activist implications where their first works were born. This combination of interests is, undoubtedly, one of the key features of this collective, which, over the years, has gradually increased the number of its members and collaborators, as well as its locations and nodes (at present, its more than 20 members are spread throughout the world: Los Angeles, New York, Berlin and the UK).4 Thus, as a consequence of the involvement of Dont Rhine and Marco Larsen in ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an important activist movement associated with the AIDS crisis, appears Soundtrax (1992–1996) and Second Nature (1995–1998). Soundtrax is a collaboration between the artists and the Los Angeles clean needle exchange program, Clean Needles Now; and Second Nature is an investigation into queer public sex in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park. It is in 1997 when Ultra-red began a shared investigation with the community members in Union de Vecinos during the mobilizations of Pico Aliso (Boyle Heights) to defend the social houses threatened by urban development plans. This collaboration will have a crucial impact on the way of understanding their own work, as recognized by themselves in the above paragraph, included in the liner notes for the Mille Plateaux release of Structural Adjustments: When those of us who are musicians in Ultra-red first visited the Pico Aliso and Aliso Village projects, our minds were focused on the buildings. We asked the resident-activists with the Union de Vecinos, “If you had $50 million dollars [the initial cost of demolishing Pico Aliso], how would you spend it on your community?” Expecting responses along the lines of urban planning or architectural design (e.g., more green spaces, more Laundromats, more bedrooms, etc.), we were humbled by answers that consistently emphasized human relationships over buildings. Listening to the site recordings made in the projects, we became convinced that an audio investigation into public housing should by necessity attend to social space over built space … For us, working with the Union de Vecinos challenged us to rethink the fundamental relationship between the artist and the community. (Ultra-Red 2000) Structural Adjustment is the name of a collaborative investigation carried out between 1997 and 2003, which included several radio programs (“Gateway to Los Angeles” for the festival NOWninety8 in Nottingham, England, and “Geography of Exchange,” a collaboration with Susan Otto, presented in Auckland, New Zealand, as part of the international audio arts festival, SoundCulture 99) and the collective

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albums Structural Adjustment (2000), Austerity Measures (2001) and Sustainable Developments (2002). In 2003, they also published, within this same project, The Debt, an archive album that gathered sound, text and visual material from a series of collective reflections and exchange of experiences, ideas and issues between the inhabitants of the public houses of Pico Aliso and Ballymun (Dublin). The titles of the pieces that form these albums are explicit and describe perfectly the issues which concerned the artists, activists and neighbors who participated in this long-lasting collaborative project: “El Nuevo Urbanismo,” “Vivienda Contra Autoridad,” “Yo Vivo Aquí,” “Mentirosos,” “Nunca (Spatial Deconstruction),” “Architecture Versus Housing” and so on. The core of the project was represented by the highly serious problem of the destruction of public housing in Pico Aliso, as well as the overwhelming neighbor resistance. However not only are the titles of the pieces, works and projects important. The working methodology concerning the sound material is critical when facing an artistic work that is intended to be cross-cut by politics. In this Ultra-red’s work, for example, the voices recorded during the meetings, actions and protests of the Union de Vecinos, though manipulated with electronic music resources, always remain intelligible. This is so not only because it is important that the message and the words are understood, but mainly because neither these voices nor the spaces they live in or even the sound of concrete drilling are mere sound resources; in each case, they are socially weaved sound and spatial materialities. The value awarded by the Pico Aliso neighbors to the interpersonal relationships, woven throughout the years among its inhabitants and deeply rooted in the territory, not only makes Ultra-red members feel committed to the struggle against evictions and displacements but also alters their way of understanding their own artistic practice with regard to the community. And this alteration also affects the way of understanding the listening itself, which ceases to point at the sounds themselves and focuses on the intersubjective action, which constitutes it. Ultra-red mixes the analysis carried out by Pierre Schaeffer on the different listenings (listen, perceive, hear, comprehend—Schaeffer 1966) with social issues and complements it with Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed: the listening is traversed by social and spatial positions, by the relationships established between the sound, the origin of this sounding and the listeners, together with the memories, affections, attentions, durations and so on, involved in perception (Gaboury 2010).5 It is as a collectively organized process in which the listening can become a tool for the struggle (Ultra-Red 2014a, 7). The question “What did you hear?” one of the questions with which Ultra-red opens its working sessions, ceases to be a mere identification of the source of sound to become something much more complex and powerful. How we listen, what we listen can be analyzed, articulated, communicated, shared, criticized or modified in a collective way. The sounds are recorded during the actions and at the places, they frequent by anyone who wants to carry a microphone. Those recordings are then shared in collective listening sessions within an open process that follows Freire’s pedagogical approach. The reflections and suggestions that come up are incorporated into subsequent actions and recordings or in remixes such as Structural Adjustments or Sustainable Developments. However, we have to point out that these recordings, remixes or, in later works, installations are not the ultimate goals of Ultra-red’s work, but rather the waste, the remains of the collective listening processes. It is also important to highlight that these processes are not aimed at a consensus or at the

82 Susana Jimenez-Carmona amplification of already proclaimed slogans, but precisely at the “multivalence” of subjectivities that fill the silences (Ultra-Red 2013, 2). In opposition to what is usually thought in the activist circles themselves, for Ultra-red, escaping from slogans and consensus does not undermine the struggle in which one is participating, but, on the contrary, it helps to think about how to carry on with it while also looking for new ways of building another world (10 Preliminary Theses on Militant Sound Investigation is, in this sense, a manifesto by itself). To a certain extent, this is an account of the process Ultra-red went through in which its practice was affected when they met the Pico Alto neighbors, while, for their part, the Union de Vecinos was incorporating artistic practices to their repertoire of tools in the struggle for housing (Leavitt 2005).

An Anti-Gentrification Library Community members and organizers produce videos, posters, and printed materials to communicate analyses and actions from one neighborhood to the next. Often created very quickly and always collectively, these materials function to strengthen the political militancy of those involved in the movement, while also connecting to other potential members and allies, many of whom live in fear of losing their homes and their support networks due to the violence of displacement. Ultra-red and The School of Echoes Los Angeles collected materials for this installation through community-based research, as members of both groups are also participants in the organization of the city’s anti-gentrification movement. The resulting library is a snapshot of five years of organizing and mobilizing for the defense of the right to housing and against mass displacement, including key groups such as the LA Tenants Union/Sindicato de Inquilinos de Los Angeles, Unión de Vecinos, Defend Boyle Heights DBH, Boyle Heights Alliance Against Art-washing and Displacement BHAAD, Chinatown Community for Equitable Development, Lincoln Heights Elders Resisting Eviction, and Northeast Los Angeles Alliance NELA (Ultra-Red 2017a). When the different Structural Adjustments albums were published, they were already, to a large extent, a memory of lost places, albeit also a memory of the struggle put forward. HOPE VI, the renovation plan passed under the umbrella of the state of emergency declared by the LA authorities, revealed the destructive consequences the neighbors feared so much. The public houses threatened were demolished and the number of residential units was reduced, most of which were also privatized. Figures may help us understand how serious the situation of public and rent-controlled housing is in Boyle Heights: more than 900 of public housing units were destroyed in 1996 in Pico Gardens and Aliso Village; in 1999, more than 250 families lost their rent-controlled houses, together with local businesses, due to the building of the Metropolitan Transit Authority Goldline; the extension of the Hollenbeck Police Station in 2005 added 60 more houses to the total number of losses; and since 2015, there are plans to demolish 1,175 rent-controlled units in Wyvernwood and to displace those families to build 4,150 market rate units (BHAAAD, 2016).6 If we take into consideration that all these measures came together with promises of improvement of the neighbors’ lives, then we will not be surprised by the fierce resistance offered by the neighbors in the face of the arrival of new investors who imagine a future “Arts District” in their neighborhood.

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Despite the displacements and losses suffered throughout these years, the Union de Vecinos has not disappeared, but rather modified and expanded its field of action to become the new Network of Neighborhood Committees, which covers Boyle Heights and the city of Maywood (http://www.uniondevecinos.org). One of the shifts of the Union de Vecinos materializes in its participation in School of Echoes Los Angeles, the pedagogical initiative mentioned by Ultra-red in its answer to Diehl’s article (see above). School of Echoes LA was born out of the encounters, conversations and walks shared since 2011 by some members and collaborators of Ultra-red and the Union de Vecinos around the idea which had followed them for years of using culture as a catalyst of the community through the critical reflection of the world, and the role pedagogy would play in this whole process. It is in 2013 when this activity officially takes off in Los Angeles (Ultra-Red 2014b, 23–32). In the UK, Berlin and New York, the initiative began between 2011 and 2012, linked to several projects in which the members of Ultra-red were involved: in New York within the development of Vogue’ology, together with the members of House | Ballroom; in Devon (UK) in association with the Rural Racism Project; in London, working with students from different origins and the support of the Goldsmiths College; and in Berlin, it originated in a research-based seminar for graduate students of European Ethnology at Berlin’s Humboldt University. Inspired by popular education, School of Echoes is an experimental research laboratory providing an active space for artists, organizers, activists, social workers and concerned neighbors for exploring issues such as racism, gender justice, migration, struggles, housing, health and education by means of the listening and sound. This project is aimed at the exchange of experiences and ideas, the analysis and collective reflection, where shared listening constitutes the axis and organization toward the struggle, the goal. Moreover, the project promotes the creation of bonds between different collectives, spaces and places, respecting always the different working methodologies established by the different constellations of members and focused on the different issues and struggles. According to their own statements, the purpose is not cloning “a dozen Ultra-reds all working from the same protocols and committed to the same notions of political listening … The point is that in order for a movement to crystallize, there have to be multiple points of struggle. A movement requires that multiplication to become a movement” (Ultra-Red 2014d). The “Encounters” of School of Echoes LA, apart from generating many reflections and different support networks, have produced audios, texts, workshops, actions, installations and even new organizations engaged with the fight against gentrification, as is the case of the LA Tenants Union (an organization born in 2015 and mentioned by Ultra-red in their answer to Diehl). One of the texts produced in this context is “An Artists’ Guide to Not Being Complicit with Gentrification” (O’Brien, Sanchez Juarez and Marin 2017), in which they ask themselves “how might artists take responsibility for how we alter people’s lives, in terms of the impacts of real estate speculation and gentrification?” and share some of their learnings in the encounters where they dealt with this issue. They mention, for instance, the necessity of getting involved in the housing struggles, of learning to recognize one’s privileges, of questioning what spaces are used to work or show the work and of quitting the habit of prioritizing individual interests in situations of structural or collective oppression. Another interesting example is the Anti-Gentrification Syllabus (2017), available at bit.ly/anti-gentrification, in which they offer a large bibliography regarding

84 Susana Jimenez-Carmona gentrification, compiled in different sessions. The headings under which the texts are cataloged are more than eloquent: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

GENTRIFICATION IS NOT COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT GENTRIFICATION IS NOT REVITALIZATION GENTRIFICATION IS COLLECTIVE TRAUMA GENTRIFICATION RELIES ON PRIOR DIVESTMENT FROM LOW INCOME COMMUNITIES OF COLOR GENTRIFICATION IS SPECULATION FRAMED AS REDEVELOPMENT GENTRIFICATION PROMOTES ECONOMIC GROWTH OVER THE STABILITY AND WELL-BEING OF CITIZENS GENTRIFICATION HARRASSES, INCARCERATES AND KILLS GENTRIFICATION FOLLOWS THE COLONIAL LOGICS OF CAPITALISM CAPITALISM IS THE HOUSING CRISIS: MARKET SOLUTIONS TO HOUSING FAIL WE NEED TO BUILD PEOPLE POWER TO CONTROL OUR OWN HOUSING

The Anti-Gentrification Syllabus is part of the Los Angeles Library for AntiGentrification (2012–2017), an installation comprising printed booklets, posters and videos gathered during the School of Echoes LA investigation with the communities fighting against gentrification in Boyle Heights. It was shown in the exhibition Talking to Action: Art, Pedagogy, and Activism in the Americas, in the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design, from September to December 2017. Diehl mentions this installation as an example of Ultra-red’s participation in the world of art, in spite of their strong opposition to the opening of galleries in Boyle Heights. It could be considered a contradiction that while the LA Tenants Union encourages the boycott against art galleries, the cultural objects produced in the struggle itself are exhibited in a gallery. As we have already seen, Diehl questions if it is enough to be aware of the connivance established with the same institutions or structures being criticized. If being aware was enough, for instance, the boycott on the PSSST gallery wouldn’t have been maintained. The mobilizations against this gallery, previous to that of the 356 Mission, caught the attention of the press and fostered a debate on politically committed art and gentrification.7 The PSSST gallery, presented as space that worked together with underrepresented artists—women, people of color and LGBTQ—identified and encountered difficulties to open and even some of the scheduled artists canceled their participation in support of the protests (PSSST only managed to remain open one year). For BHAAAD (and Ultra-red), this policy of representation of diversity is not enough because PSSST was taking advantage of the favorable conditions the investment fund owning the space was offering them, precisely because they were an art gallery. In contrast, these kinds of advantages are not offered to the neighbors (who belong to those minorities which PSSST intends to give visibility) being kicked out by rent increases and speculation of the buildings in which they live or work due to the opening of this kind of cultural spaces. We presume that the members of Ultra-red and School of Echoes LA, before taking the decision to participate in Talking to Action: Art, Pedagogy, and Activism in the Americas with Los Angeles Library for Anti-Gentrification, considered one of the points they emphasized in “An Artists’ Guide to Not Being Complicit with Gentrification”:

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Consider for instance, if the spaces we support fail to ask questions about their structural impacts in a particular neighborhood—particularly if they are mediadriven, contemporary art spaces. Regardless of their intentions (community engagement, bringing cultural programming to “underserved” populations, etc.) many art spaces ultimately serve as investment projects and property value boosterism for landlords, developers, and realtors. Is it worth supporting an art space when we know that it is currently contributing to or will contribute to someone losing their home? (O’Brien et al. 2017) For Ultra-red, the museums and galleries can be temporal allies and in each particular case, they think carefully whether to establish this alliance or not. Apart from considering the impact, each space has on the neighborhood with regard to the housing issue, they always keep in mind that museums and art galleries are spaces that are built upon visible and invisible frontiers, which establish who gains access and who feels encouraged to participate (Ultra-Red 2014d). These frontiers may or not allow the building of awareness of a very broad public or that the space itself becomes a location for organizing with those who are already invested in an issue (Gaboury 2010).8 This last aspect is important since most of the activities, which Ultra-red carries out in museums and galleries, are encounters and workshops. The audios, videos, photographs, texts, installations and so on shown in these activities are not intended as much to be contemplated by the public of art as to play the role of catalysts for dialogue among participants, both at an individual and collective level. Thus, the goal is to look for the proliferation of collectives committed to experimenting with a synthesis of political education, political organizing and cultural action (Ultra-red 2014c). With this same determination, they have published a series of texts called Protocols, in which they share in a practical way their sound investigations and have also carried out investigations and collaborations in different countries.

Just a Shopping Center? Over the years, Ultra-red has received invitations from other organizations, spaces and institutions in different countries both for sharing experiences and carrying out workshops, and for establishing longer collaborations. This has allowed the emergence of nodes of the collective in other cities and School of Echoes has formed bonds with different places, collectives and issues (see earlier in the text). However, the members of Ultra-red London have been involved in the last years in the struggles for housing and against gentrification. Their work has been focused on an area of the city whose inhabitants are mostly migrants from Latin America, an area considered the Ground Zero of gentrification: Elephant & Castle. It is no coincidence that the gentrification processes are mainly affecting the neighborhoods inhabited by the migrant and racialized communities (Elephant & Castle and Boyle Heights), as they are the areas, which have suffered from disinvestment, thus favoring a higher margin of economic benefit by investing in soil and housing (Smith 2005). Whereas in the case of Boyle Heights, it was the opposition to art galleries what gained the attention of the press, in that of Elephant & Castle, it was the rejection to the redevelopment of the shopping center, passed in 2018 and currently paralyzed

86 Susana Jimenez-Carmona because the matter is pending in the courts, what attracted the media.9 This shopping center is not just a hotbed of small local businesses owned by the neighbors but also a meeting point for them. The plan is to build a new “urban center” with new facilities for the London College of Communication (LCC). It also includes new houses and business units of which a limited percentage will be social housing or premises economic enough for the present tenants to keep on living or working in the neighborhood. Whereas in Boyle Heights, the favorable conditions were offered to galleries, in Elephant & Castle, the goal is the university community. So much so that a new term has been coined: “studentification.” It is not only the local traders who oppose this redevelopment but also collectives such as Southwark Notes, Latin Elephant, 35% Campaign, Southwark Defend Council Housing and the student representatives from LCC (Stop the Elephant Development). All these groups are aware that the developer Delayne (also responsible for the redevelopment of the shopping center) has not included one social house in the tower beside the shopping center, despite all the promises. Or that out of the 2,500 new flats being built in Heygate Estate, demolished in 2013, less than 100 will be dedicated to social renting (the number of social houses destroyed in that place was 1,194). They also know that the plan includes demolishing Aylesbury Estate, which originally contained 2,700 public houses. Under the motto of a revitalization that seems committed to following closely the steps of Richard Florida,10 the city hall and investors have drawn a map on this area in the south of London, which erases and forgets about the lives of its current dwellers (https://www.elephantandcastle.org.uk/elephant-andcastle-regeneration-map/). It is also important to point out that this oblivion comes with a discourse of the “exotic and rich” culture of the present inhabitants of the neighborhood, diluted enough to be exhibited as an attractive ingredient for investors and the new culturally active, middle-class neighbors. This component is also present in Boyle Heights. Hence, the importance is given by the people fighting gentrification to memory and the complex history, full of conflicts and struggles, of these neighborhoods and their inhabitants: What is the sound of the conflict you can’t hear? is then less a general question and [more] one that is directed at the “yous” that each of us in the investigation team knows, a you in a situation that is or could be organized towards a to-beconstituted “we.” It is a question posed to a non-anonymous you that each of us takes to our colleagues in the struggles of young cultural workers, antigentrification activists, migrants, and the rights of women in work, only to bring it back as a point to share experiences across movements. The passage from you to we is in this way a passage from individual anxiety to processes of collective listening. Answering the question, we hope, also helps us to mark a passage from hearing—the routines of physically taking in sounds and their associated pseudodemocratic forms—to listening as a process of troubling consensus and finding the ways in which conflict can articulate itself most effectively. (Ultra-Red 2012, 14) For Ultra-red, the issue of the memory of resistances and struggles is crucial for several reasons. Listening and memory are closely linked and, therefore, how we listen is deeply affected by our memory, which is always collective. Moreover, if the world has to be transformed in order to create other possibilities, how and who

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relates the past is crucial, since this account shapes the future (Gaboury 2010). In the case of the members of Ultra-red London, some of them are directly involved in Southwark Notes—a collective against gentrification in Southwark, to which Elephant & Castle belongs (https://southwarknotes.wordpress.com/)—as well as in the archive 56a Infoshop and its social center (located in Elephant & Castle, http:// 56a.org.uk/). The latter has a massive open-access archive about all sorts of radical politics both local and international. For its part, Southwark Notes is an action and investigation group, which assembles the history and memory of the neighborhood’s struggles, participates in the preparation of meetings with institutions or legal proceedings and carries out dissemination campaigns, soundscapes or walks against gentrification (https://southwarknotes.wordpress.com/where-we-are-coming-from/ southwark-notes-walks/). Already in 2012, School of Echoes started organizing sound walks with students from the St. Marylebone Church of England School where they asked questions about gentrification and urban redevelopment in Elephant & Castle (Ultra-Red 2012, 15). The main goal of these walks, apart from paying attention to what is seen or heard, is to share the impressions and experiences in a process of shared listening that places the bodies and listenings in the conflict area itself. It is for this reason that Ultra-red organizes these sound walks within its workshops and encounters around the world. It has already been stressed the interest Ultra-red has in promoting a proliferation of collectives contributing to create a whole movement, a purpose which has made them share experiences, ideas, materials, actions and so on in Brazil, Poland, Spain, Netherlands or Italy. This sharing has also happened in the form of encounters between the participants in the struggle against gentrification in Elephant & Castle and Boyle Heights (remember that The Debt includes a previous exchange between neighbors from this LA area and neighbors from Dublin—see earlier in the chapter). These encounters, as it usually happens with Ultra-red and School of Echoes, are open and participatory, and are aimed at sharing audios of recordings from actions, walks and previous encounters, as well as experiences and analyses to reflect, in a collective manner, on the gentrification process, on how to fight it and how to find ways of regeneration that benefit the neighbors, instead of kicking them out.

Whose Regeneration? “Whose regeneration?” is one of the slogans adopted by Southwark Notes and one of those questions that trigger the listening, analysis and reflection needed in the struggle put forward by Ultra-Red.11 When we ask ourselves who will benefit from that “more habitable” city already inhabited, we activate a listening, which is aimed at the hows and whos, at the territory and the communities living in it, and which questions how unavoidable is gentrification and how possible it is to find ways to make the latter more habitable for those already living there. Peter Marcuse’s statement, “the opposite of gentrification should not be decay and abandonment, but the democratization of housing,” which Smith quotes at the end of his book could be a good summary of what the different collectives fighting gentrification (Ultra-red among them) are claiming (Smith 2005, 225s). The title chosen for this article, “A listening against gentrification,” is intended to sum up Ultra-red’s stance in the face of gentrification, both as artists and activists, who place collective listening at the center of their practices. For them, it is not a matter of listening to the different parties involved

88 Susana Jimenez-Carmona in this process, which has transformed the cities into a disputed territory, since equidistance and neutrality is already a positioning which favors those who have the privileges and power given by money (including owning the discourse and media in order to be heard). The inequality among parties is too great and Ultra-red has decided to stand beside those who have everything to lose. However, the means of this purpose is not a representative artistic practice, but rather the use of art as a tool for a collective critical reflection, which is shared within the struggle itself toward a more habitable world for everyone.

Notes 1 “As art critic Ben Davis points out, artists have aspirations that bring them in contact with the ruling class, while their sympathies and their self-image align with the working class. But artists themselves are best understood as middle-class—small business owners, sole proprietors. Where artists are both complicit and concerned, the activists made their appeal” (Diehl 2017). 2 These links offer two maps, which show the redlining suffered in Los Angeles: • •

https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/segregation-in-the-city-of-angels-a-1939-map-ofhousing-inequality-in-la https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1XuPqTtbtZfdgjntlw1eQnUGvTU0 &ll=34.07778652286285%2C-118.26848021777346&z=11

3 Carol Watson was the director of the Catholic Charities’ Housing Leverage Fund. 4 Ultra-Red (2014a, 13) offers a summary of the collective’s expansion process. 5 In Ultra-Red (2014a), we can find an example of how Ultra-red interprets politically the four-listening diagram of Schaeffer by using examples taken from his listening sessions with organizations: 1. 2. 3.

4.

Listen [Écouter Fr./ Escuchar Es.] OBJECTIVE-CONCRETE Example: “I hear a sound caused by a Los Angeles Police squad car siren” Perceive [Ouïr Fr./ Oír Es.] SUBJECTIVE-CONCRETE Example: “I hear a sound that I perceive to fluctuate in pitch between high to low. The sound ricochets off the buildings and causes me terrible pain the closer it approaches.” Hear [Entendre Fr./ Entender Es.] SUBJECTIVE-ABSTRACT Example: “I hear a sound that I associate with my first encounter with the police. I was afraid they would take my brother from us. Today I hear and see the police in my neighborhood more than ever.” Comprehend [Comprendre Fr./Comprender Es.] OBJECTIVE-ABSTRACT Example: “I hear a sound that signifies the 70% that Los Angeles spends its city budget on public safety. The police tell us that they bring safety. But organizing the community is how we have created safety in our neighborhood” (Ultra-red 2014a, 25).

6 The figures concerning homeless people in Los Angeles, published in 2019, are also useful to take into consideration: 59,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County, while within the city, the number was more than 36,000—a 16% annual increase (https://www.latimes. com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-homeless-count-encampment-affordable-housing-2019-results20190604-story.html). 7 Some examples: • • • •

https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/boyle-heights-gentrification-art-galleries-pssst https://hyperallergic.com/303054/in-la-fear-of-gentrification-greets-new-nonprofit-art-space/ https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-boyle-heights-20170222-story.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/01/arts/design/boyle-heights-gallery-scene-in-losangeles-is-still-growing.html

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8 Two other Ultra-red’s important projects, which wove these kinds of alliances, are SILENT|LISTEN and Vogue’ology. Focused on the AIDS issue and aimed at health care professionals, community organizers, activists and other individuals related to the AIDS epidemic, SILENT|LISTEN was developed between 2005 and 2006 in different museums and galleries in the United States and Canada because it was in those spaces that they were able to start to bring together organizations during the AIDS crisis (http://www.ultrared. org/pso8.html). In the case of Vogue’ology, the archive created in association with House | Ballroom was shown in galleries and museums thanks to School of Echoes New York, in order to promote debate and reflection on racial, economic and gender issues. 9 Some examples: • • •

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jul/03/save-the-elephant-and-castle-thefight-to-protect-south-londons-anti-westfield https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-43141815 https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/41328/1/elephant-and-castle-theflattening-of-london-latin-america

10 For further investigation into Richard Florida’s influence on urban policies and the consequences of the same, see Peck (2005). 11 Regarding the gentrification process, Boyle Heights is going through, some people have coined the term “gentrification” (from the Spanish word “gente,” people) to refer to “the process of upwardly mobile Latinos, typically second-generation and beyond, investing in and returning to the old neighborhood.” Although the term is used to point out this example as a “good” regeneration or, at least, not as harmful, it is not clear if this is the case.

References Barrett, G. Douglas. 2016. The Limits of Performing Cage: Ultra-Red’s SILENT|LISTEN. After Sound. Toward a Critical Music. New York, NY: Bloomsbury. Boyle Heights Alliance Against Artwashing and Displacement. 2016. “A Short History of a Long Struggle.” http://alianzacontraartwashing.org/en/coalition-statements/bhaaad-theshort-history-of-a-long-struggle/ Courage, Cara, and McKeown, Anita. 2018. Creative Placemaking. Research, Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Deutsche, Rosalyn, and Cara Gendel Ryan. 1984. “The Fine Art of Gentrification.” October, 31: 91–111. Diehl, Travis. 2017. “An Ultra-Red Line.” X-TRA Online, October 12, 2017. https://www.xtraonline.org/online/travis-diehl-op-ed-an-ultra-red-line/ Estrada, Gilbert. 2005. “If You Build It, They Will Move: The Los Angeles Freeway System and the Displacement of Mexican East Los Angeles, 1944–1972.” Southern California Quarterly 87 (3): 287–315. Farinati, Lucia, and Claudia Firth. 2017. The Force of Listening. Berlin: Errant Bodies Press. Freire, Paolo. 2005. Pedagogy of Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. Gaboury, Jacob. 2010. “Elements of Vogue: A Conversation with Ultra-Red.” Rhizome, December 15. Leavitt, Jacqueline. 2005. “Art and the Politics of Public Housing.” Planners Network, October 24. Marcuse, Peter. 1991. “In Defense of Gentrification.” Newsday, December 2, 1991. O’Brien, Heather M., Christina Sanchez Juarez, and Betty Marin. 2017. “An Artists’ Guide to Not Being Complicit with Gentrification.” Hyperallergic, June 19. Peck, Jamie. 2005. “Struggling with the Creative Class.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29 (4): 740–770.

90 Susana Jimenez-Carmona Shaked, Nizan. 2017. “A Response to ‘Op–Ed: An Ultra-Red Line.’” X-TRA Online, October 17. https://www.x-traonline.org/online/nizan-shaked-a-response-to-op-ed-an-ultra-red-line/ Smith, Neil. 2005. The New Urban Frontier. Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London and New York: Routledge. Ultra-Red. 2004. “Constitutive Utopias: Sound, Public Space and Urban Ambience.” http:// temporaryservices.org/served/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/constitutive_utopias.pdf Ultra-Red. 2008. 10 Preliminary Theses on Militant Sound Investigation. New York City: Printed Matter. Ultra-Red. 2012. “Ultra-red Annual Report (2012).”Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York: Ultra-red, School of echoes. Ultra-Red. 2013. Five Protocols for Organized Listening. Berlin: Koenig. Ultra-Red. 2014a. Practice Sessions. Workbook. Berlin: Koenig. Ultra-Red. 2014b. Protocols School of Echoes. Berlin: Koenig. Ultra-Red. 2014c. The Radical Education Workbook. Berlin: Koenig. Ultra-Red. 2014d. “Ultra-Red (An interview to Elliot Perkins and Dont Rhine).” http:// precaritypilot.net/ultra-red/ Ultra-Red. 2017a. “Los Angeles Library for Anti-Gentrification, Ultra-Red Gallery Guide.” http://sites.saic.edu/talkingtoaction/wp-content/uploads/sites/84/2018/09/Ultra-red-takeaway.pdf Ultra-Red. 2017b. “A Response to ‘Op-Ed: An Ultra-Red Line’.” X-TRA Online, October 12, 2017. https://www.x-traonline.org/online/ultra-red-a-response-to-op-ed-an-ultra-red-line/

5

Representing the Anti-Gentrification Resistance: The Role of Two Artists in a Retail Market in London Marie-Pierre Vincent

Introduction While the gentrification process has widely been debated (Glass 1964; Hamnett 1991; Ley 1994; Lees, Slater and Wyly 2010; Smith and Williams 1986, among others) with a particular focus on housing, the literature on retail gentrification in Britain has been quite limited in comparison. The loss of retail services was linked to gentrifi­ cation in an article tracing the histories and trajectories of new-build gentrification (Davidson and Lees 2010, 406). Yet, the debate on traditional retail markets con­ sidered as the new gentrification frontier was sparked by Sarah Gonzalez and Paul Waley when they examined the redevelopment of a market in Leeds (González and Waley 2013). This study was followed by a report (González and Dawson 2015) showing how traditional retail markets in England are under threat and how cus­ tomers and traders are organizing to save, support and promote them. These authors’ aim was to provide an overview of the position of traditional markets in England in a context of gentrification and to provide a hands-on guide for both customers and traders. One year later, these same authors published a paper uncovering the mobi­ lization and resistance of citizens in London against retail gentrification. The con­ clusion is that although such resistance campaigns do not always use the language of gentrification, they mobilize markets as spaces for community resources, political discussion about the city and urban justice. The novelty of these studies was to develop a field in which still little work had been carried out—the field of resistance to retail gentrification. Indeed, even though re­ sistance to gentrification has recently attracted more interest within academic circles (Annunziata and Rivas-Alonso 2018; Helbrecht 2018; Lees and Ferreri 2016), various calls have been made to renew the interest in this field (Lees and Ferreri 2016; Lees et al. 2010). More recently, Phil Hubbard has argued against the political narrative of dying local retail markets. He has asserted that retail policies meant to “revive” British high streets will be at the cost of the exclusion of the working-class populations who currently live, work and shop on and around these streets. These places continue to play an economic and social role in the lives of working-class populations. The battle for the high street is, according to him “at the frontline of the gentrification wars” (Hubbard 2017: 10). This quick overview of the field is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather aims at highlighting the seminal works in the field. This chapter will contribute to the debate on the topic of resistance to retail gentrification, not through the per­ spective of campaigns conducted by customers and traders, but through the prism of art. More precisely, it deals with the role of two local artists in the representation of the

92 Marie-Pierre Vincent market itself, its traders and to a lesser extent the campaign to save it. The novelty of this article is the attention granted to two particularly overlooked subjects in gentri­ fication studies—retail and artistic anti-gentrification resistance. To this day, little work has been carried out on anti-gentrification resistance through art. Viktoria Vona was the first researcher to contribute to the debate with her PhD thesis on the role of art and artists in contesting gentrification with a comparative study of London and New York City (Vona 2016). The novelty of her doctoral thesis was to focus on artists not as (total or supporting) causal agents of gentrification but agents of resistance. This chapter focuses on the London Borough of Hackney, and more specifically on Dalston, an inner London area. Within Dalston, there is the Ridley Road market—a daily retail market off Dalston Kingsland Station, established both as an indoor and outdoor market, selling a range of goods that cater to the local migrant and workingclass communities (selling items ranging from food to clothes and household essentials). The market has existed for over a century. The ethnic diversity of the market is extremely marked, especially in terms of its traders. The traders here are mainly Africans and African-Caribbeans, and to a much lesser extent, Asians and Eastern Europeans. Yet, recently the market has been threatened by the gentrification process. For several years, offshore developers have tried to take hold of the indoor market, while the outdoor market is now deserted by the younger generations of traders. Furthermore, in October 2018, the traders were given notice that the Ridley Road Shopping Village (the indoor market) would close for good within two weeks’ time. A campaign by traders and a local community group got the evictions canceled. Yet, the landlords’ planning application to turn the Shopping Village into flats has not yet been rejected, and rents for street traders have increased. This is the context in which the market has been put in the spotlight by several different artistic projects. This study will focus on two of them—one entitled Future Hackney, the other On Gentrification. Future Hackney is a National Lottery-funded project, which is still in the making, launched in September 2018 and due to be finished no sooner than late 2019. It is led by Donna Travis, a local artist trained in photography, along with two other pro­ fessional artists: Wayne Crichlow and Brian War. Yet, they work both on their own and alongside local youth, mainly from West Indian and African ethnic minorities through courses they teach. Thus, the whole collective takes photographs of the market itself, but also of the traders and passers-by. The ultimate goal is to exhibit the collective work in one gallery at least. At first, Donna Travis evoked the prospect of mounting an exhibition in a high-end gallery such as the one in Shoreditch named Autograph. The choice of the galleries is still under discussion since the project is not yet finished. Until then, some of these stills are visible on the eponymous Instagram thread, @Future Hackney and on the website of the collective (https://futurehackney. com/) (Figure 5.1). On Gentrification was an exhibition mounted in The House of Illustration gallery in King’s Cross from October 28, 2017 to March 25, 2018, open every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It displayed 34 drawings by Lucinda Rogers, which depicted the Ridley Road market scene. Some of these drawings are visible on the artist’s personal website (Lucinda Rogers website). The drawings were 50 × 70 cm, painted directly in the market, during six- or nine-hour sessions over a period of three months. They had been painted in ink and watercolor, a few months beforehand, especially for this exhibition, which aimed at documenting gentrification in London. Although these artistic projects either contest or question gentrification in Ridley Road market, they

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Figure 5.1 Future Hackney. Untitled, 2019. Photograph. Ridley Road Market. ©Donna Travis.

stand aside from the proper Save Ridley Road Campaign as On Gentrification preexisted that campaign and Future Hackney’s focus is broader. Nonetheless, by doc­ umenting retail gentrification, these artistic projects could be analyzed as part of the anti-gentrification resistance inasmuch as they directly or indirectly fight against the process by which the market changes from being a poor area to a richer one. In the book Gentrification and Resistance, edited by Ilse Helbrecht, the term “re­ sistance” is defined at one point as the act of “getting involved in demonstrations or action groups” (Helbrecht 2018, 62). Such a definition limits resistance to a kind of direct fight. In the context of retail gentrification, especially involving art forms, re­ sistance to gentrification has to be more broadly defined. The last definite work on this concept can be found in one chapter written by Sandra Annunziata and Clara Rivas-Alonso in the latest gentrification handbook (Lees and Phillips 2018). Even though the authors frame resistance as “the right to stay put and as a conscious opposition to the structural forces that result in the current regimes of expulsion” (Lees and Phillips 2018, 394), they seek to open up the notion of resistance to gentrification. This chapter fully endorses Annuziata and Rivas-Alonso’s questions on the definition of resistance to gentrification such as “which specific set of practices can be cataloged under the label of ‘gentrification resistance’ today?” (Annunziata and Rivas-Alonso 2018, 393). While in the case of the artistic anti-gentrification resistance of Ridley Road market, we can single out expulsion or gentrification-induced displacement, in

94 Marie-Pierre Vincent this chapter, I will question another form of gentrification, which goes far beyond displacement. For the two artistic projects under study here, it is not so much resistance to displacement, which is at stake, as the focus of the campaign, but resistance to gentrification understood in a broader sense. This study tries to broaden and define resistance to gentrification in the context of artistic projects. To do this, it will draw on two recently defined concepts—“gentrification of memory” (Galiniki forthcoming; Tolfo submitted) and “gentrification of narrative” (McKenzie forthcoming). This being considered, the comparison of these two schemes is meaningful insofar as while Lucinda Rogers’ project was created purposefully, Donna Travis’ project has been evolving toward an activist approach. Indeed, Lucinda Rogers was asked by a curator of The House of Illustration to create drawings in order to mount an ex­ hibition on the social and urban changes of London, and specifically on gentrification (hence the name of the exhibition). The curator of the exhibition personally suffered from an eviction threat from her council estate and called upon Lucinda Rogers for this project as she was aware of her implication in activist campaigns against gen­ trification. Thus, the exhibition comes within the scope of activism. On the contrary, Donna Travis’ project started as a documentary of the social changes in the borough, with the clear stance of maintaining critical distance from the interviews she con­ ducted. As Stephen Duncombe’s definition of activism (Duncombe 2016: 117) is applied here as “the activity of challenging and changing power relations,” the concept is not restricted to protests and public actions. Yet, these strands of activism differed from the social mobilizations against gentrification visible in the area. As will be contended in this paper, while Lucinda Rogers is a campaigner in everyday life, her project was conceived as less activist than the one by Donna Travis. If the antigentrification actions are usually carried out with the aim of being directly effective and decisive, art encourages other forms of activism, without imposing a thought on some audience, but rather by encouraging a reflection. Thus, in this chapter, I discuss the extent to which these art productions can be related to resistance to retail gen­ trification and I assess the brand of resistance they represent. This chapter first demonstrates how these projects move from the goal of providing to giving both visibility and power to the traders and the local community. It then analyzes how these artistic projects may be contrasted from disguised to overt antigentrification resistance. Yet as both projects put up resistance, at least symbolically, in the art galleries, they can be considered as political catalysts for resistance. Finally, if some structural limits of these forms of resistance can be debated, the conclusions point to the need to redefine anti-gentrification resistance in the context of art. In terms of methodology, this paper is a product of my fieldwork—both artists were met separately for semistructured interviews of about an hour and a half. The two artists did not know each other and were not aware of each other’s project. The interviews took place in January 2019. Yet, the artists had been encountered beforehand to discuss different projects of theirs. Donna Travis oversaw a similar artistic project—Hoxton Stories, which was in fact a pilot study for Future Hackney. Lucinda Rogers had been inter­ viewed a few months before about her role in many activist campaigns against gen­ trification in the boroughs and London. Ridley Road market was toured in the company of Donna Travis in order to get a glimpse of her daily interactions with the traders and with one of the young students participating in her project. The two gal­ leries were also visited.

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From Reportage to Empowerment Before unveiling an activist approach, these projects fall under the scope of reportage. This is clearly visible in Future Hackney, the aim of which was first to give a factual, almost journalistic “document[ation of] social change” (Future Hackney website) occurring in Hackney, and especially in Dalston. The pictures on Instagram are regularly accompanied with the hashtags “journalism,” “documentary” or “doc­ umentary photography.” Even though Lucinda Rogers’ project could be analyzed somewhat differently—having been set up at the request of the gallery with a specific purpose—the way the exhibition was conceived called reportage to mind. The drawings were displayed with descriptive titles such as “Luggage Stall” or “Giovanni at his café.” No text was appended to introduce the exhibition; hence they were not illustrations in the literal sense of the term—a picture along with a piece of writing which is deemed to clarify it—despite the gallery’s name. To a certain extent, Lucinda Rogers’ project recalls another artist’s work who depicted London through drawings. It recalls Gustave Doré’s nineteenth-century joint work with the journalist Blanchard Jerrold recording the “shadows and sunlight” of London, published as London: a pilgrimage, in 1872, and featuring 180 engravings. These engravings had descriptive titles, such as “Covent Garden Market, Early Morning.” Yet, this work presented a clear stance on London’s rampant poverty. This is due to the fact that the illustrations were accompanied by short texts written by Jerrold. Indeed, the book’s intentions of depicting the deprivation, squalor and wretchedness of the lives of the poor is clearly perceptible through the vitriolic de­ scriptions. For example, along with the illustration of Covent Garden Market which is to be found in Chapter XIX “In the Market Places,” poverty is depicted in relation with wealth—“The rich man buys first-hand; the poor man, fifth-hand” (Jerrold 2005). There is a dramatic intensity in Doré’s illustrations as described by Frédéric Chappey, which in the case of the Covent Market illustration appears in the almost monstrous faces of misery (Chappey 2003)—Doré was described by Vincent Van Gogh as the “Artist of the People.” In contrast, Lucinda Rogers’ drawings highlight the vivacity of the market through patches of color and expressionless faces. Here, the drawings show more the sunlight than the shadows of London, to use Jerrold’s phrase. Even though no adjectives qualify the titles of the drawings, the patches of bright color (mainly warm colors—yellow, red and orange) enlighten the black-ink drawings. Yet, apart from the splashes of color, no assessment of gentrification is given. In this way, only the title of the exhibition itself (On Gentrification) delivered an ounce of judgment. Yet the spectator should not be mistaken, despite the doc­ umentary aspect, the reportage is not neutral, as it shows the actors within the social processes as “life story ‘experiences’” to employ David Bates’ terms (Bates 2016, 66). Both projects use the artistic medium to give a visibility to ethnic minorities threatened by an ongoing gentrification. Minorities refer here to West Indian and African traders. In spite of Hackney’s claimed multiculturalism, in Dalston, white people represent over 60% of the population and African-Caribbean British just over 20%. On top of that, if Dalston is becoming a gentrified area, it is still within the top 15% of the most deprived English wards (Hackney Borough 2015). The West Indians and Africans working in the market are excluded economically, socially and culturally. Giving a visibility to mino­ rities thus primarily appears in the format and genre of these creations. Both Lucinda Rogers’ drawings and Future Hackney’s photographs resort to color whether presenting

96 Marie-Pierre Vincent a bright vividness for the photos or some delicate dabs for the drawings to echo the market’s vibrant ambiance and the traditional colors of the African-Caribbean ways of dress. This aspect of these works goes along the description of the market, given on the Hackney Council website, which presents the market as a place “with a warm and pleasant atmosphere, the energetic sound of reggae music and the natural blend of cul­ tures” (Hackney Council website). Such a description offsets the bad press, which had been released by the tabloids, in the past—presenting the place as derelict and dirty. Future Hackney features many portraits in which the characters are empowered as they choose their poses—whether standing still, smiling, singing, laughing or looking away. On Gentrification presents a series of portrait drawings as well but most of the pictures depict market scenes with the stalls and sometimes the traders. The underlying message is to give back to the traders both a sense of dignity, and more precisely their right place in the market. This is done by portraying them directly or indirectly through the metonymy of the market—being invisible presences—they are symbolized by the liveliness of the market. This reallocation of their positions is particularly perceptible in Lucinda Rogers’ Terry inside his vegetable mountain. The artist herself argued that this man standing inside his stall of vegetables appeared as a sort of king in his tower—the trader is sur­ veying his fortress of vegetables. Here, the metaphor of sovereignty can be read as a discreet empowerment of the trader by the draughtsman. The process of empowerment is subtle and to be deciphered by the spectator. The artist re-empowers the trader, or to be more specific, she reasserts the position of the trader, who seems to be the supreme ruler of the stall. Thus, it rapidly appears that under the guise of reportage, these projects manifest specific forms of resistance, or according to Cindi Katz’s terminology, some means of reworking. I draw here on Cindi Katz’s typology of resistance (Katz 2004). While resistance subverts and disrupts the conditions of exploitation and oppression, re­ working “reorders and sometimes undermines the structural constraints that affect everyday life both to make it more liveable and to create viable terrains of practice” (Katz 2004, 247). Here, reworking is performed through empowerment. Future Hackney also enacts change through the empowerment process of vulnerable people. Empowerment is to be understood here as a bottom-up process, with an awareness of relations of domination, which builds the capacity to radically transform unequal structures, which is the original sense of the term (Calvès 2009, 746). This definition is to be contrasted with a top-down process of empowering the grassroots. Here, Future Hackney turns both the traders and the students into actors. As mentioned previously, traders get empowered by the poses they choose, but also later on in the editing of the pictures, as they regain control of their images, metaphorically, but also in concrete terms as they can physically alter the photos selected for Instagram. The traders also reach empowerment by getting a say on the changes in the market. Before or after the shooting sessions, the artists and the students conduct a face-to-face in­ terview with the sitters who then become storytellers more than interviewees. Their words are collected by the artists and are then either put bluntly on Instagram in the form of verbatim fragmented quotes or it becomes a short presentation of the trader, with his/her name, the items he/she sells and the number of years he/she has been in the market. The pictures then become illustrative and the texts tend to shift the focus from mere objects of the camera to empowered individuals. These short texts aim at revealing the traders’ long-established presence in the market, their sense of community-building during the gentrification process and finally they sometimes

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testify to their activism in the campaign. Thus, the pictures become illustrative and the texts tend to shift the focus from mere objects of the camera to empowered in­ dividuals. If at first, activism was covert in Future Hackney, throughout the months, the collective has laid claim to it, the posts on Instagram tending to be more and more activist, shouting out their resistance in fiery texts. On the contrary, in On Gentrification, activism is more overtly expressed at first glance—as it is boldly re­ vealed in the title of the exhibition. Yet, these artistic projects are first conceived as tools for thought.

From Anti-Gentrification Resistance Per Se to the Role of Catalysts for Resistance These projects are not directly conceived as activist, stricto sensu, as that would entail direct or noticeable actions undertaken to achieve a result, such as public protests. Their degree of anti-gentrification resistance or their activism differs from one project to the other. While On Gentrification could be deemed more covert or disguised activism, whereas Future Hackney is much more explicit in its aims. Yet, both projects are cata­ lysts for anti-gentrification resistance either on Instagram for Future Hackney and in the art gallery for On Gentrification. Lucinda Rogers’ anti-gentrification resistance is more covert, and her artistic creations could be deemed more tools of reflection than tools of direct resistance. Despite the clear-cut title of Lucinda Rogers’ exhibition On Gentrification, the anti-gentrification resistance can only be perceived in the discrepancy between the title and the themes of the drawings. In On Gentrification, the voluntary absence of protesting text, along with the drawings, is not a total hindrance to any form of resistance. On the contrary, if the drawings are not conceived as forms of direct protest, they suggest forms of resilience. Indeed, the ability to stay put under the gen­ trification oppression is unveiled in the drawing itself. The spectator is left to interpret by himself what the drawings suggest. One example is the drawing with the title “Red yellow and green landscape at Gregory’s stall” (visible on the artist’s website) featuring a trader proudly standing behind a wall of colored cans, which he builds up again and again every morning. In the distance, the cans form a skyline in the shape of modern skyscrapers. The trader becomes an architect, an urbanist of his own city, his market microcosm. With the metaphor of this skyline controlled by the trader and facing the actual buildings looming over the market, resistance is suggested in a subtle way. Yet, this drawing can be given a totally different interpretation. It might be analyzed, on the contrary, as the failure of the anti-gentrification resistance—the trader is replicating modern skyscrapers, being symbolically absorbed by gentrification—unable to invent new shapes as modern metal architecture pervades the market. This work thereby echoes Lucinda Rogers’ clear stance on anti-gentrification resistance through the mediation of art. According to her, the artist should not present the argument to the spectator, for otherwise art serves a specific cause and becomes part of propaganda. Art is then no longer a creative process but part of a mission, selecting images and texts to spread an argument with the intention of influencing people’s opinions. To go further, it could be argued that in Lucinda Rogers’ drawings, the will to avoid imposing any message is palpable in the form of the drawing itself. With a black ink drawing tainted with scare patches of color, the finish is blurry. Inasmuch as the message of the drawing is not dictated, the objects are not imposed onto the audience, and are

98 Marie-Pierre Vincent instead impressions to be analyzed. In that sense, form and content are dependent on each other. While the title of the exhibition provides a frame for thought, the drawings foster freedom of thought. Yet, this viewpoint is debatable. Although the artist did not clearly present the argument, ultimately, she, more so as Lucinda Rogers is an activist in her spare time, wants the audience to think in a certain way, en­ couraging the audience into thinking what she personally thinks about gentrification. However, she makes her point in a subtle way, making the audience think for themselves first and encouraging them to adopt a critical standpoint on gentrification. This stance of not taking part in some form of activism is not palpable in Future Hackney. Even though Future Hackney is more combative in its mission, especially as the project expands, it remains a creative project. The artists voluntarily take some distance from the objects of study—distance was indeed a key component of the initial stance of the project. Along the way, Donna Travis decided to use her art to document first social changes and ultimately resistance. On Instagram, photographs are accompanied with brief paragraphs that inform the picture. Yet, the short texts leave enough space for the spectator to ponder over the artistic creations—resistance is only directly perceived in the verbatim quotes on Instagram, but before reaching the essence of the text, the spectator has the experience of the photos, without being assailed by the messages. Even though art is then conceived as primarily a tool for reflection, if it does not produce direct overt anti-gentrification resistance, at least it triggers or strengthens this resistance. Art acts as a catalyst for resistance. Quoting Herbert Marcuse, if “art cannot change the world,” “it can contribute to changing the consciousness and drives of the men and women who could change the world” (Marcuse 1986, 32). Indeed, Future Hackney has an immediate effect on resistance forces through the Instagram thread that provides a platform. As an eponymous article on the practice of Instagram at the museum (Weilenman, Hillman and Jungselius 2013, 1851) points out, the social photo sharing media extends the dialogue beyond the museum, or beyond the market, in the case of this chapter. The Instagram thread is a forum where traders who have already committed them­ selves to the struggle against gentrification, and also local residents and uncommitted traders can voice their views and their fears along with their resistance organization. This is in line with Thomas Vernon Reed’s argument that the revolution will be cybercast (Reed 2005). The choice of Instagram was made as the format of this social medium lends itself to images, stories, likes and comments. It opens up new forms of interaction, less formal, more spontaneous, and more affective or emotional as well. It anchors the project in a group, where the artists, the local community and the anti-gentrification traders or more generally speaking, the gentrification fighters can virtually meet, ex­ change and build up the resistance. This social medium is free to use and open to anyone, including “outsiders” to the market. One particular post illustrates this community building. Alongside a photo picturing a black trader in the midst of his stall of bead necklaces, holding a board reading “SUPPORT BLACK BUSINESSES,” a verbatim quote depicts the personal fight of the aforesaid trader (@futurehackney): Working my way up on this market from street stall to my shop, I encourage people to speak out about our rights as traders and citizens. We united to lead the campaign for businesses to stay here with a contract that protected us. But since the new de­ velopments, I don’t see locals I’ve known for years. The new people who live in these luxury apartments do not acknowledge us. We are invisible (Figure 5.2).

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Figure 5.2 Support Black Businesses. Untitled, 2019. Photograph. Ridley Road Market. ©Donna Travis.

In this message, he recalls the traders’ right to the city, to use a Lefevbrian term (Lefebvre 1968) but also voices the dichotomy, in his own words between them the gentrified and the others, the gentrifiers. Thus, if Future Hackney is not directly political, the messages conveyed can be. In this example, the activist approach is clearly obvious as the label used in one of the last hashtags of this post—“#activism.” Moreover, an evolution in the way the project has been designed is perceptible through the hashtags going along the pictures. At first, these were rather descriptive and generic, such as, “story,” “people,” “production,” “photography,” “market” and “streetstyle.” They gradually became more analytical and committed, even for photographs that did not feature precise actions of resistance. The word “activist” goes along with the word “campaign.” And the word “gentrification” became in­ troduced earlier in the series of hashtags (@futurehackney). In the case of one post featuring Ridley Road indoor market, some posts trigger string reactions to a group of protesters being filmed by a journalist, with a board featuring “HANDS OFF!” They were demonstrating against the request to leave on

100 Marie-Pierre Vincent

Figure 5.3 Future Hackney. Hands off, 2019. Photograph. Ridley Road Market. ©Donna Travis.

short notice prior to Christmas 2018. This post both intended to ennunciate the effects of gentrification and the resistance actions but also successful results of the protests that let the traders stay. There is a clearly committed stance regarding the situation—it goes well beyond reportage as these are not the results of interviews but rather of storytelling. The paragraph carefully mentions that Real Estate Inc. is registered in the Virgin Islands tax haven. Thus, if this post proves to be part of a form of direct resistance, it is arresting to the extent that it triggers resistance movements in the comments. Beyond the insults hurled at the developers, one local resident showed her surprise before asking for advice about how to support the campaign “Didn’t realise how bad it had got with the developers, what can Hackney residents do to show support? X” (@futurehackney). Another one suggested a Change.org petition online. And both resistance and resilience appear in Future Hackney’s answers to these comments (Figure 5.3). In the first post, the collective suggested some ways of lending a hand to the traders by shopping there (in a resilient approach), and ways to raise the borough’s aware­ ness (in a more resistant approach). Future Hackney uses resilience, resistance and reworking (to use again Cindi Katz’s typology) in the way the project objects to gentrification. Resistance is defined by Cindi Katz (Katz 2004) as the subversion or disruption of the conditions of exploitation and oppression, while acts of resilience

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are social practices whose primary effect is an autonomous initiative to adapt to changes within the environment. In that sense, artists become liaisons for gentrifi­ cation fighters among themselves or between these fighters and the local community. Beyond being a platform for tying bonds, it is a tool for new means of resistance. Thus, Future Hackney helps local activist groups to meet and to recruit new activists. Yet, it is not the only means of triggering resistance. Beyond the social media net­ work, resistance is meant to be achieved in the art galleries. Even though Future Hackney is still in the making, the goal can be questioned in the context of antigentrification resistance. Indeed, the On-Gentrification exhibition in The House of Illustration in King’s Cross can be compared to the potential exhibition in Autograph in Shoreditch. Both galleries target (upper) middle-class cultured spectators. Indeed, an exhibition on markets is deemed to attract people whose socioeconomic profile would be quite distinct from the profile of customers and traders at Ridley Road, especially by choosing galleries located in gentrified areas. Yet, the location of the galleries is not the only reason why these exhibitions attract middle-class visitors. Specialist niche markets (such as farmers’ markets) have known a steady growth (Watson and Studdert 2006) becoming highly attractive and trendy. The term market conjures up a variety of images as the range of markets is par­ ticularly broad, stretching from older-style street markets to more middle-class farmers’ markets. Yet, the image these visitors might have of markets might not be that of a retail market as in Ridley Road. In that sense, visitors to the exhibition in The House of Illustrations might be startled to see drawings of a traditional olderstyle market, which is far from the image of the more stylish sort of markets they go to. In consequence, this exhibition serves both as a means to encourage deeper re­ flection for visitors and to expand the positive image of the Ridley Road market beyond Hackney. Donna Travis’ project to mount an exhibition in the Autograph gallery in Shoreditch revolves around the same idea of discussing a social space that the targeted audience will probably not make use of. Visitors of the House of Illustrations in King’s Cross or Autograph in Shoreditch are mainly (upper) middleclass, with the typical profile of the gentrifiers. Thus, it leads supposedly to a dis­ sociation between visitors to the exhibition being gentrifiers and sitters of the drawings being the gentrified. In Autograph’s case, as the gallery was founded with the aim of supporting Black and Minority Ethnic artists, this dissociation might be blurred. This dichotomy between the gentrifiers and the gentrified recalls Richard Hoggart’s dichotomy (Hoggart 1957, 62) between “them” and “us,” the latter re­ ferring to working-classes and the former referring to “the higher-ups,” “the people at the top.” Yet, these more affluent people can sometimes become the gentrified themselves, following the example of one of the curators of the House of Illustration who decided to mount this exhibition. By taking the fight out of the narrow perimeter of the market, these exhibitions intend to make the fight global in other hypergentrified London areas. On Gentrification, for example, was intentionally given a generic title that could correspond to the changes inherent in different inner London boroughs. Implicitly, such a title opens up the discussion stimulated by the exhibition. More generally speaking, the choice of disclosing a market to illustrate gentrification echoes the numerous threatened local markets but also the popping up of many hipster markets, which can be deemed to beget gentrification. With just a rapid mention of Ridley Road, the exhibition makes sense to any visitor. Indeed, the marketplace is

102 Marie-Pierre Vincent telling for any spectator; a market is a familiar place for everyone and depending on its form, it may cater to people from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Ultimately, the decision to represent gentrification by drawing a marketplace is a way to rethink gentrification far beyond its residential impact. Yet, it is also a way to touch a wide range of people, principally those who might not be the first victims of gentrification. It is in this sense that this exhibition can prompt critical thinking on gentrification, even though it is arguable that it is a catalyst for active resistance itself, meaning here mobilizing people against gentrification. Still, the mounting of ex­ hibitions of anti-gentrification resistance in gentrified areas can be designated as an act of resistance in itself, which can be deemed at least partially successful as Dalston gentrified traders (who got some free tickets to get in the House of Illustrations) reinvest, by their physical presence space from which other working-classes had been evicted, even though it is only for the brief moment of the exhibition. More than the physical penetration of the place, investment occurs with the affects. In this regard, one can go back to Yi-Fu Tuan’s distinction between space and place (Tuan 1977, 6). “Space” is more abstract than “place.” What begins as undifferentiated space be­ comes place as soon as one gets to know it better and endow it with value. Thus, in that context, traders turn a space, where they have no social connections, into a place, a unique entity, incarnated by their own experiences, which they will inhabit with feelings. Thus, whether it is disguised or explicit, both artistic projects are part of anti-gentrification resistance. In the case of Future Hackney, it acts as a catalyst for resisting gentrification online via Instagram. Yet, in both cases, anti-gentrification resistance is symbolically put up in art galleries. This leads us directly to the question of the potential limits of this form of activism.

From the Structural Limits of These Brands of Resistance to a Redefinition of the Anti-Gentrification Resistance The role of these projects as catalysts or tools of resistance or even as acts of re­ sistance is nonetheless limited by a wide range of factors. The first limitation is ex­ pressed through the commodification of artistic resistance. Laura Naegler’s argument (Naegler 2012) is that resistance to gentrification in Hamburg is both incorporated into the process of gentrification and distinctly commodified. In this way, resistance is controlled; furthermore, the commodification of resistance is a pervasive form of control since the borders between authentic and commodified resistance are blurred. This argument regarding the perversion of resistance by its commodification can be easily applied to artistic forms. Both of the artists whose work was discussed earlier make a living on the sale of their artistic productions. This means that, in the end, their artistic resistance aims at being merchandised, that is, sold in galleries to spectators who are undoubtedly gentrifiers per se. We should not, however, leap to any foregone conclusions, as this analysis is too restrictive, given these artists’ ethical conscience and goodwill. Also, an emphasis should be put on the way these projects are carried out. The economic motivations are far less significant than the ethical and social ones. Both artists are well established as professionals and make a decent living. The fact that both obtained funding puts less pressure on the results and leaves them room to maneuver. These projects are not conceived in ways designed to get the best form of branding possible. The artists have no restrictions or specific conditions on how they carry out their projects. And before they are put up for sale, these creations

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are freely exhibited. Admission is free for the Autograph gallery. At The House of Illustration, there is an entrance fee of between £7.50 and £8.25, Lucinda Rogers guaranteed free admission for any person coming from the Ridley Road market. This fits in with the committed career of Lucinda Rogers who twice took part in the London Affordable Art Fair (in 2002 and 2012). Thus, these artistic productions cannot be solely considered as products that can be sold and bought. Another potential limitation of anti-gentrification resistance is the socioeconomic profile of the artists. Being white middle-class women, the profiles of these artists are quite different from those of the traders—there is indeed a glaring discrepancy be­ tween their cultural background and the working-class background of the traders. Moreover, it would be no exaggeration to say that they have the external signs of the profile of the artistic gentrifiers of the area. This could lead one to question the au­ thenticity of a form of anti-gentrification resistance led by typical gentrifiers. Conversely, beyond the argument of authenticity, this discrepancy between the so­ cioeconomic profile of the artists and the gentrified traders can also be a way of reaching out to another audience. The artists then provide a link between the working classes and the upper or middle classes. Yet, such considerations paint a gloomier picture of the situation than is warranted, as it is overly restrictive to caricature the artists as emblematic gentrifiers. The genuine character of their commitment can be accounted for in their threatened status—being beset by the gentrification process themselves. Lucinda Rogers was an early activist in Hackney and Donna Travis is deeply committed to her opposition to gentrification. Lucinda Rogers is an active member of different campaigns, including Just Space (an alliance of London com­ munity groups giving a voice at the grass-root level during the formulation of London’s planning strategy). As a Hackney inhabitant, she also personally suffered from the effects of gentrification as she has witnessed dramatic changes on the road where she has been living for the past 25 years. Thus, the dichotomy between the profile of the gentrifier and the profile of the gentrified is blurred as artists ceased to be white middle-class gentrifiers to become gentrified in turn. Yet, this leads to the last question regarding the limitations on artistic activism. Although this question has long been debated in the literature on art and gentri­ fication, it remains of paramount importance for the Ridley Road Market, as this was the first time when these artists combined their personal work with their political ideas. As it was rightly put in the title of Stephen Duncombe’s article, “Does it work? The Æffect of activist art” (Duncombe 2016), it is not enough to make a claim based solely on the production of activist art. Instead, the results that such works actually have should be assessed. As mentioned earlier, if these artistic productions are ap­ preciated as catalyst of resistance, in terms of political action, they cannot be properly designated as acts of resistance per se. They seem to be, at best, tools for resistance but they do not represent a concrete end in political terms. It is impossible to measure the role played by Future Hackney, for example, in the campaign to save Ridley Road. It might help draw people to the campaign—such as people who are either more into social media or people interested in photography. Yet, the debate taken up in this chapter is not about assessing the influence of the artists on the mobilization, which is, in turn, difficult to assess. Nor was this task the purpose of Viktoria Vona’s thesis either (Vona 2016, 324). In turn, I will not discuss the part played by the campaign Save Ridley Road in the preservation of the market, as other political decisions might have been at play. To answer the question: “What is contested in

104 Marie-Pierre Vincent gentrification through these artistic projects?” we need to show how these artistic projects try to resist, contest or provoke thoughts on the relevant issues. This ob­ jective is threefold. Firstly, these artistic projects aimed at restoring power to the traders, empowering them while giving them back a sense of dignity and visibility. These aims were framed initially and consciously on the part of both artists, in other words, what is at work here is giving the traders a sense of belonging to the market, handing them back their legitimacy there. To a certain extent, these projects are thus fighting against displacement (emphasis in original) (Davidson and Lees 2010, 402) using Yi-Fu Tuan’s notion of “place” (Tuan 1977)—not a spatial place but a sym­ bolic one endowed with a sense of belonging. Secondly, resistance can go even further. Socially and culturally, the artists play a paramount role in triggering resistance. In Duncombe’s neologism, they produce “Aeffect,” a portmanteau word, affect + effect, meaning that art, by moving the audience sensually and emotionally, lends itself to effect, moving the material world or in other terms, it brings about real change in the world. And by favoring affective comments, Instagram might help push for action. Even though, in both cases, the desired results cannot be precisely defined at a social or political level, together with the fact that Future Hackney is in progress, some actions can be appraised. If referred to Duncombe’s ty­ pology, outwardly, Future Hackney as a project appears more successful in an activist perspective, especially through the use of Instagram. It fosters dialogue, builds a com­ munity, makes a place for discussions and invites participation, ultimately creating dis­ ruption. Activism is more enclosed in Lucinda Rogers’ project since it should be assessed more in qualitative than in quantitative terms as it also fosters dialogue and builds a community but this at the level of London and with a different set of gentrified people. Thirdly, what is implicitly and debatably essentially at play in these projects, which is not as broadly defended in the campaign to save the market, is the resistance to “gentrification of the narrative” or “gentrification of memory.” These concepts that are closely intertwined have been recently put forward by several researchers. For sociologist Lisa McKenzie, the “gentrification of narrative” (McKenzie forthcoming) appears when gentrification plays with nostalgia when the history of places is re­ interpreted to select some of their key characteristics of the past working-class cul­ ture, yet while it modernizes them and makes them conform to the middle-class culture. The concept of “gentrification of narrative” is linked to another concept, which has recently emerged, namely, that of “gentrification of memory” (Galiniki forthcoming; Tolfo 2019). The latter is defined by Giuseppe Tolfo as “a telling of history that justifies the interests of capital and affluence by erasing the history of marginalized residents.” For archeologist Styliana Galiniki, the gentrification of memory means the city’s cultural heritage is used as a tool of gentrification by es­ tablishing monuments or memorials, “which aim to project an ideal version of the collective memory by ostracizing from public view other, more difficult versions” (Galiniki forthcoming). Many researchers have referred to this process without giving it a particular name. This process was described by Phil Hubbard, like the fact that “working-class authenticity is cherished, but in the [gentrification] process, it’s symbolically consumed until a little trace of its ‘dirty’ working-class background remains” (Hubbard 2017, 4). Here, both artistic projects avoid the pitfall of erasing the history of the margin­ alized traders and featuring nostalgia, meaning a wistful longing for a golden age, rekindling memories of a rhapsodized past. The artists do not play the game of the

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gentrification of narrative, which calls upon nostalgia and reshapes history. Instead, they depict the current presence of the traders, not documenting it for posterity that would be a more distant but not passive observation of the situation, but for the present moment, in a committed approach, going beyond the pure aesthetic aims of the project. Plus, Future Hackney, by allowing us to read the personal stories of the traders on Instagram, gives them a voice, which is the opposite of the way “gentri­ fication of memory” works. In gentrification of memory, the voices and stories of the working class are erased. I argue that it seems to be the specific role of art to provide resistance to gentrification of memory. Indeed, art produces affect, which, in turn, produces a form of symbolic resistance, going beyond spatial displacement and dealing with a form of emotional or memorial displacement. Yet, in the case of Future Hackney, one should be warned against a romanticized story of the traders. To promote the project, Donna Travis conceived of a poster. She had in mind the idea of dressing up one of the young trainees of the photographic team, in a typical African suit and to have him pose inside the market. She bought a bright red suit with golden patterns on it with traditional accessories (meaning a red hat, a necklace and a stick). In a way, it could be considered that it was no longer a traditional outfit but a romanticized costume as this type of suit is worn only by kings. Yet, this is not to be considered as part of the process of gentrifying memory or applying some Orientalism in Edward Said’s sense (Saïd 1978). First, Donna Travis gets beyond the pitfall of exoticism and colonialism as she shows deep interest in getting to know their culture. Then, the clothes have all been bought from the market, so the poster is au­ thentic in its representation of what is sold in the market. Even though they might not be the most frequently sold clothes, a real effort was made by the artist to engage with the traders and to take into account their advice about the poster. A final line of defense is that art is not here an imitation of the market. Furthermore, to call out to the “outsiders” of the market online or in the future in the art gallery, and thus to reach a wider audience, Donna Travis had to resort to the Western colorful representations of African-Caribbeans and make the image arresting. In this chapter, I have argued that in these artistic projects, the form of resistance to gentrification, goes far beyond resistance to displacement, which has been at the heart of gentrification studies since Chester Hartman’s landmark study on resistance in San Francisco (Hartman 1974). Here, there is a more subtle form of resistance—alongside the activist campaign to save the market. By moving the audience emotionally, these artistic projects tackle resistance to “gentrification of memory” or “gentrification of narrative” producing alternative stories to the ones constructed in the gentrification process. These empowering narratives give threatened minorities back a sense of be­ longing to the market. Through a nonviolent means, using affect to produce an effect (Duncombe 2016), it also plays a paramount role as a catalyst of resistance. This is fulfilled either in art galleries, reaching out to a broader audience, including one of gentrifiers, or online, through the use of the social media network of Instagram. Indeed, both artistic projects foster anti-gentrification resistance, by using different, more or less covert forms of activism. Donna Travis’ activism proves to be more efficient to gather traders, activists and the local community to fight against gentri­ fication in the area and ultimately to find a voice in the local and somehow (inter) national newspapers. In contrast, Lucinda Rogers’ activism could become a powerful tool for getting a voice within London, gathering activists concerned with similar issues across that city. Yet, if these artistic projects can be catalysts for more

106 Marie-Pierre Vincent traditional means of resisting gentrification, considering that their aim was to document the market, I argue that their main achievements were to assert the stories and voices of the working class of the market and by so doing, to fight against the gentrification of memory/narrative. Research has to be conducted on the subject, starting with the art’s role in the fight against the storytelling of gentrification.

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Jerrold, Blanchard. 2005. London: A Pilgrimage. London: Anthem Press [1st ed. 1872]. Katz, Cindi. 2004. Growing Up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children’s Everyday Lives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lees, Loretta, and Mara Ferreri. 2016. “Resisting Gentrification on Its Final Frontiers: Learning from the Heygate Estate in London (1974–2013).” Cities 57: 14–24. Lees, Loretta, and Martin Phillips, eds. 2018. Handbook of Gentrification Studies. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Lees, Loretta, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly, eds. 2010. The Gentrification Reader. London: Routledge Lefebvre, Henri. 1968. Le droit à la ville. Paris: Anthropos. Ley, David. 1994. “Gentrification and the politics of the new middle class.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 12 (1): 53–74. Lucinda Rogers. Website. http://www.lucindarogers.co.uk/index.php Marcuse, Peter. 1986. “Abandonment, Gentrification, and Displacement: The Linkages in New York City.” In Gentrification of the City, ed. Neil Smith and Peter Williams, 121–152. Boston: Allen and Unwin. McKenzie, Lisa. Forthcoming 2022. Grieving for London. Bristol: Policy Press. Naegler, Laura. 2012. Gentrification and Resistance: Cultural Criminology, Control, and the Commodification of Urban Protest in Hamburg. Münster: LIT Verlag. Reed, Thomas Vernon 2005. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle. London: University of Minnesota Press. Saïd, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. London: Routledge. Smith, Neil, and Peter Williams, eds. (1986) Gentrification of the City. New York: Routledge. Tolfo, Giuseppe. 2019. “Go on play with the words, the effect is the same: how gentrification and liveability feature in public discourses of neighbourhood change.” M.A. diss., Waterloo: University of Waterloo. Tuan, Yi-Fu. (1977) 2011. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Vona, Viktoria. 2016. The Role of Art and Artists in Contesting Gentrification in London and New York City. PhD dissertation, King’s College London. Watson Sophie, and David Studdert. 2006. Markets as Sites for Social Interaction: Spaces of Diversity. Bristol: Joseph Rowntree Foundation/Policy Press. Weilenman, Alexandra, Thomas Hillman, and Beata Jungselius. 2013. “Instagram at the Museum: Communicating the Museum Experience through Social Photo Sharing.” Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, 1843–1852. Paris: ACM Press.

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Enacting the “Right to the Creative City” in Berlin Rabea Berfelde

Introduction In this chapter, the occupation of Berlin’s Volksbühne—a public theater with a his­ tory of radical cultural production—that took place on September 22, 2017, serves as an example to think through a possible “right to the creative city” in times marked by the increasing financialization of the economy and its intimate link to urban real estate speculation. The occasion for the theater’s occupation was the appointment of Chris Dercon—former director of Tate Modern, London—as the theater’s artistic director. He followed Frank Castorf, who held the position since 1992. The pro­ testors, who occupied the building for six days until September 28, 2017, understood Dercon’s work as emblematic of a type of contemporary art that works in service of capitalist (creative) city marketing (Lütticken n.d.). Therefore, the development of the theater was understood as a symbol of the city’s urban economic development over the last years. This article argues that the occupiers utilized the theater as a stage to negotiate urban politics, to protest rising land prices and rents, accelerating real estate speculation and the resulting precarization of urban dweller’s everyday lives as well as the lack of space for autonomous cultural production. I claim that through this oc­ cupation, they enacted a right to the creative city. The historically unique situation after the fall of the Berlin Wall—high vacancy rates, available urban space and low rents—contributed to the development of an alternative subcultural creative scene that the city is now internationally recognized for and marketed upon as Europe’s creative capital. However, the city now experiences a situation, where the shortage of affordable housing, as well as a lack of space for subcultural production, threatens the conditions for these scenes to strive. The chapter gives a historical account of how this situation came about by revisiting and theorizing the city’s economic develop­ ment from 1989 up until today. It asks what it means to assert a right to the creative city in times when real estate capital draws on subcultural production to enhance the value of buildings and land. The first part of the article seeks to understand the specific type of creative city that Berlin has become. I will critically engage with the city’s official place branding and marketing campaigns after reunification. In 2008, the government launched the in­ famous “be Berlin” campaign, which envisions the city as an international, diverse and creative hub. The campaign portrays the city as a creative urban environment that is worth traveling to, living and investing in. I argue that this specific type of place branding needs to be understood in conjuncture with Berlin’s economic decline after reunification, which was aggravated after the banking scandal in 2001. Relating the

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resulting austerity politics to this specific type of place branding, embodied by the “be Berlin” campaign, enables me to understand the creative city discourse as a modality of power—a neoliberal and biopolitical tool for population management— which on the one hand aims to conceal the resulting dismantling of the local welfare state and interpellates Berlin’s urban dwellers as entrepreneurial subjects framing them as responsible for the city’s economic success. The second part of the article develops a theoretical model for a critical and politicaleconomically informed engagement with the nexus between art, or more precisely sub­ cultural production, and gentrification. Drawing on Andreas Reckwitz’s differentiation between “bottom-up culturalization” through city dwellers and cultural scenes and the planned “top-down culturalization” through governmental bodies, I understand the “be Berlin” campaign as an example of the latter form of culturalization. The planning of difference and urban atmospheres—as embodied by the campaign—follows the creative city paradigm developed by Richard Florida, which was widely criticized in human geography debates over the past years. This is complemented by a Marxist human geography framework, which enables me to link place branding to “urban en­ trepreneurialism” and inter-urban competition. I draw on David Harvey’s expansion of the theory of ground rent to include the collective production of culture as terrain that the market exploits to find new “marks of distinction” as a means to enhance the value of land. However, Harvey’s theoretical model is limited to discussing planned investment in the field of culture, aesthetics, heritage and so on through governmental bodies. Consequently, it can only be applied to discuss a “top-down culturalization” that is a culturalization of the urban environment that is mediated by urban planning. To develop a Marxist theoretical model to critically engage with the nexus between “bottom-up culturalization” and gentrification, I revisit Michael Hardt’s and Antonio Negri’s argu­ ment that value appropriation in the contemporary rent-based economy precedes through the “de-socialization of the common” (Hardt and Negri 2009, 258). In their book Commonwealth, Hardt and Negri discuss real estate speculation as an apparatus by which social and cultural wealth produced by autonomous creative production is ap­ propriated in contemporary economies. Their theorization is different from Harvey’s as they claim that this mode of appropriation does not necessitate the mediation of cultureoriented planning. In the last part of the article, the occupier’s demands are read through Henri Lefebvre’s understanding of the “right to the city” as a right to autonomous and common production of space. I argue that the commoning the occupiers practiced ges­ tures toward a creative production of urban space different to the prevalent ideal of creative city-marketing, such as the “be Berlin” campaign, which equates creativity with capitalist entrepreneurship.

Creative City Marketing and Biopolitical Urbanism Seeking to understand the specific type of creative city, which Berlin represents, one needs to consider its historical, economic and governmental development after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The post-wall situation led to far-reaching processes of economic and urban reorganization. After 1989, Berlin’s politics was dominated by exaggerated growth expectations both in terms of population growth—the city’s population was expected to grow up to five million inhabitants over the following next ten years—as well as economic growth as headquarters of large international corporations were predicted to settle in the newly reunified city (Bernt, Grell and

110 Rabea Berfelde Holm 2013). Urban governance sought to establish the ground for Berlin regaining its status as a metropolis and catching up with the economic development of cities such as Paris and London by implementing market-oriented urban development policies. After so-called reunification, in the early 1990s, the “New Berlin” was being imagined and built. Major construction projects aimed at giving the new service metropolis Berlin an architectural image. Three regeneration projects are particularly important to consider in this regard: the development of commercial real estate in the form of high-rise iconic architecture at Potsdamer Platz, the development around Friedrichstraße, which also focused on commercial and business use, and the new government quarter with Norman Foster’s infamous glass dome for the Reichstag (seat of the German Parliament), which ought to embody the transparent democracy of the newly reunified Germany. In the early 1990s, the public-private partnership Partner für Berlin, Gesellschaft für Hauptstadtmarketing GmbH was set up, which developed the city’s place branding strategy (Colomb and Kalandides 2010). Place branding campaigns at the time sought to marketize the “New Berlin” by focusing on these construction sites. The imagining of Berlin as a service metropolis, however, also needs to be understood in light of the dismantling of its industrial basis post-1989. The closure of production sites in East Berlin as well as the end of special subsidies, on which West Berlin’s industrial economy had heavily depended, lead to relocations and further closures (Krätke 2013). This deindustrialization caused a massive loss of jobs and the decline of Berlin’s (industrial) economy. Growth expectations—both in economic as well as demographic terms—were not met. In 2001, after the “Berliner Bankenskandal” (banking scandal), the city’s eco­ nomic situation, which since reunification had been crisis-ridden, worsened. A large public banking consortium, the “Berliner Bankgesellschaft,” had engaged in dubious real estate speculation while being under the supervision of Berlin’s government. Risky lending and real estate businesses caused the public bank to almost go bankrupt in 2001 and the political decision was taken to bail out the banks, which cost the city around 30 billion Euros (Bernt et al. 2013). The outcome was a budgetary crisis to which the government responded by implementing urban austerity politics and dismantling local welfare state provisions aiming at fiscal consolidation and a balanced budget. Considering public housing provision, austerity politics resulted in the abolishment of all housing-related subsidies in 2003 and the privatization of large parts of the city’s public housing stock (Fields and Uffer 2016, 1491). What is often overlooked when discussing the privatization of housing as a central pillar of neoliberal urbanism and austerity politics—exemplified by Margaret Thatcher’s infamous “right to buy” scheme—is that privatization, depending on the local context, takes different forms. In the context of Berlin state-owned housing was sold en bloc, which means that in contrast to other European examples where privatization was facilitated by the increase in owner-occupation, entire housing companies were sold to institutional investors (Uffer 2013, 156). How this en bloc privatization accelerated the “financialization of housing” can be illustrated by looking at the case of the housing company GSW (short for Gemeinnützige Siedlungs-und Wohnungsbaugesellschaft, roughly translated as NonProfit Housing Association). In 2004, the state-owned housing company GSW, which owned around 66000 flats, was sold by the government—which at the time was formed of a coalition between the left party (DieLinke) and the social democrats (SPD)—to a consortium of the worldwide operating investment funds Whitehall and Ceberus Capital Management. In 2014, these shares were bought by the Deutsche

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Wohnen—a listed housing company, which is now the second-biggest private pro­ vider of rental housing in Berlin as well as Germany (Vollmer 2015, 63–64). In ad­ dition to the privatization of the public housing stock, a large share of public land was sold to the highest bidder. The artwork “Kartographie der Privatisierung” (“cartography of privatization”) by Florine Schüschke shows that between 1989 and 2017, 21 km² of formerly public land, which includes land that previously either belonged to the state of Berlin or state-owned enterprises such as the housing asso­ ciations, was sold for the small sum of five billion Euros (Schüschke 2019). David Harvey’s concept “urban entrepreneurialism” sheds light on the politicaleconomic roots of these privatization measures and the general dismantling of the local welfare state. Harvey argues that in the 1970s/1980s a managerial style of urban governance was replaced by an entrepreneurial one. The entrepreneurial stance toward urban governance is characterized by a “consensus that seems to hold across political parties and ideologies” “that positive benefits are to be had by cities taking an en­ trepreneurial stance to economic development” (Harvey 1989, 4). Whereas managerial practices primarily focused on the local provision of services, facilities and infra­ structures (such as housing, educational institutions, kindergartens, hospitals) that were to ensure the reproduction of the Fordist work-force, entrepreneurial practices aim at fostering consumption and continuous private investment (1989, 7–8, 11). Interestingly, the implementation of urban austerity politics coincided with a new approach to place branding and city marketing. On March 11, 2008, the new mu­ nicipal branding campaign “be Berlin” was launched by the then mayor Klaus Wowereit. Whereas the marketing of the “New Berlin” had focused on construction sites and iconic architecture, the new campaign marketed the urban dwellers, the Berliners, themselves. The launch of the campaign went hand in hand with a call for participation for urban dwellers to share their individual success stories. The cam­ paign thereafter primarily focused on working with the portrayal of individual Berliners and their stories. Additionally, the campaign in comparison to the previous branding strategy marked a shift “from a focus on cultural consumption to a focus on cultural production and creative industries” (Colomb and Kalandides 2010). Berlin was envisioned as a creative, socially and ethnically diverse cosmopolitan metropolis. Indeed, the creative industries were the only sector that after reunification sparked hope in urban economic growth (Bader and Scharenberg 2013; Krätke 2013). Berlin’s subcultural charm attracted, in particular, the music and media industry, with, for example, Universal Music and MTV settling in the city in the early 2000s. Taking a closer look at the campaign’s wording and imaginary, it becomes apparent that “be Berlin,” however, did not focus on the portrayal of the creative industries but on more mundane forms of creativity. It is the assumed creative potential of urban dwellers that is marketed upon (Colomb and Kalandides 2010). Harvey argues to understand place branding as an integral part of “urban en­ trepreneurialism.” Through city marketing, urban regions aim to improve their competitive positions in the globalized inter-urban competition for capitalist devel­ opment that is investment, jobs, tourism and so on. He claims that it becomes the “task of urban governance … to lure highly mobile and flexible production, financial and consumption flows into its space” (Harvey 1989, 11). Complementing Harvey’s concept of “urban entrepreneurialism” with Neil Brenner and Nik Theodore’s the­ orization of “roll-back” and “roll-out” neoliberalism (Brenner and Theodore 2002) enables me to approach the political-ideological roots of the relation between urban

112 Rabea Berfelde austerity politics and the need for intensive place marketing. Harvey argues that “urban entrepreneurialism” should be understood in light of its macro-economic roots that is in “relation with some of the more general shifts in the way capitalist economies have been working since the first major post-war recession of 1973,” which “sparked a variety of seemingly profound adjustments in the paths of capitalist development” (Harvey 1989, 11). Brenner and Theodore state that this recession, caused by the declining profitability of traditional industries and the crisis of the Keynesian welfare state, gave way to the emergence of neoliberalism (Brenner and Theodore 2002, 350). They understand neoliberalism as a political-ideological pro­ ject, which allows for new forms of supranational, national and urban governance that restructure the relation between the state and the economy. The outcome of the unfolding of this ideology is new institutional arrangements that allow for the intrusion of economic rationality into ever more aspects of political and social life. In their critical geographical perspective, they differentiate between the phase of “roll-back” and “roll-out” neoliberalism. In the 1980s, under “roll-back” neoliberalism, municipalities were increasingly constrained to introduce various “cost-cutting” mea­ sures, including the privatization of formerly public infrastructural facilities as well as cutbacks in public spending “in order to lower the costs of state administration, capitalist production, and social reproduction within their jurisdiction, and thereby to accelerate external investment” (Brenner and Theodore 2002, 373). “Roll-back” neoliberalism coincides with what I referred to as urban austerity politics. This phase gave way to the “roll-out” phase of neoliberalism where “the basic neoliberal imperative of mobilizing economic space—in this case, city space—as a purified arena for capitalist growth, commodification, and market discipline remained the dominant political project for municipal governments through the world economy” (2002, 374). Place branding and marketing can be understood in light of the “roll-out” phase of neoliberalism and its imperative to attract private investment in the framework of urban governance in­ creasingly oriented toward economic growth. Out of its specific historical situation, Berlin experienced these transformations in urban governance with a certain delay. I, therefore, argue that “roll-back” neoliberalism marked Berlin’s urban politics beginning right after reunification in 1989 and “roll-out” neoliberalism accelerated in the aftermath of the banking scandal in the early 2000s. It becomes apparent that the connecting element between the two concepts explaining the change in urban governance—that are urban austerity politics and “urban entrepreneurialism”—is the political ideology of neoliberalism. However, I claim that the sole focus on the restructuring of institutional ar­ rangements cannot account for the operation of neoliberal governance through the rearrangement of the notion of subjectivity. Following Michel Foucault’s biopolitical interpretation of neoliberalism, one can understand the link between urban austerity politics and the particular type of place branding that the “be Berlin” campaign re­ presents and the role of new forms of neoliberal subjectification within these urban restructuring processes. In the Birth of Biopolitics (2004), Foucault extrapolates the difference between the liberal and neoliberal “art of government” by engaging with Ordoliberal theory (of the year 1948–1962) and US-American Chicago School neo­ liberalism. Liberalism defined economic activity as exchange understood as the naturally given and anthropological substance of “homo economicus.” To not in­ tervene in the process of economic exchange became the general matrix of the state and society thereof. Ordoliberalism, on the contrary, took competition as the

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blueprint for governance. Competition was understood as having to be artificially produced by politics not directly intervening in the market, but by setting the con­ ditions for competition and the market to unfold and thrive (2004, 131). A society constructed on the basis of (market-)competition, according to their theorization, necessitates the “multiplication of the ‘enterprise’ form” (2004, 148), whereby they understood private property to be the fundamental enterprise form and as a mode of individual risk insurance. Chicago school neoliberalism—by means of their theory of human capital—radicalized the domain of this economic “art of government.” As has been remarked, homo eco­ nomicus was conceptualized as the bearer of a naturally given interest. The theory of human capital, on the contrary, acknowledges that this economic interest itself has to be artificially created. Theodore Schultz and Gary Becker, figureheads of Chicago School neoliberalism who famously coined the concept, argued that to ensure innovation, eco­ nomic growth and future wealth individuals should be governed as to invest in their own embodied intellectual and physical abilities. In their theorization, Foucault identifies a shift in the conception of living labor, which he understands to characterize the neoliberal “art of government.” In the image of human capital, an individual becomes labor and capital at the same time and is responsibilized to continuously invest in herself to ensure a degree of individual success and thereby welfare (2004, 219–226). Subjects ought to appreciate themselves as entrepreneurs speculatively investing in the value of their subjectivity con­ sidering all aspects of their lives—work and leisure, production and reproduction (Feher 2009). Neoliberalism, following this biopolitical interpretation, is defined by human ca­ pital becoming the dominant mode of subjectification. The subjectification of living labor operates through indirect interventions structuring the field of possible actions. It operates through a degree of freedom, as it requires the mode of subjectification and field of possible actions to not be fully determined (Foucault 2000, 340–342). This mode of “action upon action” and “conduct of conducts” operates by governing an individual’s interest through the “milieu.” Foucault uses the concept “milieu” as an epistemological category to underline that subjectification proceeds through the broader economic en­ vironment (Foucault 2004; 2007). The transformation of the welfare state toward in­ dividualized risk insurance can be understood as such an augmentation of the “milieu” that seeks to govern the interest, desires and aspirations of citizens. I argue that “be Berlin” represents a particular type of place branding, and maybe also urban planning, which takes the neoliberal subject of human capital as its blueprint. By drawing on the everyday creativity of urban dwellers and discursively linking it to individual (economic) success, creativity is equated to capitalist en­ trepreneurship and individuals are subjectivized as self-responsible. During the launch of the campaign in 2008, mayor Wowereit gave a speech pointing out that “We are counting on you, the people of Berlin … The campaign showcases people who have shown vision and courage. Each and everyone counts. Success takes all of us” (Wowereit 2008 as quoted by Lanz 2013, 1305). This quote makes apparent that creativity is drawn upon not only to responsibilize city dwellers for their own eco­ nomic success in times marked by urban austerity politics, but also for the city’s economic success in general. Understood as a biopolitical tool for population man­ agement, the campaign aims to achieve coherence and collaboration among ever more individualized subjects by fostering the identification with the city’s common goal, that is, economic growth, and as such diverts attention away from inequalities accelerated by the dismantling of the urban welfare state. The interrelation between

114 Rabea Berfelde urban austerity politics and the particular type of place branding the “be Berlin” campaign represents can be understood as exemplary for biopolitical urbanism. Cutbacks in public spending are implemented to deal with an economically crisisridden situation, which results in a crisis felt by ever more parts of the population to ensure the reproduction of their lives. At the same time, citizens are more than ever called upon as responsible for their own and the city’s economic success under conditions, which make this ever more impossible to achieve.

The Nexus Between “Culturalization” and Gentrification Revisited In the last section, I have shown that the “be Berlin” campaign follows the blueprint of neoliberal and creativity-led urban regeneration. I argue that as such the campaign represents a “culturalization” of urban atmospheres, which is planned by govern­ mental bodies aiming to valorize urban space. How this “culturalization” leads to gentrification processes is explained in the following. Gentrification generally de­ scribes a process of socio-spatial transformation whereby the upgrading of urban districts leads to the displacement of particular social classes. A popular under­ standing of the interrelation between creative scenes and gentrification follows the narrative that the individual decision of artists, students and generally people with alternative and subcultural lifestyles to settle in a specific urban environment causes these upgrading processes and rent increases. Through the aesthetic, upgrading dis­ tricts with previously low rents are understood to become more attractive for highincome groups and unaffordable for lower-income groups. Gentrification takes full circle if the supposed pioneers of the process, the artists and students themselves, cannot afford the rents any longer and are displaced. I argue that this narrative ex­ plains gentrification through individual preferences and consumption patterns and thus veils the underlying structural cause that is the political and economic processes, which have been introduced in the preceding section as urban austerity politics, “urban entrepreneurialism” and biopolitical urbanism. To develop a theoretical model to critically revisit the nexus between “culturalization” and gentrification, it is necessary to on the one hand analyze the structural causes of gentrification processes and on the other hand differentiate between culture-led valorization processes that are planned by governmental bodies and forms of gentrification where real estate capital appropriates cultural production without the mediation of planning. Andreas Reckwitz in The Invention of Creativity. Modern Society and the Culture of the New understands contemporary postindustrial “culturalization” of cities through urban planning as being embedded in a general trend—which began in the 1970s—of creativity becoming “a crucial organizing principle of Western societies.” Creativity, originally associated with innovation in the arts and sciences, has become “an unavoidable and universally blueprint for society and self” (Reckwitz 2017, 2, 4). The pervasiveness of creativity, the “duality of the wish to be creative and the im­ perative to be creative,” is the specific cultural phenomenon characterizing con­ temporary “late modernity.” Rather than characterizing the development by which creativity became an important “dispositive” structuring contemporary societies as a linear process of modernization, he applies a genealogical perspective to show how these processes of sociocultural restructuring were discontinuous and contingent. Looking at the city, this general process of social reconfiguration is exemplified by the creative city paradigm becoming the hegemonic model of urban planning.

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This planning discourse was most prominently developed by Charles Landry in The Creative City. A Toolkit for Urban Innovators (2009) and Richard Florida in The Rise of the Creative Class (2002). Both advocated for postindustrial urban govern­ ance in order to ensure future economic growth to focus on the creative industries. Florida, in particular, suggested supporting the flourishing of the creative industries by planning the urban “social milieu” that is focusing on soft location factors such as promoting cultural diversity, providing lifestyle amenities and enabling a flourishing subculture, to attract the “creative class”—the potential workforce for the culture industries (Florida 2002, 55). Reckwitz argues that this planning regime recognizes that its object—that is urban culture—already exists. The task of urban planning is then to facilitate these alreadyexistent processes and to promote a particular type of creativity. This leads him to characterize this type of culture- and creativity-oriented planning, in the sense of Florida and Landry, as a “second-degree control.” Drawing on Foucault, he argues that it can be understood as an “art of government” working upon the “conduct of conduct” aug­ menting the milieu (Reckwitz 2017, 198–199). This resonates with the biopolitical theorization of neoliberal subjectification put forward in the first section. To develop a theoretical model for a critical and political-economically informed engagement with the supposed nexus between “culturalization” and gentrification, his insight that “creative city” planning draws on already-existent forms of urban creativity is central. He claims that the “culturalization” of cities is not based on a single urban actor but presents itself as a dynamic interplay between different ones. “Bottom-up culturalization” by urban residents—for example, the urban middle class but also subcultural scenes—is met by “top-down culturalization” through post-Fordist economies and stat-led cultural gov­ ernmentality (Reckwitz 2009). Reckwitz’s genealogy of late modern society’s “cultur­ alization” explains this process by tracing the transformation of the underlying rationalities. However, he does not account for their political-economic cause. As such, his socio-culturalist theorization is insufficient to analyze the class and power relations channeling contemporary processes of gentrification. In what follows, I complement his theorization of “culturalization” with a Marxist human geography approach, which enables me to analyze the specific conjuncture of contemporary gentrification as well as to develop a political-economically informed critique of creativity- and culture-led urban regeneration processes. Investments in the built environment that drive gentrification processes are subject to cyclical fluctuation as they are highly dependent on development in profit rates in other sectors of the economy, whether productive or financial. Thus, the contemporary acceleration of gentrification processes is linked to two historical developments. One is the decline in profit rates in industrial production dating back to the 1970s, which lead to the general financialization of the economy (Marazzi 2011). The other is the ECB’s low interest rate policy after the financial crisis of 2007–2008, which causes investmentseeking capital to increasingly flow into the supposed stable real estate sector. In the Art of Rent, David Harvey develops a Marxist theory to situate the pro­ liferation of culture-led urban regeneration policies within the contemporary con­ juncture of striving inter-urban competition to attract global real estate capital. He expands the Marxist theory of “ground rent” to include “collective symbolic capital” to be found in the terrain of cultural production drawn upon to marketize the un­ iqueness of a place. Following Marx, Harvey understands “ground rent” as a return on the monopoly power resulting from private ownership over a particular part of

116 Rabea Berfelde land, that is, private property. He argues that culture, in the face of striving interurban and inter-regional competition due to globalization, becomes the terrain of struggle to assert the uniqueness of specific locations. Enhancing the value of land, according to Harvey, depends on continuously reasserting claims to uniqueness. Harvey considers how ground rent increase is facilitated by planned investment in the field of culture, aesthetics, heritage through “urban governance that mixes together state powers (local, metropolitan, regional, national and supranational) and a wide array of organizational forms in civil society (chambers of commerce, unions, chur­ ches, educational and research institutions, community groups, NGOs, etc.) and private interests (corporate and individual) to form coalitions to promote or manage urban/regional development of some sort or other” (Harvey 2002, 101). Gentrification describes a socio-spatial restructuring where the upgrading of urban districts enables rising rents and thereby causes displacement. However, I argue that this upgrading does not only happen through an actual transformation of the built environment—through for example capital investment and regeneration projects—but can also be a mere atmospheric and discursive one. Reading Reckwitz’s concept of “culturalization” together with culture-oriented planning aiming toward enhancing the value of land helps to understand that gentrification is not primarily driven by “hip” and “creative” consumers but by the potential revenue that developers and landowners can obtain by transforming urban space into a territory amenable to lucrative invest­ ment. However, I understand Harvey’s theoretical model as limited to discussing a “top-down culturalization” meaning a planned investment in the field of culture, aesthetics, heritage and so on, and an aesthetic upgrading, which is mediated by culture- and creativity-oriented urban planning. To understand the interrelation between gentrification and autonomous cultural production—meaning one that is not planned by urban governance—I draw on Michael Hardt’s and Antonio Negri’s argument put forward in their book Commonwealth that value appropriation in the contemporary rent-based economy happens through the “de-socialization of the common” (Hardt and Negri 2009, 258). In this book, they argue that real estate speculation becomes the primary means to appropriate the social and cultural wealth produced by autonomous creative cooperation. Hardt and Negri are known for having, among others, po­ pularized the concept “immaterial labor.” This concept claims that since the 1970s, the hegemonic production process ceases to be the factory-based production of material goods and becomes primarily linguistic, cognitive in nature and ultimately guided toward the production of social and cultural life itself. Productive co­ operation in the sense of immaterial labor is no longer directly organized by capital, but autonomous from it and facilitated by the cooperative capacities of human beings. They suggest that immaterial labor has become hegemonic. In that sense, the term does not discuss a distinct plane of production but aims to characterize the organization of postindustrial and post-Fordist labor as such (Hardt and Negri 2000, 2004). To discuss how surplus value appropriation happens during the production process of immaterial labor they put forward the thesis on the “becoming-rent of profit” (Hardt and Negri 2009). A rent-based approach to ca­ pital accumulation is different from profit-seeking strategies. Profit-seeking stra­ tegies operate through reinvestment in the production sphere by developing constant capital, that is the means of production, and through reinvestment in the reproductive sphere, that is in variable capital through the wage as a means to

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ensure the subsistence necessary for labor power’s reproduction. The thesis of the “becoming-rent of profit” claims that now profit and rent equally do not pursue this re-investment, but increasingly depend “on mechanisms of value expropriation that proceed from a position of exteriority in respect of the organization of production” (Vercellone 2010, 91), hence profit increasingly functions like rent. In their book Commonwealth, Hardt and Negri map out a framework approaching the urban appearance of this rent-based economy. They recognize David Harvey’s thesis of “accumulation by dispossession,” put forward in The New Imperialism, that the reproduction of the capitalist system proceeds via the ongoing enclosure and privatiza­ tion of both natural as well as social and cultural wealth formerly held in common. Harvey argues that this form of accumulation becomes ever more pervasive with the gradual financialization of the economy dating back to the economic crisis of 1973 (Harvey 2005, 137–182). Following Harvey’s as well as Hardt and Negri’s theorization, contemporary finance should be understood as a new iteration of how capitalism encloses the common. Hardt and Negri then argue that the contemporary metropolis becomes the privileged terrain for surplus value extraction in that rent operates through the “de-socialization of the common,” meaning the social and cultural wealth produced through “immaterial labor” that is by the autonomous cooperation between individuals. Further, they claim that this appropriation and thereby privatization of wealth held in common happens via the mediation of real estate development. The value of real estate derives from the urban commons they are embedded within: Contemporary real estate economists are fully aware, of course, that the value of an apartment or building or land in a city is not represented exclusively by the intrinsic characteristics of the property, such as the quality and size of its construction, but is also and even primarily determined by externalities—both negative externalities, such as air pollution, traffic congestion, noisy neighbours, high levels of criminality, and the discotheque downstairs that makes it impossible to sleep on Saturday nights; and positive externalities, such as proximity to playgrounds, dynamic local cultural relations, intellectual circuits of exchange, and peaceful, stimulating social interac­ tions. In these externalities we encounter a specter of the common. (Hardt and Negri 2009, 155) In Hardt and Negri’s discussion, real estate appears as the spatial and institutional apparatus to extract social and cultural wealth produced in common. Thus, finance is characterized as an extractive force that acts upon existent common social and cultural wealth produced through “immaterial labor. Framing subcultural production as “im­ material labor” enables me to argue that autonomously produced cultural atmospheres are drawn upon and marketized to enhance the value of land and real estate. I claim that Hardt and Negri’s theorization provides us with a framework to discuss the in­ terrelation between gentrification and autonomous cultural production as it shows how existent forms of “bottom up culturalization” are drawn upon to speculatively enhance the value of land and real estate. This form of valorization might cause gentrification processes, which, in turn, lead to the displacement of the subcultural production, which was marketed upon in the first place. The political-economically informed theorization clarifies that the preferences of creatives cannot explain these processes of gentrification and displacement. Rather, they are linked to the interest of real estate capital—either mediated by urban planning or not—to valorize urban space.

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The Occupation of Berlin’s Volksbühne as an Enactment of the “Right to the Creative City” On September 22, 2017, one of Berlin’s theaters, the Volksbühne, was occupied by a coalition of artists and activists (Figure 6.1). The occasion for the occu­ pation was the appointment of Chris Dercon, former director of Tate Modern, as the new artistic director of the theater. The occupation was preceded by ongoing criticism of Dercon’s appointment. The German feuilleton, for example, ques­ tioned his professional qualification as a former curator of performance art to run a theater. Further, a petition was signed by 40,000 people demanding Berlin’s Kultursenator Klaus Lederer to reexamine Dercon’s contract. Critique verbalized by the theater’s staff assumed that the new artistic director would mainly focus on international guest performances, which stands in stark contrast to the theater’s previous artistic direction that focused on developing a close and longstanding working relationship between artistic directorate, ensemble, trades and other staff. They expressed that this could worsen the working conditions at the theater. The criticism on Dercon’s appointment was sparked by the interpretation of him being “an exponent of contemporary art … a proponent of contemporary art’s most fully generalized and eventized form: a type of artin-general in the service of capitalist city marketing and event culture” (Lütticken n.d.).

Figure 6.1 Martin Baier, Doch Kunst (Yet Art), 2017.

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The occupiers were always keen on emphasizing that their protest was not pri­ marily directed against him personally, but the type of creative city marketing, which his appointment embodied. They understood the occupation as a “transmedial” theater production under the title B6112. Their long-term aim for the theater’s de­ velopment was the implementation of a collective artistic directorate. Small working groups and a public assembly should, already from the beginning of the occupation, provide collective working structures. The working groups were, for example, con­ cerned with (1) the general organization, (2) provision of infrastructure (including an awareness team, security, kitchen, childcare, etc.) (3) the planning of the artistic program and (4) the negotiation of general politics. The theater production B6112 understood itself as feminist, anti-racist and as demanding equal living conditions for everyone. Recognizing the structural discrimination of women* in the cultural sector, a quota of 50% was introduced for all the different working groups and organiza­ tional structures. The development and implementation of democratic and collective decision-making processes should, in the long run, lead to a de-hierarchization of the theater’s organization. It becomes apparent that the first transformative aim of the occupation was to change the theater from within by not only aiming toward a de-hierarchization of its general artistic production but by also taking the equal distribution of care and re­ productive labor into consideration. For example, they implemented an awareness group, working against any form of structural, psychological and physical violence, organized a collective and open kitchen as well as childcare. The second transfor­ mative aim was to enact the theater as a space to negotiate urban politics—especially housing politics and cultural politics. “Right to the city”-groups and tenant initiatives were invited to use the Volksbühne as a platform to organize their resistance against displacement, gentrification and its effects on the precarization of ever more parts of the urban population. Further, Berlin’s subcultural clubbing scene was invited to host a party to protest the loss of free cultural spaces due to neoliberal urban politics (Staub zu Glitzer Kollektiv 2018). Indeed, the place marketing envisioning Berlin as a creative hub was successful in the sense that the city is now internationally recognized as Europe’s creative capital. Yet, the sell-off of land to the highest bidder and accelerating real estate speculation, portrayed in the first part of the article, lead to a loss of free spaces for the alternative and subcultural clubbing scene the city is famous for. Clubs are gradually being driven out of the city as they are not located in publicly funded buildings (e.g. public theaters and operas) but have to compete on the rental market (Damm and Drevenstedt 2019). Gentrification processes intensified into a housing crisis caused by the austerity measures outlined in the first part of the article. A recent study assessing the house price performance across 150 of the world’s cities found that Berlin leads the ranking as house prices increased around 20.5% over the course of one year (2016–2017) (Knight Frank, 2018). Since approximately 85% of the city’s in­ habitants live in rented accommodation, the rent price developments are the more decisive indicator for the contemporary housing crisis. The annual rent index published by the Senate Administration for Urban Development and Housing (Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Wohnen 2019) records an average in­ crease in the net cold rent (rent per square meter excluding bills) from 4.24 Euros per square meter in 2000 to 6.72 Euros per square meter in 2019 (Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Wohnen 2019). This survey covers both the price of new

120 Rabea Berfelde rentals as well as existing ones. Prices for new lettings have risen much more strongly in the last decade. While the average rent for new lettings in 2009 were still at 6.19 Euros per square meter, in the first quarter of 2020 they increased to an average price 11.55 Euros per square meter (Berliner Morgenpost 2016; Guthmann Estate 2020). The contemporary shortage of affordable housing is caused by the large-scale pri­ vatization of land and “financialization of (rental) housing,” which enabled institu­ tional investors to treat houses as assets to be speculated upon. Together with a now rapidly growing population, this leads to a situation where demand outstrips supply, which is used by investors to increase rental prices. In light of these developments, the occupation, or theater production B6112, should be understood as a critique on what I have called biopolitical urbanism as well as an enactment of a “right to the creative city.” To close my reflections, I read their staged criticism through Henri Lefebvre’s un­ derstanding of the “right to the city” as a right to autonomous and common production of space. In The Urban Revolution, Lefebvre argues that industrialization and urbani­ zation, form a dialectical unity. Hence, processes of urbanization are key to capitalist production and reproduction alike. The urban form and the social relations of pro­ duction produce one another dialectically (Lefebvre 2003). Yet with his “right to the city” concept he claims that a different spatial production—one that does not feed into capitalist production and reproduction—is possible. The utopian ideal, which lies behind this concept, understands the city as an “oeuvre”—an ongoing collective work of creation shaped by the use of its inhabitants (Lefebvre 1996). Following Lefebvre, I understand processes of gentrification and displacement as destroying the possibility for the collective appropriation of urban space. Yet, every moment of capitalist urbanization also holds the possibility of its emancipatory appropriation and new forms of collective political subjectification. I claim that the occupation of the Volksbühne presents such a momentary appropriation of space through which the theater was enacted as a labora­ tory for a different production of (urban) space and socialization that is different to neoliberal individualization and responsibilization. The concept of “commoning,” which I use in two distinct but interrelated ways, is crucial to understand the occupation as an enactment of the right to the creative city. On the one hand, I understand “commoning” as a form of political subjectification (Lorey 2010). The occupation communicated that individual experiences of precarization—be that through the insecurity or loss of rental agreements for ateliers, cultural spaces, small commercial spaces or homes—are linked to a common struc­ tural cause, which is neoliberal urban politics. The occupiers political message clarifies that gentrification does not straightforward follow artistic intervention but is mediated by real estate capital’s interest in valorizing cultural and urban space. This perspective, which has been theorized in the second chapter, pointing toward the structural cause of gentrification processes, is crucial for going beyond individualized responsibilization and enables the process of “commoning” as political subjectifica­ tion. It is during these moments of “commoning” that individual experiences of precarization become visible as shared ones that are caused by a common structural condition. On the other hand, “commoning” refers to the appropriation of space—in this particular case, the space of the theater. According to Hardt and Negri, the common is defined “in contrast to property, both private and public” (Hardt and Negri 2017, 97). “Private” and “public” are the two modalities of the capitalist appropriation of the common. Private property is the appropriation of the commons

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by an individual. Public property is discursively imagined as belonging to everyone, but in fact legally belongs to the state who manages and distributes the access to it (2017, 29). The common on the other hand is a form of nonproperty, that is, a fundamentally different means of organizing the use and management of wealth. The common designates an equal and open access to wealth together with democratic decision-making. More colloquially, one might say that the common is what we share or, rather, it is a social structure and a social technology for sharing. (2017, 97, emphasis in original) During the occupation, the theater was enacted as such a common space to protest against the increasing privatization of the urban environment. In the first chapter, I argued that the “be Berlin” campaign draws on a particular ideal of creativity, which is equated to individual capitalist entrepreneurship. The theater production B6112, however, refers to a different ideal of creativity. Here, creativity is not equated with capitalist entrepreneurship but understood as a collective process that needs to be enabled by mutual support. This becomes particularly apparent in that the collective included infrastructural, such as care and reproductive labor, and organizational tasks into the creative production of the occupation.

Conclusion In this text, I argued that through the occupation of the Volksbühne, the activists enacted a right to the creative city in times where culture, including “high” and sub­ cultural production, is drawn upon to marketize the value of urban land. A Marxist and politically informed theorization of the nexus between “culturalization” and gentrification, as developed in the text, uncovers the systematic influence of political and economic decision-makers on spatial restructuring processes. This shows that the cause of gentrification is not the so-called creative class, but the class-based interest of real estate capital—either mediated by urban planning or not—to valorize the urban environment. Such an analysis that points to the structural cause of gentrification processes impacts political agency as it shows that gentrification cannot be negotiated on the subjective level and resolved individually through for example the change of consumption patterns. It thus facilitates “commoning” as political subjectification that is the formation of new political alliances to protest the sell-out of the city. Culture- and creativity-led regeneration has become a blueprint for postindustrial cities. Through its general emphasis on urban economic growth, the creative city paradigm has become complicit in new forms of urban inequality and margin­ alization by regenerating space amenable to lucrative investment rather than the everyday social reproduction of urban dwellers. However, the analysis of this article shows that these discourses play out differently on the ground and perform different functions according to the particular local historical context. In the particular case of Berlin’s urban economic development since 1989, these processes can be best de­ scribed as biopolitical urbanism. Creative city marketing draws on already-existent forms of creativity. For example, the “be Berlin” campaign promotes the everyday life creativity of the city’s inhabitants and, in turn, equates it with individual capitalist entrepreneurship.

122 Rabea Berfelde The marketing of the city’s striving subcultural scenes played a crucial role in es­ tablishing its international image as a creative capital. Through this specific type of place branding the individual entrepreneurial creativity of urban dwellers is called upon in times where the austerity measures implemented since 1989 lead to the dismantling of the infrastructural support necessary for the flourishing of creativity. Yet, political activism such as the occupation of the Volksbühne enacts a different form of creative urbanism, where creativity is framed as a collective act and shown to rely on infrastructural support, be that available space or the equal distribution of care and reproductive tasks.

References Bader, Ingo, and Albert Scharenberg. 2013. “The Sound of Berlin. Subculture and Global Music Industry.” In The Berlin Reader: A Compendium on Urban Change and Activism, ed. Matthias Bernt, Britta Grell, and Andrej Holm, 239–260. Bielefeld: Transcript. Berliner Morgenpost. 2016. “Berliner Mieten Seit 2009—Wo Sich Die Preise Verdoppelt Haben.” Berliner Morgenpost. http://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/berlinmieten/. Bernt, Matthias, Britta Grell, and Andrej Holm, eds. 2013. The Berlin Reader: A Compendium on Urban Change and Activism. Urban Studies. Bielefeld: Transcript. Brenner, Neil, and Nik Theodore. 2002. “Cities and the Geographies of ‘Actually Existing Neoliberalism.’” Antipode 34 (3): 349–379. Colomb, Claire, and Ares Kalandides. 2010. “The ‘Be Berlin’ Campaign: Old Wine in New Bottles or Innovative Form of Participatory Place Branding?” In Towards Effective Place Brand Management, ed. Gregory Ashworth and Mihalis Kavaratzis, 173–190. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Damm, Steffen, and Lukas Drevenstedt. 2019. “Club Culture Berlin” https://www.clubcommission. de/club-culture-study/ Feher, M. 2009. “Self-Appreciation; or, the Aspirations of Human Capital.” Public Culture 21(1): 21–41. Fields, Desiree, and Sabina Uffer. 2016. “The Financialisation of Rental Housing: A Comparative Analysis of New York City and Berlin.” Urban Studies 53 (7): 1486–1502. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. And How It’s Transforming Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books. Foucault, Michel. 2000. “The Subject and Power.” In Power. Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, ed. J.D. Faubion, 326–348. New York: The New Press. Foucault, Michel. 2004. The Birth of Biopolitics. Lectures at the Collège de France 1978–1979. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Foucault, Michel. 2007. Security, Territory, Population. Lectures at the Collège de France 1977–78. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Guthmann Estate. 2020. “Immobilienmarkt Berlin 2020.” https://guthmann.estate/de/ marktreport/berlin/. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2004. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: The Penguin Press. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2009. Commonwealth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2017. Assembly. New York: Oxford University Press. Harvey, David. 1989. “From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism.” Geografiska Annaler: Series B Human Geography 71: 3–17.

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Harvey, David. 2002. “The Art of Rent: Globalisation, Monopoly and the Commodification of Culture.” Socialist Register 38: 93–110. Harvey, David. 2005. The New Imperialism. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Knight Frank. 2018. “Global Residential Cities Index.” https://content.knightfrank.com/ research/1026/documents/en/global-residential-cities-index-q4–2017-5413.pdf. Krätke, Stefan. 2013. “City of Talents? Berlin’s Regional Economy, Socio-Spatial Fabric and ‘Worst Practice’ Urban Governance.” In The Berlin Reader. A Compendium on Urban Change and Activism, ed. Matthias Bernt, Britta Grell, and Andrej Holm, 131–154. Bielefeld: Transcript. Landry, Charles. 2009. The Creative City. A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. London: Eartscan. Lanz, Stephan. 2013. “Be Berlin! Governing the City through Freedom: Governing Berlin through Freedom.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37 (4): 1305–1324. Lefebvre, Henri. 1996. Writings on Cities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Lefebvre, Henri. 2003. The Urban Revolution. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lorey, Isabell. 2010. “Becoming Common: Precarization as Political Constituting.” https://www. e-flux.com/journal/17/67385/becoming-common-precarization-as-political-constituting/. Lütticken, Sven. n.d. “Sven Lütticken on the Volksbühne Occupation. Art as Immoral Institution.” https://www.textezurkunst.de/articles/sven-lutticken-volksbuhne-occupation/. Marazzi, Christian. 2011. The Violence of Financial Capitalism. Los Angeles: Semiotext(E): MIT Press. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2009. “Die Selbstkulturalisierung der Stadt.” Mittelweg 36 (2): 1–23. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2017. The Invention of Creativity. Modern Society and the Culture of the New. Cambridge: Polity Press. Schüschke, Florine. 2019. Kartografie Der Privatisierung [Cartography of Privatization]. Color print on vinyl, Slide projection on gauze, color. Berlin: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Wohnen. 2019. “Berliner Mietspiegel 2019.” https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-8348-9804-3_19. Staub zu Glitzer Kollektiv. 2018. “Operation Staub Zu Glitzer.” https://www.nachtkritik.de/ images/stories/pdf/B6112_Broschure.pdf. Uffer, Sabina. 2013. “The Uneven Development of Berlin’s Housing Provision. Institutional Investment and Its Conquences on the City and Its Tenants.” In The Berlin Reader. A Compendium on Urban Change and Activism, ed. Matthias Bernt, Britta Grell, and Andrej Holm, 155–170. Bielefeld: Transcript. Vercellone, Carlo. 2010. “The Crisis of the Law of Value and the Becoming-Rent of Profit.” In Crisis in the Global Economy. Financial Markets, Social Struggles, and New Political Scenarios, ed. Andrea Fumagalli and Sandro Mezzadra, 85–118. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). Vollmer, Lisa. 2015. “Die Berliner Mieter_innenbewegung zwischen lokalen Konflikten und globalen Widersprüchen.” Sozial.Geschichte Online 17: 51–82.

Part III

Community Building in the Gentrified Urban Space

7

The Urban Art Mapping Project: Mapping Art, Narrative and Community in St. Paul, Minnesota Heather Shirey, David Todd Lawrence, and Paul Lorah

Introduction The Midway Neighborhood (located in St. Paul, Minnesota) is changing rapidly as a result of development that is largely planned, funded and conducted by outsiders. While relatively poor, Midway benefits from a strong arts community committed to celebrating the neighborhood’s mix of diverse cultures and histories, while using street art to share stories, build community and resist cultural marginalization. Our project examines art and the concept of public space, urban art’s potential to activate and preserve community identity and art as a response to gentrification in the Midway neighborhood of St. Paul, Minnesota. The Urban Art Mapping Research Project is the work of an interdisciplinary team of undergraduate students and three faculty members from the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota). Our research, focused on sanctioned and unsanctioned urban art in St. Paul, Minnesota, is rooted in the investigation of visual culture and the way it operates in the world, supported by ethnographic research and spatial analysis. Our method begins by surveying and documenting multiple forms of street art in Midway, including tags, stickers, yarn bombs, painted utility boxes and commissioned and non-commissioned murals. With data gleaned from these inventories, we seek to understand how spontaneous, unsanctioned and individually motivated forms of art such as tags and stickers intersect with highly planned, community-sanctioned works such as the ones commissioned by the Midway Murals Project. Additionally, we are actively engaged with community responses to art in the neighborhood. To this end, our research builds on a series of structured and semistructured interviews as well as talking sessions with artists, business owners and community members in Midway, allowing us to gain a nuanced understanding of the way that meaning is shaped and how that meaning is read by those who interact with the works on a regular basis. In relation to art, we start with the assumption that meaning is not fixed and is con­ stantly open to reinterpretation, this being especially true of art in the street. Our research approach allows us to understand how various forms of art intersect, and through this, we gain insights into the ways that art stakes a claim in defining the neighborhood.

The Midway Neighborhood St. Paul, Minnesota, is a mid-sized city that, at the time of this research, is not widely known and recognized for its street art scene, especially when compared to its

128 Heather Shirey et al. “trendier,” “artsier” neighbor, Minneapolis. Minneapolis, for example, has several major art museums, such as the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Arts Center, as well as associated arts schools, most prominently the Minneapolis College of Arts and Design. Minneapolis is also home to numerous galleries and communal studio spaces in addition to areas of the city that are recognized for street art. St. Paul’s museums, galleries and street art scene, on the other hand, have less visibility within the Twin Cities, and this lack of association with a contemporary art scene is even more true of Midway, a neighborhood that is not considered to be a destination for the arts. Located between the twin urban centers of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Midway neighborhood sits at the intersection of University and Snelling Avenues, one of the busiest intersections in the state. Despite its central location, Midway is not, as mentioned, an art “destination,” and it is generally considered a zone to pass through, a relatively poor and working-class community along the major transpor­ tation route linking the two downtowns. The neighborhood is often overlooked despite the fact that it is located at the very center of a metropolis with a population of 3.6 million residents (see Figure 7.1).

Figure 7.1 Our study area is located in the Midway Neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota. (a) Minnesota is part of the “North Coast” bordering both Canada and Lake Superior. (b) The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are located at the con­ fluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. (c) The Midway Neighborhood is often overlooked—it developed later than the downtown cores and is often seen as an area to pass through. (d) The heat map displays urban development patterns as of 1900, depicting the neighborhood’s central location, as well as its peripheral role. ©Paul Lorah.

The Urban Art Mapping Project 129 With the construction and opening of a 12-mile light rail system connecting the two downtowns (completed in 2014) and the opening of a new major soccer venue, Allianz Field, home to the Minnesota United Football Club (completed in April 2019), Midway is currently experiencing significant change. Historically considered an af­ fordable area of working-class homes, recent economic development has caused greater instability in this neighborhood. With growing racial and ethnic diversity and the be­ ginning hints of gentrification, we argue that the Midway neighborhood in St. Paul is a key site for counterhegemonic artistic expression and resistance. Our research finds that unsanctioned art and community-organized murals play a role in establishing a sense of place and identity for this area as it undergoes a transition. The arrival of light rail, the stadium and the proposed development of the “su­ perblock” surrounding the stadium has triggered a struggle for identity and cultural sustainability in the Midway neighborhood. Transformative investments initiated and managed by outsiders fuel concerns that local shops, vibrant ethnic restaurants and a unique sense of place will be replaced by high-end chain stores, exclusive apartments and the uniform gloss of the United States of Generica—a homogenized landscape of commercial production and consumption where each neighborhood is like no neighborhood in particular (Kunstler 1994). Fear of cultural marginalization in Midway is heightened by an increasing sense of economic exclusion and chronic housing instability. Many residents feel the neighbor­ hood is primed for gentrification and fear the displacement, marginalization and erasure of identity that it brings. While housing prices in the neighborhood remain steady, a high proportion of residents are renters. As rents continue to increase, Midway residents suffer from the stresses associated with gentrification, although their situation is best described as concentrated poverty, not (yet) gentrification (Herriges 2017). In many cities across the country, young, highly educated workers are returning to the central city where the concentration of high wage jobs is growing. While increas­ ingly long commutes make living in the suburbs less desirable, urban centers benefit from declining crime rates, thriving culture and increasingly attractive environmental amenities (Goetz et al. 2019). A recent study by the Minnesota Housing Partnership demonstrates that rental properties in the Twin Cities are rapidly increasing in value and that affluent households are driving rental markets (Jaramillo and Halbach 2016). The result is that there is little incentive to construct low-income rentals. Worse, in­ vestors are purchasing, remodeling and “upscaling” older apartments. Rent increases follow, along with the eviction of lower-income renters. Not surprisingly, tenants in racially diverse neighborhoods like Midway are most at risk of displacement. Anxieties about gentrification and cultural sustainability are very real for Midway residents. As income in Midway stagnates and rents increase, many long-term re­ sidents and business owners fear evictions and involuntary displacement. They want to put down roots and they want the right to remain. Many are open to the possi­ bilities of development, but they fear that their voices will be marginalized. After living in Midway during a decades-long period of slow decline and disinvestment, long-term residents fear that they will not be the ones who profit from outside in­ vestments that prioritize regional goals and seem designed to appeal to newer, wealthy residents. According to Daniel Herriges (2017), “What poor urban com­ munities are rightly afraid of is getting robbed a second time. They fear that after sticking it out through decades of disinvestment, they will not have the opportunity to profit from their own neighborhood’s revitalization.”

130 Heather Shirey et al. Though we do not make the claim that Midway has been gentrified as of the writing of this text, it is clear to see the elements of gentrification taking place. The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota has employed a useful fourstage model to describe the full process of gentrification. It begins with a period of disinvestment in the neighborhood, followed by a developing deficit narrative regarding the neighborhood, then a period of reinvestment in the neighborhood, and finally multiple forms of displacement. There is no question that the Midway neighborhood exhibits signs of at least three of these stages while fear of the fourth, multiple forms of involuntary displacement, is generating very real anxiety among residents and community leaders about what the identity and character of the neighborhood will be in the future and whether current residents will be around to experience it.

Urban Art in Midway Our examination of urban art in Midway is situated, then, in a context of perpetual transition and instability. The murals we examine, along with other types of urban art such as stickers and tags, allow for the democratization of art in that the works are readily available for residents of the Midway community who otherwise do not have easy access to contemporary art, to view and connect with artworks while traversing the city. Rather than extract the works from their context, a frequent practice in street art studies critiqued by Avramidis and Tsilimpounidi (2017), we argue that any reading of these murals must be rooted in a deep understanding of the context of the neighborhood. In this way, we are able to move beyond generalizations in order to investigate how the works of art serve as a public statement of the neighborhood’s identity in the face of ongoing transitions and challenges to that identity from the outside. If residents of Midway fear the erasure and marginalization of their neigh­ borhood culture, then we argue that the art being fostered in the community can be seen as an effort to sustain the cultural history and heritage of the neighborhood. When asked about the function of her work, Lori Greene, a mosaic artist whose studio is located in a park at the center of the neighborhood and whose work is part of the Midway Murals Project, told us: Mainly I want to see us—brown people … around … represented and being important. Um, and then, I use a lot of patterning and textile imagery in my work because … it’s old. It’s the ancestors—there are messages in all of the weavings that were done. Women hid messages to each other. There were messages about fertility, messages about the land, messages about – you know – planting cycles and moon cycles and everything. It’s all in there, and I want that to continue. You know, whenever a war has come through – and this is true in textiles throughout the world—when a war comes in then people … women, especially women—but there are men who do textiles—women have their stories taken from them. They are not allowed to express themselves anymore, and I want it to remain. I want to just keep carrying it on. (Greene 2019, authors’ emphasis) Greene is an important figure in our study because not only does her work exist in Midway, but she is also a longtime resident of the neighborhood. In this interview, she expressed a powerful desire to be a part of ensuring that the culture and traditions

The Urban Art Mapping Project 131 of people of color—African American, East African and Latinx—who have become such an influential presence in the Midway neighborhood, remain. As Kate Mudge, the Executive Director of the Hamline-Midway Coalition said to us, urban art has the power to provide a “sense of place and a sense of ownership” for members of the community (Mudge and Michener 2019). For the purpose of our project, urban art is defined broadly to include stickers, graffiti and other forms of unsanctioned artistic expressions, as well as commissioned, sanctioned murals. One of the strengths of street art, of course, is its spontaneity, and with this, its ability to challenge structures of power, consumer culture, and the dominant paradigms of urban space (Baldini 2016; DeLaure and Fink 2017; Riggle 2010, Ross et al. 2017). When projects in the street are commissioned and organized through a long, laborious process, the ability of street art to serve as a challenge to the dominant culture is potentially undermined (e.g., see Riggle 2010). That said, our research finds that, in our case study, Midway Murals, a community-based organi­ zation, is motivated by the specific goal of harnessing art’s potential to provide ex­ pressive avenues for marginalized voices, subverting and challenging the dominant narrative imposed by outsiders. In Midway, St. Paul, community-organized murals communicate directly with the street in order to claim ownership of a space that is faced by the challenges of gen­ trification (in this case, rapid development involving investment from outside of the community that overshadows existing voices and identities within the community). Jonathan Oppenheimer, a neighborhood resident and founder of Midway Murals, has described to us the ways that public art can enable a community to construct its own narrative of neighborhood identity: No one person has ownership over the story that this neighborhood—that any neighborhood has. Certainly not a neighborhood like ours. In many ways, there’s kind of a beauty to the fact that there is no established identity … when people say, “what’s Midway neighborhood like?” no one really has a good answer for that, which means that we can, we can create that. We don’t have to fit into any particular narrative. And that’s right—every single project, every time someone has an opportunity to tell a story, to talk to more people, to get people out of their houses and congregating in some ways, to understanding the ways in which this can play a role and be a piece in making people feel more ownership … and again this is not just people who own houses or people who have lived here a long time. It’s people who pass by every day and people who go to Hamline University and people who come to work here from the suburbs—yeah, this is one piece of it, but what’s beautiful about public art is that it always inevitably does more than just put a piece of art up on the wall. It gets people having a conversation, and when you start to do that good things come of it. It’s not always a pretty conversation, but inevitably there’s going to be something productive that comes out of it. (Oppenheimer 2019) As the neighborhood experiences are increasing development from outside, specifically the soccer stadium that attracts multinational corporate sponsorship, marketing mes­ sages on billboards, bus stops and other surfaces in the streets increasingly invade the visual landscape. Muralist Greta McLain has articulated the ways that her work is

132 Heather Shirey et al. specifically designed to address this onslaught of marketing messages, stating that “we want to activate these buildings and think: how do we use these same billboard-type spaces and tell our own stories. Because otherwise someone is going to be there telling us a story anyway. So how do we get in there and disrupt that and be like, ‘we are going to tell our own story, thank you!’” (McLain, 2019, emphasis in original interview). Research on murals in public space must focus not only on how the art looks and how it shapes the visual landscape of the community but also what art says, and therefore how it marks the presence of voices in the community, in this case serving as a cultural placeholder in the face of ongoing change. In the face of transition, Midway’s muralled walls serve as a declaration of the neighborhood’s identity and a claim to permanency.

Midway Murals and Neighborhood Renewal Oppenheimer, as director of Midway Murals, worked together with other Midway residents and the Hamline Midway Coalition, a neighborhood organi­ zation, to create four murals in Midway in 2015, and it is these four murals that we address at length below. Since this initial burst of activity, the group has re­ mained active and continues to organize new works and maintains existing works along the Snelling corridor. In addition to the four murals discussed at length in this chapter, Midway Murals collaborated with other community organizations, an elementary school and a university to support the production of two addi­ tional works and the restoration of one existing mural on Snelling Avenue in 2017. Oppenheimer, who is not himself an artist and had no previous experience running an arts organization, sought to create a project that would address the problems encountered by a neighborhood that outsiders frequently only see from the window of a car, bus or train. The goals of Midway Murals focus on (1) the creation of art to encourage eco­ nomic development; (2) engaging the community by getting people to stop, look, and talk; and (3) strengthening the community by using art to share stories and strengthen group identity. In 2014, when the project was founded, these goals seemed urgent to the group as a form of confronting the looming changes brought about by the new light rail line. When the project was initiated, Oppenheimer stated, “Snelling is due for a re­ naissance, and the murals can be that spark” (Oppenheimer 2015). In keeping with that sentiment, the four original murals commissioned as part of this project centered on the theme of “starting anew” in order to challenge a mainstream nar­ rative of Minnesota’s identity—often glossed as predominantly white, with strong Scandinavian heritage—and provide a counter-narrative that explores the complex­ ities of cultural identity in the city. According to the Minnesota State Demographic Center, People of Color make up 20% of the total population of Minnesota and are most likely to live in urban areas. Between 2010 and 2018, the state has added five times as many People of Color as non-Hispanic White residents (Minnesota State Demographic Center n.d.). In our conversation, Oppenheimer spoke at length about his hope that the project would address the issues that he had seen first-hand as a member of the community:

The Urban Art Mapping Project 133 Snelling Avenue is well known, but it has this perception of it, from people on the outside, is often pretty negative—for various reasons. Um, you had a lot of empty store fronts, and actually continue to this day. Um, you had a lot of immigrantowned businesses that people—what I found is that people in the neighborhood either didn’t know about them, didn’t know that they existed, had never been in them, maybe didn’t feel comfortable walking into them, mixed with a lot of tagging – people talk about graffiti and it means different things to different people, but what I saw was tags that I find pretty unappealing. But regardless of what I think of them, I don’t think they’re helpful for small businesses if you have a building and people are throwing up tags that aren’t even really about art; they’re really about throwing up your … whatever your tag is. And so, I just had this idea, and public art, always I found so fascinating because it was available to everyone. As I tell people, you walk into a gallery or a museum, it’s intimidating for a lot of folks, but you see something on the street and you can experience it in your own way—on your own. You don’t have to ask questions; you don’t have to speak some fancy language. And so, I just thought—I just put forth this idea to do these four murals that started this theme of starting anew, with the light rail and with kind of the changing demographics of St. Paul, it just seemed like a cool idea to me. (Oppenheimer 2019) The selected theme to drive the mural cycle, focusing on renewal, called for art that claimed a place in a newly transformed space in order “to amplify artists’ and im­ migrant business owners’ voices along Snelling Avenue through mosaics, graffiti art and paint murals that showcase the neighborhood’s stories” (Miami Foundation Grant Agreement, September 7, 2014). An examination of the four murals com­ missioned in 2014 (installed 2015) demonstrates how the works serve to amplify the voices of immigrant business owners in the neighborhood, thus serving as resistance to outside pressures caused by gentrification.

The Murals Lori Greene’s work Berbere (2015; Figure 7.2) is a mosaic installed on the north side of an East African deli, Star Food Market. Greene is a community-based artist whose studio is situated in the neighborhood. In a general sense, her work is shaped by her own African and Native American ancestry. In the case of this work, Berbere, Greene sought to address East African imagery and symbolism specifically in order as to enter into a visual communication with the business on which her mosaic appears. Specifically, Greene chose to explore the theme of renewal through references to Oromo stories of marriage, farming and dancing. Her use of specific imagery such as a river that emerges from the mouth of a pitcher, injera baskets, the spreading of seeds, women dancing and harvesting, are all intended as references to renewal and growth was shaped by community talk sessions. The use of motifs such as butterflies and flowers served to further develop references to transformation and change. Greene described the dominant motif as “the hair dancing woman, she’s doing the hair dance … she’s spinning really fast. And all the mandala pieces in it are to represent the baskets that injera is served on, and about food. A lot of things are about food for me, you know, nourishment” (Greene 2019).

134 Heather Shirey et al.

Figure 7.2 Lori Greene, Berbere, 2015. Mosaic. St. Paul, Minnesota. ©Lori Greene.

Also trained in weaving and beadwork, Greene states that the physical process of producing her work is significant to her, and the work, a mosaic, derives meaning from that process. As Greene explained, “I like the idea of putting things back to­ gether again using broken pieces. And it has to do with the way that most of us are broken in some way in life, and trying to put ourselves together, maybe in a new fashion” (Greene 2019). Importantly, although this mosaic appears on the side of an East-African owned restaurant, it is most visible to and therefore speaks most clearly to visitors to the Taco Bell drive-thru, located adjacent to the Star Food Market. Due to its brilliantly colored and reflective tesserae, the wall becomes a landmark/place­ holder, making a small, locally owned business, which might otherwise go unnoticed by the majority of pedestrians and drivers, as visible as a major chain restaurant. Yuya Negishi’s Birth of a New Day (2015) was painted using a combination of freehand design and stencils on the north side of a Korean market. A native of Japan, Negishi has been based in Minneapolis since 2010, and he is well-known for his work on a number of walls throughout the Twin Cities. Birth of a New Day, painted on Kim’s Asian Market, depicts a monumental phoenix soaring over an abstracted mountain range. The original mural designs called for a rising sun, but through community-based discussions, it became apparent that viewers of Korean descent had concerns over associations of the rising sun imagery with the Japanese Imperial flag. This community dialogue resulted in modifications to the original design to produce a work that spoke in a general sense to the theme of renewal while also embodying a pan-Asian cultural symbol, the phoenix, to reference renewal. Negishi grew up in rural Japan in a working-class community. He was deeply influenced by the designs that adorned the architecture of sacred temples that sur­ rounded the spaces he played in as a boy. When he spoke to Midway residents about what kind of design would embody the character of the community as a whole, the phoenix image immediately came to him: This is one of my mythological animal paintings, named the Ho-o in Japanese. So, this neighborhood, as you can see, it’s kind of mixed—not super safe

The Urban Art Mapping Project 135 compared to the place where I grew up–you know, from criminal, or whatever. And, uh, I joined the community meetings … and I was hearing people who live here, “what do you think about this neighborhood,” you know, “blah, blah, blah, blah.” And that’s when I thought, yeah–the Ho-o, the phoenix, is perfect, because it’s an image of meaning–of love and protection towards community, so, you know: “I’m watching you.” You know [makes wing movement with both arms]—peacefully, you know: “If you do something bad, I’m gonna come get you.” (Negishi 2019) Greta McLain’s Braided (2015; Figure 7.3) is a large mural that wraps around the west and south sides of Ghebre’s, an Eritrean restaurant and across the street from Fasika, an Ethiopian restaurant. This mural depicts a neighborhood businesswoman, Freweini Sium, who owned and operated the beauty salon located in the building at the time the mural was completed. Sium smiles as another woman braids her hair, the plaits transforming into interlocking textiles incorporating African, Scandinavian, Mexican, Hmong and Ojibwe patterns. These ribbons of geometric patterns cascade down the wall and terminate in the figure of a young girl. Braiding, seen in many cultures as an activity that buildings community for women, is the centerpiece of this mural. The intertwining patterns are intended to reflect the nature of a neighborhood shaped by several waves of immigration, and the multi-generational references build on the theme of “beginning anew.” The mural celebrates the role women play in creating community, while high­ lighting immigrant roots and the deep connections between cultures in the Midway Neighborhood. In an interview conducted in the spring of 2019, McLain stated that a challenge in making braided was to show how “one person’s immigrant story is everybody’s immigrant story.” The mural, McLain said, demonstrates that “all of our immigrant stories are braided together because we are part of this community … We are braided together, we all need each other, we are all part of this, but our unique identities are still showing and are still celebrated … The art of braiding connects women across the world” (McLain 2019).

Figure 7.3 Greta McLain, Braided, Acrylic on poly tab canvas on brick; mosaic. 2015. St. Paul, Minnesota. ©Greta McLain.

136 Heather Shirey et al. The mural features tiled medallions that symbolize the gifts immigrants bring when they arrive in a community. One is mouths speaking, showing, McLain argues, that immigrants “arrive bring their stories.” Another medallion shows a hand holding a bouquet, a hammer and a pencil, which McLain used to express “this willingness to work.” Another is a building, showing “dreams for my family and my investment in making this home,” as McLain explained, is important because some “have this idea that immigrants are coming to take something, when really, these people are coming into our community saying ‘I am here to give of what my potential is to your community,’ and that’s such a gift” (McLain 2019). Blaster (aka Eric Mattheis) is also a Twin Cities-based artist working as part of the Rogue Citizen collective. Of the four artists, Blaster is the only one to work extensively in spray paint, and his work seeks to capture a graffiti aesthetic. Convergence (2015) faces the parking lot of a popular Pan African restaurant, Snelling Café. While Braided, Berbere and Birth of a New Day all connect to the concept of renewal and rebirth using recognizable symbolic references—braiding and the transfer of knowledge through the generations; the harvest and transfor­ mations of nature; the symbolism of the phoenix—that are legible to various de­ grees to a general audience, Blaster’s reference to a cosmic convergence and the relationship to neighborhood renewal is much more abstract and demands more of the viewer to read the work’s meaning. Plants, moons and swirling stars explode across a dark ground. Dove feathers, positioned at the center of the piece, are in­ tended, according to the painting’s label text, to represent “the opportunity for a peaceful convergence of ideas, beliefs and friendship.” Viewers may read the con­ cept of “convergence” as it relates to ideas of immigration and the resulting meeting of cultures, although this is not depicted in such a literal fashion as on the other murals in the Midway area. Staggered over six blocks along the north-south axis of Snelling avenue, all four of these murals are highly visible to pedestrians and vehicular traffic. The murals all include two forms of labels: a permanent plaque that provides title, artist, date and a brief description of each work, in keeping with the didactics that normally appear on the walls of a museum, and a painted signature identifying the artist as well as collaborators. As mentioned, since the initial installation of these four works, Midway Murals has commissioned three additional works and remains actively involved in organizing community art and events. In June 2019, for ex­ ample, Oppenheimer organized a community arts festival. With this event, Midway Murals expanded beyond its initial goal of creating static and permanent works of art on walls and sought to reinvigorate conversations in the neighborhood by way of art activities and performative works. The festival, for example, featured par­ ticipatory art projects such as sidewalk painting and make-and-take mosaic ac­ tivities to connect directly with the existing mural, as well as music, poetry and postcard production. The goal was to ensure that art-making in the community is not exclusively focused on walls, but instead is integrated into the daily life of the community. As a community-based arts organization focused on transforming urban space through art on walls, Midway Murals is not, of course, unique. Although much more narrowly focused, Midway Murals shares many goals with longstanding organizations such as Mural Arts Philadelphia, which also seeks to deter graffiti, promotes local businesses, and builds community. Like Los Angeles’s Mural Mile, Midway Murals has

The Urban Art Mapping Project 137 the goal of transforming a specific stretch of road into an outdoor art gallery, making art accessible to a broad audience in a neighborhood that is relatively deprived of formal art institutions. Similar to Chicago’s Wabash Arts Corridor, Midway Murals seeks to address viewers who pass by the work on foot, by car and through mass transit. Given the location (a transitional neighborhood in a mid-sized city), Midway Murals ultimately lacks the natural draw of internationally recognized artists whose works now shape major cities such as Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles, and instead draws on the work of local artists, in keeping with its community focus. Given the ethnic diversity of this area of the city, the works that are part of Midway Murals do not seek to enact one shared cultural identity, as is the case with Latino murals in Los Angeles (Correll and Polk 2014), for example. Although Midway Murals is small in scope, it is well-positioned to stake a claim in a neighborhood that is in a space of perpetual transition.

Neighborhood Survey and Spatial Analysis Our work is ongoing; teams of students conducted field surveys of street art in the neighborhood beginning in the fall of 2018, revisiting the neighborhood in sub­ sequent semesters. The goal is to create a series of maps displaying the location, density and extent of graffiti, buffs and stickers. To accomplish this, faculty and students created detailed large-scale maps of the neighborhood to organize survey teams and aid in recording field notes. Students used the What3Words app to re­ cord the exact locations of street art. They also designed Qualtrex surveys to fa­ cilitate data entry in the field. Information from these surveys, along with field notes, were used to generate a spatial database which was then analyzed in a Geographic Information System Preliminary results indicate that urban art in the Midway neighborhood is highly clustered and shows clear signs of being spatially autocorrelated with a wide range of landscape features, including proximity to mass transit stops, foot traffic, building ownership and proximity to sanctioned public art.

Ethnographic Interviews and Community Collaboration We have just begun the phase of our research that utilizes ethnographic research to collaboratively engage artists and community members in the project. One intention of this approach is to learn how artists conceive of their work in the Midway neighborhood, how neighborhood residents think about the art that surrounds them and how community leaders understand the role of art within the community itself. Additionally, this work will assist our research team in building relationships and connections with members of the community so that as we continue to work, our project can become more collaborative and more community-centered. If we argue for the importance of considering works of art in context, and we understand culture and community as a defining element of that context, it is imperative that we attempt to gain as complete an under­ standing of the Midway community and culture as possible. Ethnographic en­ gagement with this community can enable us to gain much greater insight into the way the art we identify and map functions for and within the community where it is located.

138 Heather Shirey et al.

Conclusion Because it is interdisciplinary in nature, our project approaches art in Midway from three different directions, but these variances in disciplinary approach have helped us to arrive at a number of compelling ways to think about all types of art in the neighborhood. Each discipline provides a different element, and together these elements enable a more comprehensive conception of artistic expression with regard to space, aesthetics, politics and culture. Overall, we argue that the art commis­ sioned by Midway Murals functions to create a counter-narrative of neighborhood identity, history and future in response to the deficit narrative spawned by years of disinvestment as well as the threat of erasure and marginalization due to looming economic change. Geographic information systems allow us to map and analyze the location of murals and other art along with additional useful data sets that can help us to identify and understand the nature of interactions between art and people, where art is likely to be placed or appear, whether art tends to attract other art, or other important relational conclusions. Ethnographic interviewing can then help us to understand the character and nature of the neighborhood culture itself, how residents think of the art in the neighborhood, if they are aware of that art, how artists think about their work, how the neighborhood understands itself, as well as its major concerns. Added to the broad analysis that art history brings, these additional perspectives inform a more complete and comprehensive assessment of the art itself—in context. We believe that in a neighborhood that has been increasingly stressed by the specter of gentrification, both sanctioned and unsanctioned art in Midway has contributed to articulating an important story that some members of the community want to tell. Whether it is the long-time presence of East Asian Immigrants, the relatively recent establishment of a substantial East African community, or the important history of transportation, manufacturing and industry that is responsible for the working-class character of the neighborhood—much of the art that we have observed, particularly the murals of the Midway Murals project, expresses and marks the presence of community voices, history and culture. We contend that in some sense, artists are working to establish art as a major sustaining element of the culture and character of Midway, whether this be through unsanctioned art or through community-sanctioned murals.

Acknowledgments We wish to express our appreciation to our dedicated team of undergraduate student researchers who contributed to this project: Martin Beck, Tiaryn Daniels, Summer Erickson, Alice Ready, Emma Rinn, Ben Schroeder, Hannah Shogren-Smith and Chioma Uwagwu. Thank you to the the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas for support for this research.

References Avramidis, Konstantinos, and Myrto Tsilimpounidi, eds. 2017. Graffiti and Street Art: Reading, Writing, and Representing the City. London and New York: Routledge. Baldini, Andrea 2016. “Street Art: A Reply to Riggle.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74 (2), 187–191.

The Urban Art Mapping Project 139 Bengtsen, Peter 2016. “Street Art Studies: Some Thoughts on an Emerging Academic Discipline.” Inchiesta, June 30. http://www.inchiestaonline.it/arte‐poesia/peter‐bengtsen‐ street‐art‐studies‐riflessioni‐su‐una‐disciplina‐di‐ricerca‐emergente/#EN Correll, Timothy Corrigan, and Patrick Arthur Polk. 2014. “Productos Latinos: Latino Business Murals, Symbolism, and the Social Enactment of Identity in Greater Los Angeles.” Journal of American Folklore 127 (505): 285–320. DeLaure, Marilyn, and Mortiz Fink. 2017. Culture Jamming: Activism and the Art of Cultural Resistance/edited by Marilyn DeLaure and Moritz Fink; with a foreword by Mark Dery. New York: New York University Press. Goetz, Edward G., Brittnay, Lewis, Anthony, Damiano, and Molly Calhoun. 2019. The Diversity of Gentrification: Multiple Forms of Gentrification in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota. Greene, Lori. (artist). 2019. Interviewed by Martin Beck, Tiaryn Daniels, Todd Lawrence, and Chioma Uwagwu, at her studio in Midway, Saint Paul, April 12. Herriges, Daniel. 2017. By Any Other Name: Gentrification or Economic Exclusion? Published online by Strong Towns. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/10/9/by-anyother-name-gentrification-or-economic-exclusion Jaramillo, Atticus. and Chip Halbach. 2016. Sold Out. Minnesota Housing Partnership. http://www.mhponline.org/images/Sold_Out_final_small.pdf Kunstler, James Howard. 1994. Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape. New York. and London: Simon and Schuster. McLain, Greta (artist). 2019. Interviewed by Hannah Shogren-Smith, Chioma Uwagwu, Todd Lawrence, and Heather Shirey at her studio in Minneapolis, May 17. Minnesota State Demographic Center. n.d. “Age, Race & Ethnicity.” Accessed September 20, 2019. https://mn.gov/admin/demography/data-by-topic/age-race-ethnicity/ Mudge, Kate and Melissa Acosta Michener. 2019. Interviewed by Martin Beck, Tiaryn Daniels, Todd Lawrence, and Hannah Shogren-Smith at Hamline Midway Coalition, April 24. Negishi, Yuya. 2019. Interviewed by Todd Lawrence and Hannah Shogren-Smith in Midway, Saint Paul, May 3. Oppenheimer, Jonathan. 2015. “Midway Murals, Project Launch Video,” Accessed September 29, 2019, http://www.midwaymurals.com/project-video. Oppenheimer, Jonathan. 2019. Interviewed by Todd Lawrence, Heather Shirey, Hannah Shogren-Smith, and Chioma Uwagwu at his home in Midway, Saint Paul, May 12. Riggle, Nicholas. 2010. “Street Art: The Transfiguration of the Commonplaces.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68(3): 243–257. Ross J.I., Peter Bengtsen, John F. Lennon, Susan Phillips, and Jacqueline Z. Wilson. 2017. “In Search of Academic Legitimacy: The Current State of Scholarship on Graffiti and Street Art.” The Social Science Journal 54(4): 411–419. The Diversity of Gentrification: Multiple Forms of Gentrification in Minneapolis and St. Paul. (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2019, from http://gentrification.umn.edu/

8

Indigenous Cultural Resurgence, Hotel Murals and Neocolonial Urbanism Michelle Veitch

Introduction Art-led urbanism in Canada intersects with legacies of colonialism and with Indigenous activist movements focused on reinstating cultural and political rights that have been eroded under the nation-state. Protesting systems of oppression and injustice, including infringements on traditional lands, forced displacement of Indigenous peoples and human rights abuses perpetrated in residential schools, in­ tertribal communities have mobilized resistance and sovereignty. Indigenous sover­ eignty is an autonomous politics of self-governance based upon the ethics and laws developed by and for Indigenous nations that oppose settler colonial legal and po­ litical institutions. The contested and conflicting histories and geographies of Indigenous sovereignty, activist movements and colonial settlement inform my un­ derstanding of two recent collaborative art projects in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver, Canada: the exterior wall mural titled Through the Eye of the Raven (2010) at the Orwell Hotel, coordinated by Jerry Whitehead (Plains Cree) and Richard Tetrault in collaboration with artists Eric Parnell (Haida), Richard Shorty (Northern Tutchone), Haisla Collins (Tsimshian, Celtic) and Sharifah Marsden (Anishinaabe), as well as author Nicola Campbell (Interior Salish, Métis); and the interior wall murals cocreated by Jerry Whitehead and Vancouver based company Portico Design Group for the Skwachàys Lodge Hotel in 2013. Located in an economically depressed neighborhood where many Indigenous peoples reside, these collaborative art projects take on meaning in the context of culture-led gen­ trification and redevelopment projects either initiated by or benefitting from creative communities.1 Prime indicators of this kind of gentrification include galleries, studio workshops and artist-run centers located in cultural districts that combine hotels, shops, boutiques, restaurants, cafés, bars and clubs. While both the Orwell Hotel and the Skwachàys Lodge, art projects intersect with recent efforts to culturally revitalize the DTES, they differ in terms of their social and political content and meaning. The Orwell Hotel mural critiques colonial histories of residential schools and ongoing patterns of Indigenous resettlement and displace­ ment, while also commemorating the various Indigenous nations within and sur­ rounding Vancouver. By contrast, the murals at the Skwachàys Lodge depict ceremonial images of powwow music and dance representative of regions of British Columbia and Saskatchewan, symbolizing the movement, mobility and exchange of Indigenous traditional practices within and across regions. The themes and concepts addressed in the two art projects are further enhanced by their location and

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placement at the Orwell Hotel and the Skwachàys Lodge, both of which were recently renovated in an effort to address the affordable housing shortage in the area. The City of Vancouver purchased the buildings in 2007 and 2008, respectively, under the Supportive Housing Strategy (2007) funded by the City, the BC government and Vancouver Coastal Health, and then passed over management of the properties to the Vancouver Native Housing Society (VNHS) in 2007 (Orwell Hotel) and 2010 (Skwachàys Lodge) under the Provincial Homelessness Initiative (PHI) (BC Housing 2008; City of Vancouver 2007; Eddy 2017; Vancouver Native Housing Society 2018). Operating within this governance framework, both establishments provide low-cost accommodations according to social housing policies, cultural mandates and business models uniquely structured to each establishment. The Orwell Hotel provides lodgings for predominantly Indigenous residents who were homeless before moving into the premises. It also houses the Raven’s Eye Artist Collective and Studio, which provides workshop, education and exhibition spaces for Indigenous artists and offers arts training and professional development opportunities (Collins 2012; Vancouver Native Housing Society 2018; Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/nuMedia Group 2010).2 In contrast, the Skwachàys Lodge Hotel provides short-term lodgings for travelers visiting the area and uses the profits earned from these accommodations to subsidize limited-term studio residences for Indigenous artists. The building managers further organize technology and net­ working programs, financial literacy and website workshops and business seminars to assist artists with the promotion, marketing and funding of their works. Finally, the hotel includes a fair-trade gallery featuring displays of Indigenous arts and crafts, a welcome room used as a gathering space for dining and cultural events, a smudge room and sweat lodge for traditional Indigenous ceremonies and a boardroom for business conferences and meetings (Eddy 2017; Edwards 2017; Maschaykh 2015).3 Both the Skwachàys Lodge and the Orwell Hotel prioritize Indigenous communities and in particular creative professionals, and the murals incorporated into the buildings carry through these goals and objectives on two counts. First, the themes and content addressed in the works foreground Indigenous histories and politics as cultural re­ surgence and resilience. Indigenous resurgence evolves out of sovereigntist politics by foregrounding the repatriation of land rights and the social, cultural and economic resources upon which those rights depend, including Indigenous knowledges, philo­ sophies, worldviews and languages. Cultural resilience as an extension of Indigenous resurgence refers to the community preservation, maintenance and continuance of interconnected forms of creative expression including art and architectural practices, music and dance ceremonies and oral histories and traditions. In developing politics of cultural resurgence and resilience, the mural projects fulfilled the agendas of the Skwachàys Lodge and the Orwell Hotel on a second count by enabling collaborative practices among Indigenous artists and community groups in their conception and design. Such Indigenous cultural organizing counteracts neocolonial urbanism that refers to the ongoing processes of city settlement as realized through state supported and corporate owned rebuilding schemes used to manage, control and monitor city neighborhoods and the Indigenous inhabitants who reside in those districts. Settler urbanism is underwritten by imperialist discourses that refer to knowledges and practices used to perpetuate regulatory powers, including building codes and bylaws, security footage and surveillance and social media and advertisements. Such discourses exclude marginalize and inhibit Indigenous communities by limiting access to city

142 Michelle Veitch neighborhoods and enforcing codes of conduct that curtail and restrict the movements, actions and behaviors of residents and workers in such spaces. In assessing the pictorial imagery, collective creative processes at work and urban context of the Skwachàys and Orwell hotel murals, this chapter argues that the works extend ongoing efforts to mobilize Indigenous communities in opposition to settlerbased redevelopment schemes in the DTES. To further contextualize both murals, in the next section of this chapter, I examine the contested policies and practices sur­ rounding rebuilding projects in East Vancouver in relation to the mandates and agendas of the Skwachàys and Orwell hotels. Intersecting neocolonial and Indigenous cultural and urban planning, both establishments supported mural projects that speak to a politics of decolonization by questioning, critiquing and dismantling creative city initiatives. More specifically the murals counteract art-driven re­ development that establishes the surrounding area as non-productive and defunct space in order to justify the revitalization of the existing neighborhood and the eviction of the Indigenous residents who inhabit the locality. By contrast the Orwell and the Skwachàys hotels function as sites of Indigenous creativity and productivity and operate according to organizational agendas that diverge from the rhetoric of decrepitude and non-productivity underlying culturally led gentrification efforts. To further explain the purpose and meaning of the murals incorporated into the hotel buildings, the works are examined in relation to Indigenous muralism, graffiti art, hip hop music, drumming circles and dance performances in the Americas. Detailed analysis is provided of the cultural and political images incorporated into the murals that depict guardian figures, ceremonial practices, street protestors and warrior dancers against a background scenery of unceded and traditional Ancestral lands and contemporary urban settings. In assessing this complex and multilayered pic­ torial imagery, I argue that the murals reimagine local city spaces and the surrounding regions as Indigenous territories rooted in intertribal knowledges, histories and philosophies hence re-envisioning sovereigntist politics, cultural resurgence and re­ sistance movements that de-occupy and unsettle neocolonial urbanism underlying art-driven redevelopment in the DTES.

Contested City Spaces, Art-Led Gentrification and Indigenous Creative Productivity Current scholarship on city development and municipal reforms offers insight into the colonial legacies underlying neoliberal urbanism, including rebuilding schemes typically sustained by combined corporate and government organizations in order to bolster consumer and commercial enterprise in capitalist market economies. In as­ sessing Indigenous politics of autonomy and self-determination, Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene) (2014) critiques settler governments that continue to define and institute legal recognitions and rights, including the designation of “Indian status,” which determine whether or not Indigenous peoples gain access to environmental, cultural and economic resources and services in city districts. Taiaiake Alfred (Mohawk) and Jeff Corntassel (Cherokee) (2005, 612) argue that “Indigenousness is reconstructed, reshaped and actively lived as resurgence against the dispossessing and demeaning processes of annihilation that are inherent to colonialism.” In order to understand these agendas, it is important to distinguish between traditional gov­ ernance determined by and for Indigenous peoples and band structures as instituted

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by the federal government. Historically Indigenous peoples have formed nations that inhabit particular geographic regions and traditional lands where communities live according to locally specific politics, economies and languages. The nations are subdivided into Clans and kinship groups as determined by ancestral and familial lineage each with their own particular histories and cultures passed down from one generation to another. Traditionally Indigenous Nations have been governed by councils comprising hereditary Chiefs, Clans and kinship groups that determined the laws regarding peace, order and justice, including but not limited to territorial jur­ isdictions, land and resource use, cultural teachings, ceremonial practices and familial relations as enacted through birth, marriage, divorce and death. Such laws were rooted in oral histories and creation stories as recounted by Elders who outlined the protocols, principles and processes used to govern the relationships between humans and the environment. Some nations, Clans and kinship groups also formed alliances referred to as Confederacies and were governed by intertribal Councils that defined the laws and decrees surrounding diplomacy, war and peace (Borrows 2017). Such systems of governance were disrupted in the eighteenth century when Indigenous nations entered into Treaty Agreements with settler colonial nations that system­ atically stripped Indigenous peoples of their lands and resources and their political, economic and cultural rights. Following upon Treaty Agreements, imperial governments relocated Indigenous peoples onto reserves and managed local populations through band structures and councils that oversaw ceremonial gatherings, education, housing, social services and healthcare. During the early twentieth century, these band councils fell under the jurisdiction of the federal government that attempted to segregate and assimilate Indigenous peoples into Canadian society. Indigenous communities resisted and protested such incursions and eventually instated the right to self-govern band structures through elected chiefs and councilors; however, to this day, the bands remain under the auspices of the federal government that retains final approval over certain resources and services. The councils are important and influential forces that determine band membership and the legal, educational and property rights associated with membership that strengthens personal, familial and community relations (Crey 2009). While some Indigenous peoples are granted membership, identify as belonging to band structures and either remain on reserve lands or move away, others have been dislocated or displaced for extended periods and in some cases over successive gen­ erations, and are denied membership or de-instated for various reasons but continue to identify as belonging to particular nations, Clans or kinship groups. This complex system of Indigenous governance, politics and identity, moreover, intersects sover­ eigntist alliances and national confederacies that fight for legal rights and entitle­ ments, including the ethics, laws and philosophies that serve as guiding principles for solidarity movements. Such organizations develop out of transnational and intertribal activism that seeks to redefine the borders of the liberal nation-state within frame­ works of Indigenous justice, precepts and decrees while developing locally in urban centers through lived social and political practices of placemaking that foreground Indigenous territorial rights and cultural inheritances (Alfred and Corntassel 2005; Coulthard 2014). Scholarship on governance structures, legal recognitions and land entitlements provides a theoretical framework for assessing the DTES where the Orwell Hotel and the Skwachàys Lodge are situated. City planning processes in Vancouver have

144 Michelle Veitch sustained and regulated rebuilding in the area comprising Chinatown, Gastown, Industrial Area, Oppenheimer District, Strathcona, Thornton Park and Victory Square. Unceded Coast Salish territory, this region forms part of the City of Vancouver, which includes the traditional lands of the Musqueam (xwməθkwəy̓ əm), Tsleil-Wauthuth (mi ce:p kwətxwiləm) and Squamish (Skwxwú7mesh Ú xwumixw) nations. In the late-nineteenth century, these nations were forcibly removed from the area that would become the city and relocated onto reserves; however, from the midtwentieth century onward, Indigenous peoples moved back into Vancouver in in­ creasing numbers. More specifically, Indigenous peoples of many Nations have set­ tled in the DTES where they currently form the largest population block, living alongside settler working-class residents and the urban poor, including significant numbers of Chinese and Japanese immigrants (Cardinal 2006; City of Vancouver 2018; Culhane 2004). In recent years, corporate and government organizations have planned and implemented neoliberal urban policies focused on expanding commer­ cial and residential development projects in the area often with negative consequences for these longstanding residents and business owners. These rebuilding schemes rely on newspaper coverage and market advertising that reinforce colonial frontier discourse by establishing the DTES as a desolate and ne­ glected urban space, hence justifying rehabilitation efforts in the area. Indigenous peoples, and in particular sex trade workers, are made expedient in the larger cause of gentrification (Culhane 2004; Dean 2015). Municipally mandated urbanism is de­ scribed as an inevitable and necessary process, and the places and people impacted by gentrification are fated to disappear or vanish in the wake of “progress.” Such gen­ trification narratives connect to nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonial rhetoric that used concepts of “terra nullius” to establish regions as uninhabited and un­ occupied land and hence justified imperial occupation and settlement of Indigenous territories. The rhetoric of “terra nullius” was predicated upon the colonial myth of the “disappearing Indian” that presupposed that traditional homelands and Indigenous ways of life were vanishing due to what was perceived as non-productivity and inactivity. Such mythic constructs were used to substantiate aggressive and ex­ ploitative practices of industrial modernization that destroyed and eradicated Indigenous territories. These imperial discourses form the backdrop of contemporary urbanism that similarly evicts Indigenous communities from the DTES and erodes their housing rights using neocolonial narratives of resettlement, revitalization and economic recovery to rationalize dislocation processes that accompany such re­ building schemes. Developing this line of analysis, Dara Culhane (2004) describes “a neo-liberal mode of governance that selectively marginalizes or erases categories of people through strategies of representation that include silences, blind spots and displacements that have both material and symbolic effects” (78). City departments work in tandem with development companies to implement the urban reforms that dismiss and disregard the lives and needs of Indigenous communities in the name of capitalist progress and profit. Particularly troublesome is the rise of poverty tourism in the DTES, perpetuated through social media and online postings that advertise hipster restaurants and bars in order to entice customers to the area. Daring consumers to experience the “danger and adventure,” this advertising establishes the neighborhood as a tourist destination in order to control, monitor and securitize it and its inhabitants, thus operating in tandem with gentrification schemes that regulate, exclude and displace local

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communities (Burnett 2014). Peyton and Dyce (2017) suggest that this poverty tourism is underwritten by narratives of colonial ruin and debris perpetuated through logo signs and decorative displays incorporated into bars and restaurants. While signage comprises monikers such as “The Settlement Building,” “Colony on Main,” and “the Imperial Vancouver,” decorative designs incorporate taxidermied animals and wilderness scenes, or images of the defunct and vanishing lumber or railway trades. These ironic and pastiche devices allude to the rugged wilderness and colonial settlement of the land while relegating such imperialist expansion to the past thus obfuscating the ways in which such frameworks continue to operate in present-day gentrification schemes that perpetuate an updated rhetoric of entrepreneurialism, productivity and enterprise. Peyton and Dyce argue that “the moral narrative of the transformation of unused spaces through industry and labour…[is] the most telling example of…[the] belief that it is right to transform and change the Indigenous landscape with the tools and technology of gentrification” (604). Locally owned drinking and dining establishments operate alongside heritage and art projects such as the Orwell Hotel and the Skwachàys Lodge that involve Indigenous creative communities in building regeneration. Both hotel establishments intersect culturally readapted urban spaces developed by corporate and government organizations with the assistance of settler and immigrant artists who have moved into the DTES in increasing numbers in recent years. Affordable rental rates in the area have proven particularly appealing for creative professionals who live in eco­ nomic precarity due to public funding cutbacks and limited-term contract work (Bain and Mclean 2013; McRobbie 2016). In chasing cheap rent in the neighborhood, settler and immigrant artists have alienated or romanticized socially and economic­ ally disenfranchised communities while displacing long-time residents by partici­ pating in heritage and public art projects. Yet, cultural workers themselves also contend with the negative impacts of eviction policies and have joined local groups in protests against redevelopment schemes that often coopt creative practices for the purposes of heritage tourism, civic boosterism and financial profiteering (Harris 2012; Lloyd 2006; Mckenzie and Hutton 2015). While they push back against such exploitative approaches, settler and immigrant creative professionals perpetuate colonial-based gentrification that is making the DTES unsustainable for Indigenous residents and artists. These inequities are further conflated by the ongoing dis­ crimination and exclusions that prevent Indigenous cultural workers from accessing the funding, facilities and resources required to produce and distribute their works through the granting system and art economies. As a result of these disparities, Indigenous artists are particularly vulnerable to the financial volatility underlying creative life and struggle to sustain their legal, economic and heritage rights in ca­ pitalist markets (Bluesky 2017; Short 2012). Counteracting the classed and racialized inequities underlying art-led redevelop­ ment and gentrification, the Orwell and the Skwachàys hotels respond to the housing and cultural needs of Indigenous communities in the DTES. While developing socially responsive policies and agendas, the two establishments also take on meaning in the context of Indigenous planning reports and studies. Libby Porter (2010) argues that Indigenous planning processes exemplify “philosophies of place” that contest the “power and authority to practice…[colonial] spatial cultures” (17). It is precisely these contestations that urban planner, Tasha Henderson and community program manager, Justin Wiebe (Métis) address in the Metro Vancouver Aboriginal Executive

146 Michelle Veitch Council (MVAEC) report titled “Towards an Urban Aboriginal Housing and Wellness Strategy for Metro Vancouver” (2016). Addressing affordable housing for Indigenous peoples, the report supports the efforts of community activists who have protested corporate rebuilding projects in the DTES. In response to such protest movements, the City of Vancouver, the provincial government of British Columbia, the Government of Canada and Vancouver Coastal Health have implemented legis­ lation, strategies, plans and agreements to safeguard, improve or develop social housing (City of Vancouver 2018; Mason 2007; Weinshenker 2009). However, community and government organizations are often troubled by issues of commu­ nication, accountability and accessibility, particularly in the case of Indigenous communities whose needs are overlooked by the varied associations and companies established to address affordable housing (Mason 2007). Consequently, Indigenous groups have formed their own housing societies in the DTES, including the Vancouver Native Housing Society (VNHS)4 and Lu’ma Native Housing Society (Henderson and Wiebe 2016).5 Further extending these agendas, the MVAEC report stresses the importance of in­ cluding Indigenous stakeholders in city policy reform. The report can be understood in relation to Hirini Matunga’s (Ngai Tahu, Ngati Porou, Ngati Kahungunu and Rongowhakaata [Māori] and Ngati Paerangi’s [Atiu, Cook Islands]) the assertion that “colonialism didn’t bring planning to the non-planning Natives. The Natives already had their institutions, practices and planning systems” (2013, 29). Extending Matunga’s arguments, this chapter argues that city planning processes need to become more re­ sponsive to and respectful of Indigenous mores and principles by replacing hierarchical and bureaucratic approaches to urban development with reciprocal exchanges based on mutually agreed upon goals and objectives. Henderson and Wiebe (2016) seek the dis­ mantling of such hierarchical frameworks through the MVAEC report by outlining a holistic and integrative praxis reflective of Indigenous precepts and world views. Following this philosophical model, they situate the Indigenous housing crisis in Metro Vancouver within a larger urban context that extends to governance, labor markets, transportation and mobility. Legal scholar and consultant, Kinwa Bluesky (Anishinaabe) also advocates for a multilayered approach to coordinating Indigenous support programs and services in the City of Vancouver study titled “Aboriginal Health, Healing, and Wellness in the DTES Study” (2017). Assessing Indigenous cultural organizations that work with health agencies, housing societies, counseling services and friendship centers, Bluesky describes a continuum of traditional cultural and spiritual practices that enable art, music, dancing, Elder teachings, food and family values.6 Together with Henderson and Wiebe (2016), Bluesky extends city planning policies to include resources and fa­ cilities that address individual, family and community needs in order to attend to the full spectrum of Indigenous personal and collective rights. Indigenous cultural and urban studies and reports that promote social, economic and political stewardship, enterprise and connectivity provide an analytical frame­ work for assessing the Orwell and Skwachàys Hotels. This chapter argues that while both establishments offer accommodations, community support and professional development opportunities, by servicing specifically Indigenous creative workers, they also function as spaces of Indigenous productivity, distribution and industry that counter the colonial narratives of disuse and non-productivity that underwrite gen­ trification schemes in the DTES. Further, the galleries and workshops incorporated into these buildings provide spaces where members of various Indigenous Nations

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can gather, collect and interact while circulating and displaying their arts and crafts. In these ways, these establishments dismantle the spatial ordering of imperialism that dissipates and disperses Indigenous communities through forcible removal and eviction from urban localities. Operating as cultural tourist venues where Indigenous creative classes take ownership over and authorize the marketing, advertising and commoditizing of their works, the Orwell and the Skwachàys Hotels disrupt the regimes of surveillance and regulation underlying neoliberal urbanism that objectify and subsume Indigenous peoples under the supposed progressive influence and consumer apparatus of capitalist development.

Visual Sovereignty, Political Aesthetics and Resistance Movements Situated in the historical and political contexts of contested planning practices and policies, the collaborative art projects coordinated at the Orwell and Skwachàys Hotels intersect Indigenous collective organizing in the buildings and the surrounding neighborhood. The murals evolved out of vision sessions organized by Dave Eddy, chief executive officer (CEO) of VNHS, in consultation with local community groups, including those with Indigenous affiliations. Through neighborhood meetings, calls for proposals and word-of-mouth, Indigenous artists from the local and outlying regions were selected to complete the wall paintings (Eddy 2017; Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/nuMedia Group 2010). Both projects adhered to principles and guidelines provided by Indigenous Elders, leaders and community members and were officially opened with Indigenous ceremonies7; however, the cir­ cumstances and conditions under which they were completed differed. The Orwell Hotel mural was located on the exterior of the building and was a stand-alone project funded in large part through the City of Vancouver’s Great Beginnings Program, an intergovernmental initiative founded in 2008 to support culture and heritage in the city. Among the varied projects supported through this program were a series of exterior wall murals that formed part of revitalization efforts in different areas of Vancouver, including the DTES. Therefore, having to adhere to city mandates, the Orwell project followed a formal process with Eddy procuring all additional funding and enlisting neighborhood groups to provide input and feedback to artists throughout the different stages of planning, implementation and installation (Baluja 2010; City of Vancouver 2018; Eddy 2017; Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/nuMedia Group 2010). In contrast, the wall murals at the Skwachàys Lodge were located in the interior of the building and were one of several decorative projects that formed part of the building’s renovation from 2010 to 2014. Under Eddy’s supervision, and in consultation with retired hotel developer Jon Zwickel, architect Joe Wai designed the building while Indigenous artists partnered with local designers to complete the architectural interiors and exteriors. All of the mural designs underwent ad hoc review by the building’s managers and Indigenous community consultants in meetings organized on an as-needed basis (Eddy 2017; Griffin 2014; Lederman 2015; Maschaykh 2015). While the Orwell and the Skwachàys art projects evolved out of extensive local con­ sultation processes, the murals also evoke in their depictions Indigenous creative practices that extend beyond the Vancouver area to include band Nations from various regions and territories. Of particular significance are art practices that re-spatialize and re-politicize city localities by imagining them as spaces of Indigeneity that disrupt state borders and settler

148 Michelle Veitch defined jurisdictions. Assessing Indigenous paintings and public art that readapt processes of mapmaking, Natchee Barnd (2017) shows how artists such as Chris Pappan (Kaw, Osage, Cheyenne River Sioux, mixed European), Jaune Quick to See Smith (Flathead, Cree, Shoshone) and Terrance Guardipee (Blackfoot) explore Indigenous movements, fluidities and multiplicities in ways that redefine overlapping, conflicting and intertwined colonial and Indigenous histories and geographies. Similarly, Kate Morris (2019) argues that the collective Postcommodity and the artists Michael Belmore (Annishisnaabe), Alan Michelson (Mohawk) and Bob Hazous (Chiricahua Apache) reference “border crossings” (100) and permeable territories as a means of reasserting “individual sovereignty” (103). Critiquing processes of displacement and environmental destruction, the site-specific works and land-based installations of these artists re-enact “place-based practices” that fore­ ground Indigenous knowledges and philosophies, including nation-to-nation confederacies, diplomatic negotiations and treaty rights (Morris 2019, 88). Both Barnd and Morris draw on scholar Jolene Rickard’s (Tuscarora) (2011) concepts of Indigenous “visual sover­ eignty” (471), decolonization and “strategic essentialism” (469) outlined in her analysis of the films, videos and textiles by the artists G. Peter Jemison (Seneca), Alan Michelson (Mohawk), Samuel Thomas (Cayuga) and Marie Watt (Seneca) who all belong to Indigenous nations that form the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Rickard argues that the works of these artists revisualize Haudenosaunee laws and decrees within frameworks of Indigenous philosophy and politics, engaging in “a strategic sovereigntist resistance … to ongoing coloniality and the flattening processes of globalization” (478). These theoretical writings on Indigenous practices of place-making, visual sover­ eignty and cultural resurgence inform my understanding of the Orwell and Skwachàys murals. It is important to note, however, that the meaning, symbolism and interpretations of the projects change from one architectural and urban site to the other. To begin with, the Orwell mural (Figure 8.1) commemorates the traditions and cultures of the Indigenous peoples who live in the building and the neighboring district, and its making involved several artists who themselves reside in the DTES. Richard Tetrault and Jerry Whitehead (Plains Cree) coordinated the project, working in collaboration with artists at different stages of their careers, from emerging to established professionals. The finished project represents the perspectives of the varied participants involved and the local Indigenous groups whom they consulted. Jerry Whitehead notes that “there’s [a] whole wide range of different artists from different backgrounds and our own ideas coming together” (quoted in Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/nuMedia Group 2010). Highlighting these various perspectives, the mural incorporates a double-headed raven looking to the left and the right to signify “Looking Forward, Looking Back”—changing viewpoints from past to present to future (Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/nuMedia Group 2010). The mural connects to a video montage entitled “Looking Forward, Looking Back” that was completed under the direction of VNHS in conjunction with the federal department of Canadian Heritage. The montage involves 20 Indigenous artists who recount their personal memories of the DTES, while discussing their contemporary studio practices with particular attention to their working techniques and marketing strategies (Eddy 2017). The mural links to the video by re-narrating the Indigenous histories and legacies embedded in the DTES based on intertribal consultations. Paying respect to local Indigenous residents and workers, the 7,600 square foot mural also features the Raven Dancer dressed in traditional button robe with

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Figure 8.1 Jerry Whitehead (Plains Cree), Richard Tetrault, Eric Parnell (Haida), Richard Shorty (Northern Tutchone), Haisla Collins (Tsimshian, Celtic), Sharifah Marsden (Anishinaabe) and Nicola Campbell (Interior Salish, Métis), Through the Eye of the Raven, 2010. Wall mural, Orwell Hotel, Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada. Video still from Through the Eye of the Raven (2010), produced by Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/Numedia Group. ©Dave Eddy, Orwell Hotel and Vancouver Native Housing Society.

animal spirits painted along the decorative border that lines the hem. Surrounded on either side by sea serpents and patterned braids, the Raven Dancer points north in the direction of the Twin Sisters Mountains on the North Shore of Vancouver, which are also pictured along the bottom of the mural (Abeita 2010; Baluja 2010; Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/nuMedia Group 2010). Envisioning spaces of hope and healing, the mural presents the Raven Dancer as a “guardian figure” casting its eyes over the DTES, “protecting the people on the street and watching over people” (Whitehead 2017). In discussing the mural, Sharifah Marsden (quoted in Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/nuMedia Group 2010) indicates that “it’s…a highlight in the community, it’s bringing some positivity in. This is just one way to celebrate the urban native culture.” More specifically the mural commemorates the animals, creatures and peoples featured in creation stories recounted in Coast Salish oral histories. These mythic beings are pictured alongside images of a totem pole, tipis and a Coast Salish sacred canoe that symbolize the traditions and cultures of West Coast Indigenous peoples. Referencing ongoing spatial and historical processes of Indigeneity, the wall painting resituates and re-orients viewers in relation to ancestral lands and oral histories embedded in the geographical terrain that symbolically and materially represent Indigenous moral truths and social precepts. In this way, the mural re­ frames the urban district in Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies, remapping and reconfiguring colonial territorial jurisdictions and the histories incorporated into processes of place-making.

150 Michelle Veitch In addition to commemorating Indigenous cultural survival and resilience in the area, the mural depicts the legacies of colonialism and the devastating impacts of imperial governance upon Indigenous communities. The Raven Dancer’s robe forms a protective barrier around a woman who weeps as children are forced to attend residential schools, which are marked with a British flag (Figure 8.2). Historically, flags acted as emblems of nationhood and were used to declare ownership over oc­ cupied territory by settler governments that disentitled Indigenous peoples of their lands, cultures and languages. Histories of imperialism set the stage for present-day urbanization schemes represented in the mural by high-rise buildings including the Sears Tower in Vancouver. The tower incorporates a lookout observatory that serves as a tourist attraction and originally formed part of the Sears Simpson department store, which was later converted into the Harbour Centre office complex. Such city rebuilding projects eroded the environment, threatening the land and resources that Indigenous peoples relied on for their livelihood and survival. Depicting white smog and pollution emitted from crowded brick and metal buildings stacked one on top of and beside another, the mural casts a critical eye upon modern urbanism and in­ dustrialism, which continues to destroy and decimate water and land ecosystems with dire consequences for the health, healing and well-being of Indigenous peoples. In addition to the Sears Tower, the mural also depicts the inadequate and poorly maintained social housing in the DTES while referencing redevelopment projects that have displaced and excluded Indigenous residents. For example, the painting in­ corporates an image of the neon “W” sign that previously sat atop the Woodward’s

Figure 8.2 Jerry Whitehead (Plains Cree), Richard Tetrault, Eric Parnell (Haida), Richard Shorty (Northern Tutchone), Haisla Collins (Tsimshian, Celtic), Sharifah Marsden (Anishinaabe) and Nicola Campbell (Interior Salish, Métis), Through the Eye of the Raven, 2010. Wall mural, Orwell Hotel, Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada. Video still from Through the Eye of the Raven (2010), produced by Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/Numedia Group. ©Dave Eddy, Orwell Hotel and Vancouver Native Housing Society.

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Department Store located in the subdistrict of Victory Square. A Vancouver land­ mark, the building became a site of community protest and squatting activism in 2002 when developers proposed to convert the property into a mixed use commercial and residential complex. Despite community concern over escalating property values precipitated by such building redesigns and the subsequent decrease in affordable housing in the neighborhood, the redevelopment project moved forward and was completed in 2010. While the original department store was demolished, the tower and neon sign were retained and relocated within the repurposed complex (Blomley 2004; Maschaykh 2015; Pell 2014). By incorporating the sign into the Orwell mural, the artists reference an iconic symbol that marks the site where residents and workers negotiated the conflicted and contested histories and geographies of gentrification in the DTES. They depict street protestors beating on drums (Figure 8.2), thus re­ presenting Indigenous music practices that have been readapted and reformulated in order to respond to contemporary social and political issues. The image of the drum connects to the music, videos and live performances by the band, A Tribe Call Red (ATCR), which regularly feature drumming beats, rhythms and syncopations. Gabriel Levine (2016) argues that ATCR’s music reinterprets hip hop while refer­ encing traditional drumming circles, and exemplifies Indigenous resurgence, persis­ tence and survivance. The band forms the counterpart to activist movements such as Idle No More that fight for Indigenous territorial and cultural rights against con­ tinued legacies of colonialism. The image of the drum in the mural can thus be un­ derstood as a symbolic and iconological reinterpretation of traditional Indigenous practices that resurface in local countercultural movements. To further elucidate the transformative and healing power of Indigenous activism and solidarity, the mural depicts a hummingbird, the Northern Tutchone symbol of hope, flying over top of and away from the city toward the light. Through its critical decolonizing of local urbanism and affirmation of Indigenous activism, the Orwell art project contests traditions of mural paintings, Indigeneity and political aesthetics practiced by modern and contemporary artists in the Americas. Most notable among these are the Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco who commemorated Mesoamerican histories and cultures in their paintings, but also promoted state governments that reinforced aggressive assimilationist policies in the name of industrial progress and to the detriment of Indigenous peoples (Coffey 2016; Latorre 2008). Contrasting Mexican painting traditions with contemporary Chicana/o Indigenist murals in Los Angelos, Guisela Latorre (2008) suggests that “Indigenist imagery for many Chicana/ o…arose as a means to express forms of resistance and protest not sanctioned by state apparatuses” (13). Chicana/o artists reference their own hybrid or mestizaje heritage through images of Aztec cultures and homelands and ally with Indigenous peoples in North America. However, they also appropriate colonialist narratives in their murals and downplay the impacts of Spanish conquest on local Indigenous communities; thus, the political aesthetics underlying their works take on contradictory and con­ flicting meaning. By contrast, North American Indigenous artist Douglas Miles (San Carlos Apache) dismantles colonial histories of displacement and marginalization through his wall murals produced on reservation lands and in urban districts. Discussing Miles’s company, Apache Skateboard, located on the San Carlos Reservation, David Martínez (Akimel O’odham, Hia Ced O’odham, Mexican) (2013) describes Miles’s

152 Michelle Veitch skateboard decks, road signs and car trunks as subcultural and transgressive practices that extend from the city streets to gallery exhibitions. Martínez (2013) focuses on Miles’s image of the Apache Warrior that functions as an icon of “resistance against oppression” (377) symbolizing “the rebellious spirit” (i.e., the skateboarder) (385) struggling against “conformity (i.e., the American Dream)” (385). The Apache Warrior also appears in Miles’s wall murals that evolved out of his collaborations with local and global skateboard artists who belong to youth subcultures that em­ brace traditions of political resistance, including the Red Power movement and the settler allied solidarity network, Unsettling America. In producing wall murals, Miles thus extends skateboard graffiti and street art that have evolved from illicit and illegal creative practices produced by urban gangs, hip hop crews and activist protestors and developed into community projects that have been institutionally recognized and municipally approved through their incorporation into gallery exhibitions, city fes­ tivals and government-sponsored urban revitalization. However, some scholars argue that the subversive intent and meaning of graffiti, murals and street art are com­ promised when they are integrated into state-authorized cultural and urban planning initiatives. George Morgan (2012), for instance, suggests that redevelopment schemes and creative city discourses homogenize and assimilate Indigenous culture and heri­ tage. Focusing on local street artists in Redfern-Waterloo, Australia, he suggests they produce graffiti and hip hop that retain their edge precisely because they are excluded from such revitalization efforts. Engaging in subcultural practices, these street artists reclaim urban “hoods as sites of collective solidarity and community identity, hence aligning with Indigenous radical activists advocating for self-determination.” Scholarship on street and graffiti art inform understanding of Indigenous murals as exemplified in Douglas Miles’ wall paintings of the Apache Warrior that similarly unsettle and disrupt colonialist narratives by giving voice to underground practices, visual sovereignty and community protests. Critical literature on Indigenous muralism, resistance movements and political activism frames the Orwell art project as contesting imperial oppression and disen­ titlements. However, unlike the subcultural movements described in the scholarship discussed earlier, the Orwell mural evolved out of government- and corporatesponsored creative initiatives, specifically the Great Beginnings Program, which raises questions about a presumed opposition between underground Indigenous art and state-funded cultural policy. As Dave Eddy (2017) reveals, the Orwell project shows how Indigenous creative workers can participate in local collective organizing and “community building through the transformative power of art.” Because the artists involved contest the exploitative and appropriative practices underlying gentrifica­ tion, the mural retains the transgressive potential and political aesthetics of Indigenous resistance against the disempowering effects of colonialism and modernday capitalist development. As a result, the project reframes prevailing creative city discourses that place art at the center of revitalization schemes, reimagining processes of urbanization to reflect Indigenous ontological and philosophical worldviews.

Powwow Ideologies, Intertribal Mediations and Cross-Border Territories A similar political aesthetic is developed in the interior décor that Jerry Whitehead cocreated with Portico Design for the Skwachàys Lodge Hotel, which includes

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furniture, textiles and paintings. For the purposes of this chapter, I focus on Whitehead’s wall murals that represent Indigenous Drum Circles and dance perfor­ mances in the context of changing intertribal protocols and guidelines at powwow ceremonies. Referencing ceremonial music and dance, the murals contribute to creating a space of “refuge,” according to Whitehead (2017), ensuring that “every­ thing works well inside of [the] room, the colours, the way they place things, the light, the art.” Thus, the interior murals suit the intended function of the Skwachàys Lodge to provide accommodations to mixed clients, including tourists, business travelers and Indigenous cultural workers. In addition to Whitehead, several artists from the surrounding municipality and provinces were enlisted to complete the building décor, including Francis Horne Senior (Coast Salish), Eric Parnell (Haida), Corrine Hunt (Kwakwaka’wakw, Tlingit), Lou-Ann Neel (Kwakwaka’wakw), Nancy A. Luis (Cree, Iroquois, Métis), Clifton Fred (Tlingit), Richard Shorty (Northern Tutchone) and Mark Preston (Tlingit). The artists worked on the architectural interiors and exteriors in collaboration with Vancouver-based design companies BBA Design, Porada Design, Sabina Hill, Inside Design Studio, MCM Interiors and B + H Chil. The artists and designers sought to meet the needs of both short-term customers staying in the room rentals and creative professionals taking up residency in the live/ work spaces incorporated into the building (Eddy 2017; Edwards 2017; Skwachàys 2018a, 2018b). Whitehead collaborated with Portico Design on the room interiors for the fol­ lowing guest suites: Forest Spirits Suite (Room 508); Drum Circle Suite (Room 608); and Northern Lights Suite (Room 609 designed in collaboration with Nancy A. Luis). The wall murals incorporated into the interiors of these rooms reflect Tara Browner (Oklahoma Choctaw) (2002) and John Carlos Perea’s (Mescalero Apache, Irish, Chicano, German) (2014) scholarship on powwows, intertribal affiliations and communal gatherings in North America. Providing dialogic interpretations of cere­ monial practices, both scholars intersperse personal narratives recounted by Indigenous participants with theoretical discourses to resituate ceremonial music and dance in circular time, emphasizing the performers’ and listeners’ responsibilities to honor the sacrifices of the past while making powwows relevant for the present and future needs. This line of analysis is developed by scholar Kathleen Buddle (2004) who describes texts written by and for Indigenous authors and literati who use practices of “syncretisation” and “selective appropriation” (33) to articulate the changing and shifting history and politics of powwows. While ceremonies are con­ stantly readapted and re-narrated in a time continuum that spans across generations, they are also located in specific geographic jurisdictions and thus show regional variances. Local powwows are organized and regulated by committees that adhere to customs and guidelines outlined and established by First Nation affiliations; however, since many members move away from the regions where their communities are based and into urban centers where they are dispersed across neighborhoods often con­ tending with displacement and relocation due to settler gentrification, they are not able to access powwows that are specific to their Nations (Browner 2002; Buddle 2004; Perea 2014). Shifting from real gathering spaces to cyberspace and online forums, Indigenous communities are reinventing the contemporary and traditional practices through which First Nations collectives intersect and interact. In discussing how and why Indigenous communities access and collaborate in the varied spaces where powwows are enacted and performed, Kathleen Buddle (2004) uses the

154 Michelle Veitch concept of “mediascape” (32) to describe the communication networks used to mediate and facilitate ceremonial gatherings including radio broadcasts, computer programs and Internet technology. In accessing communication technology, Indigenous peoples rearticulate “ideoscapes” (Buddle 2004, 34) that refers to the landscape of narratives, images and ideologies transmitted and interpreted through mediascapes. Negotiating networks of information and knowledge, Indigenous or­ ganizers and participants establish fictive kinships and imagined communities through which political solidarities and sovereigntist rights are articulated and ne­ gotiated (Buddle 2004, 52–53). It is precisely “mediascapes” and “ideoscapes” that Jerry Whitehead reimagines in the wall murals he designed for the Skwachàys Lodge. He visually records his per­ sonal memories of powwows, depicted from the perspective of a child looking up at the Elders and Ancestors. Interweaving past and present, he places the powwow in cyclical time, thus fulfilling ethics of responsibility to witness and retain Indigenous traditions from one generation to the next. Focusing on the image of the Drum Circle and the rhythmic beat of the instruments (Figure 8.3), he suggests “you hear [that] when you are inside the womb…The beat of the heart; as a baby you hear that and then do that in the drum too” (Whitehead 2017). Various scholars connect powwow drum music to the heartbeat, focusing on the rhythmic unity of the instruments that join together the performers and listeners who participate in or attend ceremonial practices (Browner 2002; Buddle 2004; Perea 2014). Whitehead likewise describes the unifying effect of the Drum Circle, which he regards as mothering and nurturing space where cultural traditions grow and flourish, emphasizing the parental and communal ties of powwow ceremonies. To highlight these personal connections, he embeds into his images letters or names that “stem from families,” including the words “mom” and “dad” and the names of children (Whitehead 2017). His murals thus re-enact principles and precepts governing powwows that typically include members from the same family or kinship group with drummers placed in the center surrounded by singers who are separated according to gender in order to retain the integrity of the participants’ tonal registers, vocal pitches and music harmonies (Browner 2002; Perea 2014). In this way, Drum Circle members adhere to individual aesthetic styles, abilities and creativity through original instrumentation and song­ writing out of respect for the Elders and leaders organizing and adjudicating pow­ wows (Scales 2012). Following these traditions, Whitehead depicts familial groups of women, men and children participating in Drum Circles; however, he combines genders, ages and band affiliations, thus representing the experimental format typical of Northern Cree powwows (Browner 2002). In addition to depicting Drum Circles, Whitehead paints the dance troupes that perform around the musicians, focusing on ceremonies from across provinces and territories. Locating his powwow images in Prince Albert along the Saskatchewan River and the traditional lands of his own tribal band, the Plains Cree, he indicates that “we get the Northern Lights there [and] when they come out…we used to lay around in a field somewhere…and look up and just enjoy the lights. So eventually…I started incorporating the Northern Lights in my own style” (Whitehead 2017). His mural paintings capture the hues, tones, light and textures of the prairie region where he grew up, yet they also depict community gatherings in the forests and mountains of British Columbia (Figure 8.4), thus referencing the environment where Whitehead currently resides. Exploring spatial and temporal shifts in Indigenous cultural images

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Figure 8.3 Jerry Whitehead (Plains Cree) and Portico Design, Forest Spirits Suite (Room 508), 2013. Skwachàys Lodge and Residence, Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada. Photographer Craig Minielly/Aura Photographics. ©Craig Minielly, Dave Eddy, Skwachàys Lodge and Vancouver Native Housing Society.

of changing landscapes and skyscapes, Whitehead paints the colors of Indigenous nations through the costumes and background scenery that he depicts. His works thus reflect the shifting conditions and circumstances of powwow competitions where varied band affiliations interact, and the members of performance groups change or reform as new groups (Scales 2012). Powwows evolved out of a historical tradition of war dances that re-enacted battles, victories, peace negotiations and alliances (Martin 2000), adapting over time to contemporary contexts of intertribal exchange. Situating powwows in this historical continuum, Lee-Ann Martin (Mohawk) (2000) traces the develop­ ment of ceremonial practices from the nineteenth to the twentieth century focusing on Indigenous paintings and photographs that reflect shifting practices of

156 Michelle Veitch

Figure 8.4 Jerry Whitehead (Plains Cree), Nancy A. Luis (Cree, Iroquois, Métis) and Portico Design, Northern Light Suite (Room 609), 2013. Skwachàys Lodge and Residence, Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada. Photographer Craig Minielly/Aura Photographics. ©Craig Minielly, Dave Eddy, Skwachàys Lodge and Vancouver Native Housing Society.

“traditionalism,” “cultural authenticity” and “individualism” (34). Whitehead depicts powwow performers that recall earlier warrior dancers, focusing on the rhythm, movement and gestures of figures as they merge into and emerge out of the traditional territorial lands on which these ceremonial practices are staged. In this, Whitehead’s murals reflect artist Terrence Houle’s (Blood First Nations) depictions of powwows. According to scholar Jessica Jacobson-Konefall (2016), Houle ad­ dresses changing historical traditions and reimagines the concept of “geotechnics” (349) that refers to the varied technical apparatuses used to represent territorial regions. More specifically Houle uses audio and video material including photo­ graphs, films, videos and performances to restage and transform geographies of colonialism and Indigeneity. Jacobson-Konefall (2016) suggests that Houle uses these technical devices to redefine the concept of “civic ecology” (350) that refers to the political and ideological landscapes through which people negotiate their rights and responsibilities as citizens including the epistemological and ontological fra­ mework that shape the ways citizenry is performed, perceived and enacted. With these larger thematic concerns in mind, Houle presents himself as a “contrary” figure akin to earlier warrior dancers, dressed in powwow regalia tripping, falling, lying prone and playing dead in city streets and park settings, hence enacting a “sousveillance” or “countersurveillance” (Jacobson-Konefall 2016, 353) that un­ settles civil discourses and the settler state apparatus used to control and survey citizenry, including Indigenous peoples, and the land they inhabit. Whitehead’s art project likewise reimagines Indigenous ecologies and ontologies, in this case, in­ tersecting with and counteracting creative city discourses, cultural tourism and civic boosterism. Depicting continuing and evolving traditional practices enacted within

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and across territorial borders and jurisdictions, Whitehead establishes the sur­ rounding space of the DTES as a site of active cultural and ceremonial productivity and exchange. Although these works are incorporated into the readapted space of the Skwachàys Hotel as part of larger art-based gentrification efforts in the sur­ rounding district, they unsettle the narratives of ruin and decay that are so often used to justify the rehabilitation of the DTES neighborhood and its Indigenous inhabitants under the “progressive” influence of urban reform. Whitehead carries through the mandates of the Skwachàys Lodge to provide arts facilities and pro­ grams for intertribal Indigenous creative workers, hence also countering re­ development projects that continue to divest Indigenous peoples of their rights to traditional and unceded land while denying them access to affordable housing and the social and cultural resources available through such housing facilities.

Conclusion While both the Orwell and the Skwachàys murals revise the prevailing ideologies underlying colonial frontier discourses and urban expansion schemes, the imagery and symbolism embedded in the paintings also serve distinct and unique functions. Situated in a building that caters to previously homeless Indigenous residents from the DTES, including arts professionals, the Orwell project critiques continued legacies of displacement, colonialism and urbanism in the neighboring district while re­ interpreting the Vancouver cityscape as Coast Salish traditional land governed by Indigenous laws and decrees historically negotiated by councils of Chiefs, Clans and kinship groups and recounted by Elders through oral traditions. The Skwachàys mural is located in a hotel that serves visiting tourists and Indigenous creative workers and the wall paintings maintain the building’s function as a travel lodge by creating a place of refuge and respite. Reflecting Indigenous cultures and histories, the murals depict intertribal ceremonial traditions and practices as materially and symbolically mediated, imagined and experienced in British Columbia and Saskatchewan. While the imagery and function of the Orwell and the Skwachàys projects differ, both sites take on meaning in the context of contemporary decolonization by engaging with visual practices of remapping and placemaking. Inserting Indigenous philosophies and knowledges into overlapping and intersecting geographies and histories, the murals trace Indigenous relocations, movements and migrations within and across municipal and regional jurisdictions. Both examples show how Indigenous creative communities can counteract the detrimental effects of government and corporate-driven urbanism, and also serve as cautionary reminders of the injustices and inequities underlying artbased capitalist development evolving out of imperialism. If gentrification processes continue unabated, Indigenous cultural and political movements risk becoming coopted and subsumed to the forces of civic boosterism and creative city discourses. It is precisely such appropriative measures that has led Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene) (2014) to call “Indigenous Nations toward a resurgent politics of recognition premised on self-actualization, direct action, and the resurgence of cultural practices” (24). In order to fully realize this potential, Indigenous practices of “visual sover­ eignty” and cultural resistance need to be met with continued and sustained settler actions toward decolonization, including the restitution of Indigenous land and treaty rights and a reinstatement of the environmental, economic and heritage legacies and entitlements on which those rights depend.

158 Michelle Veitch

Acknowledgments My thanks go to the Skwachàys Lodge and Residence, Dave Eddy, Maggie Edwards and Jerry Whitehead for their support and assistance throughout my research study.

Notes 1 Creative communities include cultural workers in various fields as well as educational, technological, business, health care and related professionals, but for the purposes of this chapter, I refer specifically to painters, sculptors, textile designers, videographers, film­ makers and photographers. 2 The Raven’s Eye Artist Collective and Studio evolved out of the mural project organized at the Orwell Hotel and was established shortly after the work was completed (Collins 2012; Vancouver Native Housing Society 2018; Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/nuMedia Group 2010). 3 When the Skwachàys Lodge first opened, it also hosted Health Canada’s Patient Travel program, providing accommodations to Indigenous peoples who journey from remote and rural areas to seek medical treatment in Vancouver. Due to financial restrictions, hotel management cut back the program and currently offers only a limited number of rooms for medical care during off-peak seasons while forwarding remaining patients to more suitable facilities owned by VNHS (Eddy 2017). 4 Although VNHS’s original and ongoing mandate is to focus on the housing needs of urban Indigenous communities, it has expanded its operations to include housing solutions for nonIndigenous peoples, seniors, youth, women at risk, persons living with mental illness and the homeless and homeless at-risk populations (Vancouver Native Housing Society 2018). 5 Other service agencies that offer social and transitional housing for Indigenous peoples in the DTES include Aboriginal Mother’s Centre, Circle of Eagles Lodge Society, the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre and the Urban Native Youth Association (Henderson and Wiebe 2016). 6 A number of Indigenous organizations in or close to the DTES meet these cultural and social needs, including the Aboriginal Friendship Centre, Aboriginal Front Door Society, Aboriginal Mother House, Circle of Eagles Lodge Society, the Urban Native Youth Association, Knowledgeable Aboriginal Youth Association and Aboriginal Life in Vancouver Enhancement (Schatz 2010). 7 Unveiling of the Orwell mural was held in conjunction with a traditional Coast Salish cedar brushing ceremony, and the mural was gifted to the community during these proceedings. Similarly, the Skwachàys Hotel was celebrated with a ceremony led by Chief Ian Campbell (Squamish) who bestowed the name Skwachàys to the building. The name, which means “hole in the bottom,” is the Skwxwú7mesh, name for the area of False Creek in Vancouver, which historically emptied at low tide (Eddy 2017; Robinson and Zaiontz 2015; Vancouver Native Housing Society and Joseph MacLean/nuMedia Group 2010).

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9

“Mapping the Old City”: Street Art, Urban Resistance and Community Building in Nicosia, Cyprus, 2014–2018 Panos Leventis

Introduction Decades after their early interpretations as indicators of social processes, spatial order and territoriality (see, for example, Ley and Cybriwsky 1974), species and subspecies of graffiti and street art continue to flower among urban jungles and suburban prairies, manifesting socio-political and spatial-cultural realities against the overwhelming odds of neoliberal bulldozers. Originating in a transformative period during which a con­ siderable body of graffiti and street art slowly but steadily migrated from the street to the gallery and the museum (Lachmann 1988), a dominant narrative of appropriation of these art variants by the very system they were born to oppose has been simulta­ neously, and unfortunately, both imagined and real. Per this narrative, graffiti and street art have largely morphed into a series of futures, speculations and commodities, in a prolific game of urban redevelopment and profit. Tracing a larger contextual discussion on struggles over control of the urban from De Certeau (1984) to Lefebvre (1996), Crawford (1995) and Harvey (2012), however, one also discovers that a parallel, alternative story for graffiti, street art and public space often exists and insists nearby, should one choose to look more carefully. It is a story of empowerment, community and commonality, as attested to by numerous case studies that time and again verify the regenerative and empowering role of the arts in general (see, for example, Kay 2000), and street art in particular, on communities and cities. Meandering through gentrified urban districts across the world, lured by colorful, corporate-sponsored murals and the smell of latte, and catered to by fusion restau­ rants, meta-museums and upscale galleries showcasing the latest “street art,” there is no denying the degree to which the commodification narrative has materialized and overtaken our cities (see, for example, Brighenti 2016; Cathcart-Keays 2015). Some scholars understandably worry that this narrative may have overtaken graffiti and street art research and scholarship itself (Tsilimpounidi 2016). At the same time, a growing collection of stories and studies across the post-2008 world speak of em­ powerment, of resistance, of continuity and of hope (for example, for the often-cited Athenian case study in the context of the so-called financial crisis, see Tsilimpounidi and Walsh 2011; Avramidis 2012; Leventis 2013; Tulke 2013; Tsilimpounidi 2015). These studies subvert the commodification narrative and repropose graffiti and street art as empowering agents for otherwise underprivileged urban populations in a vast spectrum of districts, such as Athens’ Exarcheia, Kerameikos and Psyrri neighbor­ hoods (Ioannides, Leventis and Petridou 2016; Tulke 2016) or Detroit’s Eastern Market neighborhood, where they function as part of “a sophisticated visual

“Mapping the Old City” in Nicosia, Cyprus 163 discourse regarding neoliberalism, democracy, and the battle over public space” (Ulmer 2017). This contribution will engage one such example in the collection of works titled “Mapping the Old City” by street artist Astraki Strikes, who lives and works in Nicosia, capital city of Cyprus. Beyond the somewhat limited thematic scope of twentieth-century slogans with nationalist or soccer allegiances content in Cyprus (for a comprehensive review of this, see Stylianou 2012), graffiti and street art established themselves as cultural practices in the divided city of Nicosia later than in most European or Mediterranean cities (for a contextual discussion on public space in the divided city, see Charalambous and Hadjichristos 2011; for a contextual introduction to the sociopolitical situation in Nicosia see Leventis 2017, 159–160, n. 1). At the dawn of the twenty-first century, though, both inside the south and north halves of the old city surrounded by its re­ naissance walls, as well as throughout the urban expanse, tags, stencils and visual pieces were beginning to comment on sociopolitical events and on the unique urban predicament of Nicosia’s dwellers. Fragments of the history of stencil graffiti in Nicosia have been the subject of studies such as by Karathanasis (2008, 2010), and, expectedly, activist actions as well as graffiti and street art produced at or near the linear corridor of the United Nations Buffer Zone or Green Line that divides the two halves of Nicosia have also been the subject of a number of recent studies (see Iliopoulou and Karathanasis (2012, 2014) on activist actions across the Green Line; and Leventis (2017) on graffiti and street art as post-2010 spatial practices along the southern edge of the Green Line, of which Cacao Rocks (2014) is a characteristic example). However, street art that lies away from the Green Line and its margins, in areas where residents and communities still insist and persist, has been absent from aca­ demic research. This contribution attempts to remedy this absence. The artist Astraki Strikes is thus introduced herein, as she creates for the city and its dwellers within Nicosia’s renaissance walls but away from the Green Line, in the heart of a humble, socio-ethnically diverse neighborhood, responding to the city’s multiple identities and empowering its citizens. The contribution engages “Mapping the Old City,” a col­ lection of murals by Astraki that commenced in 2014 and has since engaged a whole district in the central quadrant of the Walled City’s southern half, activating, ani­ mating and reimagining the urban space therein (see Figure 9.1). “Mapping the Old City” is interpreted as a community-building agent, one that resists the dominant socio-urban forces of neoliberal redevelopment, and one that instead showcases, celebrates and empowers the untold urban heroes of Nicosia, those who have stayed loyal to the city through decades of conflict and reconciliation, of abandonment and social re-engagement. The contribution thus investigates the way street art confronts and reconstitutes the concept of public space in an evidently contested urban fabric, the way it provides citizenry with new and innovative ways to engage and form new bonds of community and avenues of resistance, and the way it activates, captures, subverts and reproposes the experience of urban space.

“Mapping the Old City:” Analysis and Interpretation Astraki Strikes and Her Early Work Astraki Strikes, whose given name is Stella Georgiou, was born and raised in Nicosia. Astraki, which means “little star” in Greek, has used both names interchangeably,

164 Panos Leventis

Figure 9.1 Locations of “Mapping the Old City” works in Walled Nicosia. ©Panos Leventis.

though she appears to reserve “Astraki Strikes” exclusively as her street artist iden­ tity. She completed university studies in the visual arts in Nicosia and Thessaloniki, and between 2000 and 2010 partook in art residencies in Cyprus, China, Spain and Sweden. Simultaneously, she founded the studio “Admiradores del Circulo,” through which she completed a number of visual arts projects, performances, exhibitions and workshops in Cyprus and abroad. By the end of this period and back in Nicosia, as attested in print media interviews given by Astraki to, among others, Hekkers (2013), Fenwick (2017) and Aza (2018), she had formulated a desire and a need to primarily exist and create in the street. In addition to smaller-scale graffiti and street art works, Astraki has been creating murals since at least 2010, when a neighborhood residents’ association held “Thisseos Street Festival,” a series of events in the east end of walled Nicosia, in order to raise awareness for the need to reorganize traffic, to pedestrianize streets and to encourage families to move back in the old city (for the festival, see Leventis 2017, 153).

“Mapping the Old City” in Nicosia, Cyprus 165 While during this time researchers were finding it difficult to locate any graffiti or street art created by women in Nicosia, let alone large-scale murals whatsoever, and were concluding instead that graffiti and street art in Nicosia is “nearly entirely a young, male pursuit” that “tends to be framed in the context of groups” (Doering 2009, 149–151, 168), Astraki was painting the west-facing, very visible sidewall of a house on Thisseos Street with a composition featuring a fiddler playing to swarms of ants below with a background of the plan of Nicosia with its renaissance walls and bastions (see Leventis 2017, 153–155, wherein the work is credited to “Lympourouthkia” [“Little Ants” in Greek], as recorded on the mural itself). It appears that this experience would prove to be instrumental in her desire to explain the city to the city, to speak visually and textually about the city on the body of the city, and would give rise to “Mapping the Old City,” the work that I believe best evidences what Astraki means when she describes herself as a “cultural community connector.” In April 2014, three and a half years after the Thisseos Street mural, on the occasion of the first Pride March in Cyprus and with the collaboration of artist Rock The Dog, Astraki completed a daring mural with a rainbow-colored head of Jesus above the words “Yo, I Love You All,” while simultaneously commencing the “Mapping the Old City” project in the same area. While “Yo, I Love You All” was quickly, expectedly and unfortunately whitewashed by skeptical authorities, all the pieces of “Mapping the Old City” still remain on-site and visible (as of January 2020). Astraki has repeatedly referred to the project and featured its title on many of the murals themselves, but there has neither been an identification or description of the number or location of the works that belong to the project, nor an interpretation of their sociocultural context and significance.

Murals in Nicosia and the Context of “Mapping the Old City” Murals in metropolitan Nicosia in general, and in the Walled City in particular, are very few and far between, both in time and in space, and are almost always com­ missioned for “official” narratives that are often characterized by clumsy historical thematic overtures: in a spring morning of 2004, for instance, Nicosians woke up to two commissioned murals created by the artist Farhad Nargoll O’Neill, one in the southern half of the Walled City titled “Constructing the Past” and one in the northern half titled “Ode to Aphrodite and Umm-Haram” (see Leventis 2017, 152–153, for the mural in the south, funded by the Scientific and Technical Chamber of Cyprus on the occasion of the renovation and completion of a listed building to house its headquarters), in an initiative supported by the island’s British High Commission. The United Nations also had its turn in commissioning street art when, a few years later, a “bi-communal graffiti contest” was held on a perimeter wall of the Ledra Palace Hotel inside the UN-administered buffer zone just to the west of the walled city (Doering 2009, 156). Similar, smaller-scale projects in the vicinity of the Ledra Palace were held again in 2010 and in 2012, the last one titled “Graffiti for Peace.” Lastly, it is telling that the most numerous collection of large-scale street art in the city center, other than the works belonging to “Mapping the Old City,” ap­ peared in April 2016 when five murals were created in the vicinity of Eleftheria Square. Located where the Walled City meets the commercial heart of Nicosia, a rapidly gentrifying area that hosts high-profile architectural and urban works, this “Public Art Action” was in fact commissioned by no other than the Cyprus House of Parliament, and included street artists from Cyprus and Greece. Beyond the five

166 Panos Leventis murals in the vicinity of Eleftheria Square, a sixth mural was completed inside the parliament building itself as part of this “Action.” Thus, in the above socio-urban context, the significance of understanding the scope and contents of “Mapping the Old City” lies in the fact that it can and should be considered a unique and groundbreaking collection of street art works. Following an interview with Astraki on June 20, 2018, three fieldwork and pho­ tographic itineraries between June 20 and December 26, 2018, and an analysis of an eight-minute film on “Mapping the Old City” written and directed by Astraki in 2017, this study identifies 15 works that form the “Mapping” project. These works, of which a comprehensive list is included in the Appendix of this contribution, are all located in the southern half of the Walled City, in a 200 × 400 meter rectangular area with its long axis being the axis of nearby Costanza Bastion (see Figure 9.2). This unassuming mixed-use quarter lies west of a cultural node of museums, cathedrals and educational institutions surrounding the Archbishopric, and east of the old town’s main pedestrianized area along Ledras and Onassagorou Streets (for which, see UNDP 1987), which in the past few years has seen significant gentrification with renovations and openings of stores, cafes and restaurants that further transformed its urban character (for which, see Theophanous 2014). The quarter has thus become an “island” completely bypassed by gentrification processes of the past three decades, and is described as simply “neglected” by its dwellers, who though maintain that a “beginnings of a cultural renaissance” is occurring there during the last few years (Fenwick 2017). The center of the quarter (see “Central Cluster” ahead) is a busy crossroads—denoting not only a convergence of streets but also a convergence of cultures, with adjacent churches, mosques and coffee shops; a convergence of

Figure 9.2 The 15 works of “Mapping the Old City” numbered chronologically and grouped in three geographic clusters. ©Panos Leventis.

“Mapping the Old City” in Nicosia, Cyprus 167 ethnicities, with the concentration of apartments and stores rented to economic mi­ grants and refugees; and a convergence of architectural styles, with interchanging newer and older buildings of varied heights. It is an area where mostly under­ privileged working-class Cypriots, who have long dwelled and worked in the old city, have come to co-inhabit with recently arrived and similarly or more severely un­ derprivileged populations (Doering 2009, 148, 2010, 91; Charalambous and Hadjichristos 2011, 173). Here, though the population makeup has gone through significant changes, what persists is an older, simpler mode of habitation, with a mix of small businesses, humble apartments, homes and abandoned structures. It has been mentioned that the majority of the “Mapping” project works were undertaken on those abandoned structures (see Astraki Strikes, 2017 and my in­ terview with Astraki on 20 June 2018). Significantly, the majority of the works lie, in fact, on residential or commercial buildings that are still in use, and were exe­ cuted by the artist following owner permission. Also significantly, only one of the 15 works, the first one to be completed, was commissioned. Thirteen of the fifteen works are murals, one is a painted column between two storefront windows, and one is a paste-up collage on a storefront window. Seven of the thirteen murals in­ clude cartographic visuals. Six of these seven include fragments of maps of the area that provides site and context to the murals themselves, and all but one of them feature street names. Six murals include the phrase “Mapping the Old City,” and a further two include the phrase “You Are Here.” The initial work was completed in 2014, four works were completed in 2016, six works were completed in 2017, and four works were completed in 2018. This study groups the works in three geo­ graphic clusters as described next: North Cluster (5 Works) The inaugural work of “Mapping the Old City” was a commissioned mural (Appendix work #1; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 41–47) on a perimeter wall separ­ ating an open-air parking lot from Aristophanous Street, along a landscape dotted with apartment blocks, disused older structures and open lots. Astraki worked for a few days in April 2014 with a gray and black palette, reintroduced her swarms of ants from the Thisseos Street mural to march across this wall as well, and created a striking graphic composition, clearly organized by map fragments of undulating streets (see Figure 9.3). The phrase “You Are Here,” painted above the wooden parking lot gate, further denotes the intention and cartographic inspiration. Though no street names appear on the mural, I believe that this work solidified the idea of mapping that would occupy Astraki for years to come and eventually shape the “Mapping” project. The same “You Are Here” phrase was included in a June 2018 paste-up collage (Appendix work #14; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 2–3) that Astraki created on a disused store window in a pedestrian alley two blocks north of the Aristophanous parking lot. Fragments of maps, this time of the whole island, dot the composition. The additional, variant phrase “Where Are You” on a map that shows the United Nationsadministered Green Line dividing the island politicizes the piece and offers another interpretation of the work’s possible intentions. It is noteworthy that while Astraki initially identified these two pieces, as well as other works that included the phrase “You Are Here,” as a separate series perhaps addressed to visitors of Nicosia, the project ultimately folded into, or as she mentions became “indivisibly bound”

168 Panos Leventis

Figure 9.3 “Mapping the Old City” work #1, Aristophanous Street, April 2014. ©Panos Leventis.

(Astraki Strikes 2020) with the more encompassing “Mapping the Old City,” which this study maintains that primarily addresses the city’s local residents. The barbershop of one of those local and loyal residents lies directly across from the Aristophanous parking lot mural. Its owner, Andreas Hadjigabriel, has lived and worked in the area for decades. He proudly recalls the street’s awakening and transformation following the parking lot mural execution, he mentions the new business openings that brought back life to the street, and he even emphasizes the fashion photoshoots in front of the mural (Astraki Strikes 2017, 00:30–01:30). In July 2017, Astraki painted the barbershop’s signpost and the column that separates its front door from the adjacent storefront in bright reds and purples (Appendix work #10; Astraki Strikes 2020 image 14), adding to the street’s newfound vitality. Soon thereafter, she also painted the storefront shutters adjacent to the “G. Koumides” store (Appendix work #11; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 11–13) on Eptanisou Street just to the northeast, and returned to Aristophanous in May 2018 to paint the curving corner wall of a small abandoned house (Appendix work #13; Astraki Strikes 2020 image 6) with a cartographic mural of the area that includes street names. Could the airplane taking off at the right side of this composition, a unique feature within the visuals of “Mapping the Old City,” denote that this was to be one of the final works of the project? Be that as it may, it would not appear far-reaching to agree with the residents and credit the small renaissance of the Aristophanous area at least partly to Astraki’s pieces.

“Mapping the Old City” in Nicosia, Cyprus 169 Central Cluster (7 Works) The largest concentration of works belonging to the “Mapping” project is found 100 meters south of the Aristophanous cluster, surrounding the already-mentioned busy crossroads where five streets meet and form an otherwise unofficial, un­ announced and unmarked central node for the quarter. Astraki completed the seven murals of the crossroads in the space of one year, between August 2016 and July 2017. Four of these are cartographic works with street names: Two adorn the sides of the store “Satellite Receiver”—one facing east toward Areos Street (Appendix work #3; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 34–35) and one facing west to­ ward Trikoupi Street, adjacent to “Valitsa Café” (Appendix work #4; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 32–33; see Figure 9.4). The third one lies across Areos Street from the entrance of “Satellite Receiver,” adorning the front wall of “VPS Studio” which was consumed by fire in 2019 (Appendix work #6; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 26–30), and the fourth one is found on the west side of Trikoupi Street, across from “Satellite Receiver,” on a corner façade under another faded “VPS” sign (Appendix work #9; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 15–16). The three non-cartographic murals lie on the façade of “Patience Café” (Appendix work #5; Astraki Strikes 2020 image 31), on the façade of “Snack Café” (Appendix work #7; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 20–25) on Areos Street, and on the west side wall of a building entrance on Liasidou Street between Trikoupi and Areos (Appendix work #8; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 17–18).

Figure 9.4 “Mapping the Old City” work #4, Trikoupi Street, August 2016. ©Panos Leventis.

170 Panos Leventis The seven murals have completely reshaped the experience of the crossroads, creating a heightened sense of orientation for visitors, and adding color and vibrancy to their maps and questions on how to move about the quarter. But, perhaps more significantly, to the quarter’s dwellers, the works have aided in the formation of what seems to function as a public square with a renewed sense of place, an urban node with a renewed sense of identity, and a tight-knit community with a renewed sense of belonging. Four out of the seven Nicosians interviewed for the 2017 “Mapping the Old City” short documentary are people connected to this crossroads: Kyriakos Papagiannis, owner of the “VPS Studio,” Panagiota Savvidou and her husband Christakis Savvidis, owners of “Snack Café,” and Pavlos Ballimis, owner of “Valitsa Café” on the crossroads’ south side (for the interviews, see Astraki Strikes, 2017: Papagiannis at 01:30–02:00, Savvides at 02:00–03:15, Savvidou at 03:15–04:30, and Ballimis at 07:00–08:30). While, once prompted, they all describe how the murals changed the urban experience for visitors to the quarter, it is their commentary on how the “Mapping” works changed their own perception of the city, of their walls and of their neighbors that is of added significance. Ballimis emphatically points out: “For us locals, this project is important, because it helps us redefine place. It’s not enough for me to know where I’m going, I need to realize where I am” (Astraki Strikes, 2017, 07:00–08:30). It should not go unnoticed that it is with this interview and comment by Bellamis that Astraki chose to end her short documentary of the “Mapping” project. South Cluster (3 Works) South of the seven-mural crossroads, along a 200-meter-long area, Areos Street meets the Renaissance Walls that separate the Walled City from the large moat and the sprawling urban fabric beyond. It is here that three murals comprise the third cluster of “Mapping the Old City.” The first one, completed in April 2016 and also the first noncommissioned work of the project (Appendix work #2; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 36–37), was a collaborative effort with the French Artist Mathieu Devavry who cur­ rently lives and works in Cyprus (see Figure 9.5). The mural lies on the south-facing wall of a disused house at the corner of Areos and Achilleos Streets. This is the most evidently cartographic of all the “Mapping” project works, and includes, besides streets and street names, the traffic circle that lies at the entrance of the old city on Trikoupi Street and leads into the area of study. Sarah Fenwick, singer and owner of nearby “Sarah’s Jazz Club,” reveals that it was only when she confronted this mural that she actually realized the names of some streets around her club. Sarah is quick to observe that initiatives such as this mural-and quite possibly her club as well-shape con­ temporary creative cities with cultural and economic benefits for the local population and the development of the city as a whole (Astraki Strikes, 2017, 05:30–07:00). This study proposes instead that it is to a much more specific scale that “Mapping” speaks: it is to the neighborhood dwellers themselves, to their dedication to the area and the old city, to their lives and livelihoods, to their pride of trade and pride of place. Astraki completed two of the last “Mapping” murals during the first half of 2018: in March, she painted the sidewall of a building facing into an open-air parking lot along Trikoupi Street (Appendix work #12; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 8–10). This is not a cartographic composition, though one can contest that assertion based on the abstracted geometric shapes and compared to the 2014 piece on Aristophanous Street. It consists of

“Mapping the Old City” in Nicosia, Cyprus 171

Figure 9.5 “Mapping the Old City” work #2, Achilleos Street, April 2016. ©Panos Leventis.

a rather striking blend of colors that brings attention to the lot and its utilitarian purpose, with a large red “Parking” sign painted at its left side, toward the street. Then, in June, she worked on a very different and arguably much more significant mural on a multi­ storey building sidewall accompanying a narrow stairway (appendix work #15; Astraki Strikes 2020 images 4–5). Taken toward the south, this stairway ascends from Xanthis Xenierou, the street hosting “Sarah’s Jazz Club,” to Paleologou Street and the area of the Walls. Alternatively, should one travel in the opposite direction, then they would descent the stairway northward and enter the Walled City and its considerably different (and humbler) sociocultural and socioeconomic world, especially at this particular point of the urban fabric. This piece can thus be read as providing an entrance, or alternatively an exit, but definitely a threshold to both the “Mapping” project and to the quarter’s tight urban fabric. Here, the vast, colorful title “Mapping the Old City” is much larger, and one could say “louder,” than in any of the other works. The title, in fact, constitutes the majority of the mural. The entire work becomes an announcement, ignites anticipation, and serves to signal a welcoming for the rest of the project and the Walled City itself.

Conclusion This study maintains that Astraki chose to locate the “Mapping the Old City” works in this particular quarter of Walled Nicosia not solely because of the abundance of disused walls or abandoned structures, or the presence of “broken windows,” and certainly not solely because her home and studio are located nearby.

172 Panos Leventis On the contrary, I believe that the “Mapping” works were created and continue to exist as acts of affection and gifts to the quarter’s inhabitants, Astraki’s friends and others who insist, willingly or unwillingly, on continuing with an urban and community lifestyle that is contrary to what market forces dictate as a future for the Walled City. The rusty signpost in the middle of the crossroads in the “Central Cluster” reading “Patience Café” seems to tell the story of the neighborhood in two words. To this study, the textual contents of the “welcoming” piece on the XenierouPaleologou stairway, as well as the chosen locations, creative process and vivid visual language of the entire group of “Mapping the Old City” pieces signify that this is a collection of works that moves beyond anticipated street art aesthetic and visual tropes, to the point that it defies any over-recognizable aesthetic value. Whether consciously or not, Astraki created an ensemble of works that is not readily con­ sumable or commoditized as instant photographic or social-media material to be purposelessly shared or replicated. Rather, I argue that they can be read as sitespecific, semi-permanent pieces of urban furniture that are grounded in their im­ mediate urban fabric and are engaged in choreographing a place-creating, localized experience of the city. They exist as unassuming but forceful protective shields en­ veloping buildings and public spaces both literally and figuratively. Their primary purpose is not to serve as cartographic aids in the orientation of visitors to the city, but rather to stimulate memory and empower local residents and citizens of Nicosia. This project builds identity for the community it surrounds, and restores pride in an underprivileged neighborhood of the Walled City and its dwellers, while simulta­ neously managing to avoid becoming a part of gentrifying forces of profit that would ultimately act against the community itself. It is lived and experienced as part of the neighborhood by both visitors and residents alike, without assuming a didactic or evidently illustrative role. It exists as inseparable part of the city itself. It is a project created along with the quarter’s residents, both older ones and newcomers, and not despite of them. As such, it is a project that can be read as an act of resistance against a future of speculation and exclusion, and an act of solidarity with a neighborhood and a Nicosia that can still attest its past and offer continuity. The “welcoming” piece along the Xenierou-Paleologou stairway was completed on the day before I interviewed Astraki. The interview took place during a character­ istically hot and humid summer day. I still recall vividly that, as Astraki and I hurried past the piece and down the stairs looking for a cool oasis to escape the heat and conduct the interview, a timid young man crossed paths with us and smiled: Astraki stopped and asked, in a series of nods, if she could photograph him in front of her mural. He covered his eyes with his hand to avoid the blinding sun and signaled “no,” but somehow hesitated to leave without further communica­ tion. Following her politely persistent requests, he accepted, gesturing for her to not include his face in the photographs. She agreed. She asked where he was from. He seemed surprised. He looked around, as if to make sure he had enough space to give her an answer. The answer was thirty minutes long. He was from Aleppo. He had arrived four years ago. He lived in a room nearby, on Areos Street. He had many roommates, a few of them his compatriots. The roommates kept coming and going - he didn’t

“Mapping the Old City” in Nicosia, Cyprus 173 know where to, but he stayed. The people on Areos Street, he said emphatically, were good with him. The city, there, was good with him. In the streets, in the dead-ends, on the humble walls, and on the humble faces of that neighborhood, he found a new home. He asked about the “graffiti” that she photographed him with. She replied. He lit up. He recognized those “paintings.” If he stood on his toes, and only then, he could look down and see the “Snack Café” mural, obliquely, from his small second-floor bathroom window. He did that every morning, in fact, as a ritual. Every morning, he wanted to look out of that window, and miraculously see his home city again—instead, he saw his new city, and her “painting.” It still made him smile. He thanked her, hurried down the stairway, and disappeared into the narrow alleys.

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“Mapping the Old City” in Nicosia, Cyprus 175

Appendix “Mapping the Old City”: List of Works Notes: Works are numbered chronologically and grouped by geographic cluster. Information includes year and month of execution, type of work and surface, and location. North Cluster: 5 Works 1 2014.04 Cartographic mural without street names on façade wall of parking lot. 9–11 Aristofanous Street 10 2017.07 Painting of concrete column on façade of “Andreas Barber Shop”. 18 Aristophanous Street 11 2017.11 Mural on storefront shutters next to “G. Koumides” store. Eptanisou Street at Isaakiou Komninou Street 13 2018.05 Cartographic mural with street names on curved corner wall of disused residence. North side of Aristofanous Street at corner with Trikoupi Street 14 2018.06 Paste-up/collage with maps on storefront window in pedestrian alley. 79 Aeschylou Street (between Trikoupi & Aeschylou Streets) Central Cluster: 7 Works 03 2016.08 Cartographic mural with street names on east wall of “Satellite Receiver” store. Areos Street at Trikoupi Street (southwest side) 04 2016.08 Cartographic mural with street names on west wall of “Satellite Receiver” store. Trikoupi Street at Areos Street 05 2016.11 Mural on curving front façade of “Ypomoni (Patience) Café”. Areos Street at Liasidou Street 06 2017.05 Cartographic mural with street names on corner facade of “VPS Studio” store. Areos Street at Trikoupi Street (northeast side) 07 2017.05 Mural on angled façade walls of “Snack Café”. Areos Street at Trikoupi Street (southeast side) 08 2017.06 Mural on west side wall of entrance to mixed-use building. Liasidou Street between Trikoupi and Areos Streets 09 2017.07 Cartographic mural with street names on corner facade below “VPS” sign. North side of Trikoupi Street at corner with Liasidou Street South Cluster: 3 Works 02 2016.04 Cartographic mural with street names on south-facing wall of disused corner house. North side of Achilleos Street at corner with Areos Street 12 2018.03 Mural on south-facing building side wall toward an open-area parking lot. 37–39 Trikoupi Street 15 2018.06 Mural on west-facing side wall of commercial multistorey building. Stairway between Xanthis Xenierou and Paleologou Streets

Index

A Tribe Call Red (ATCR) 151 ABC Arts Space 46 abstractions 23 Abu-Lughod, Janet 41 accumulation by dispossession 117 ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) 80 activism, definition of 94 Admiradores del Circulo 164 “Aeffect” 104 agalma 26, 27 Aganaktismenoi movement 2 Alfred, Taiaiake 142 Allianz Field 129 American Can building 49 Annunziata, Sandra 93 “Anonymous for the Voiceless” 52 anti-gentrification resistance 8, 91–106; catalysts for 97–102; empowerment 95–7; redefinition of 102–6 Anti-Gentrification Syllabus 83–4 Apache Skateboard 151–2 Apache Warrior 152 “Architecture Versus Housing” 81 art 9; in postindustrial cities 1–2; social role of 2 Art Murmur 40, 48–52 Art of Rent (Harvey) 115 artisanal production 27 artists 39–53; as bridge gentrifiers 8; contradictory perspectives on 39; definition of 44; and gentrification 40; hipsters, compared with 42; low-income 47; as pioneer gentrifiers 40, 41; as victims of gentrification 45 Astraki Strikes (Stella Georgiou) 13, 163; early work 163–5; Mapping the Old City works 165–71; murals in Nicosia 165–7 Athens 162 Austerity Measures (2001) 81 Autograph gallery 92, 103

Avramidis, Konstantinos 130 Awesome Orchestra Collective 49 Aylesbury Estate 86 Aza, Diana 164 B + H Chil 153 B6112 119, 121 Balliger, Robin 10 Ballimis, Pavlis 170 Ballymun (Dublin) 81 Barnd, Natchee 148 Bates, David 95 Bauman, Zygmunt 5 BBA Design 153 “be Berlin” campaign 109, 111, 112–14, 121 Becker, Gary 113 becoming-rent of profit 116–17 Belmore, Michael 148 Ben Maltz Gallery 84 Benjamin, Walter 10, 23, 31–3, 33 Berbere (mural) 133–4 Berfelde, Rabea 12, 108–22 Berlin 108–22; biopolitical urbanism in 109–14; creative city marketing in 109–14; deindustrialization 110; financialization of housing 110–11; New Berlin 110; occupation of Volksbühne 118–21; stateowned housing 110 Berlin Wall 108, 109 Berliner Bankenskandal 110 Berliner Bankgesellschaft 110 bi-communal graffiti contest 165 Bilbao, Spain 57 Bilbao effect 57 biopolitical urbanism 114, 121 Birth of a New Day (mural) 134–5 Birth of Biopolitics (Foucault) 112 “Black Artists on Art: The Legacy Exhibit” 49 Black Lives Matter Movement 2 Black Panther Party for Self Defense 43

Index Black population 42 Blaster (Eric Mattheis) 136 Bluesky, Kinwa 146 Bobo’s 57 bohemian amenities 45 border crossings 148 bottom-up culturalization 109, 115, 117; see also top-down culturalization Bourdieu, Pierre 23 Boyle Heights 85–6; redlining in 78 Boyle Heights Alliance against Artwashing and Displacement (BHAAAD) 77, 82 Braided (mural) 135–6 braiding 135–6 Brenner, Neil 5, 111–12 Bretton Woods system 3 Brick Lane 29 bridge gentrifiers 8 Brief History of Neoliberalism (Harvey) 4–5 British Hgh Commission 165 Brown, Jerry 44, 48–52 Browner, Tara 153 Buddle, Kathleen 153–4 “bullshit” objects 27 Cacao Rocks 163 Campbell, Kiante 49, 51 Campbell, Nicola 140, 149, 150 Canadian Heritage 148 capitalism 5, 21; crass 21, 32; dichotomization of 33; soulless 32 Capitalism and Freedom (Friedman) 3 capitalized land rent 22 Carmona, Susana Jimenez 12 Carroll, Luke 10–11 Cartorf, Frank 108 CCTV cameras 63 Ceberus Capital Management 110 Center for Urban and Regional Affairs 130 Change.org 100 Chappey, Frédéric 95 Chicago School neoliberalism 112–13 Chinatown 144 Chinatown Community for Equitable Development 82 citadins 1, 3, 10 civic ecology 156 class privileges 5, 6 Classic Cars West 48 Coast Saligh 149 Coke/Coca-Cola 25–6 Collins, Haisla 140, 149, 150 colonialism 41, 105, 140, 142, 146, 150, 151, 152, 156, 157 commoning 109, 120, 121 Commonwealth (Hardt/Negi) 109, 117 community collaboration 137

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competition 112–13 Confederacies 143 Connor (sculptor) 46, 48 conservative political reforms 4 “Constructing the Past” 165 consumption 10, 22–4; and capitalism 21; consumption of 42; ethical 33; and gentrification 21, 23; patterns 114, 121; see also production Convergence (mural) 136 cool-cities script 51 Corntassel, Jeff 142 Costanza Bastion 166 Coulthard, Glen 142 The Coup (hip-hop group) 46, 47 Covent Garden Market 95 crass capitalism 21, 32 Crawford, Margaret 162 creative age 45 creative city: Berlin 108–22; marketing 109–14; paradigm 12 The Creative City (Landry) 115 creative class 6, 23, 39, 44, 45, 46, 53 creative destruction 5 Crichlow, Wayne 92 cultural authenticity 156 cultural class 23 cultural regeneration strategy 48 culturalization 12, 109; bottom-up 109, 115, 117; and gentrification 114–17; Marxist human geography approach 115; postindustrial 114; top-down 109, 115, 116 culture wars 39 Cyprus House of Parliament 165 Dalston (North East London) 24, 26 Dalston Kingsland Station 92 Dalston Stories 12 Davis, Mike 5 De Certeau, Michel 162 The Debt (2003) 81, 87 Defend Boyle Heights 82 Dercon, Chris 108, 118 de-socialization of the common 109, 117 Deutsche, Rosalyn 7, 41, 79–80 Deutsche Wohnen 111 Devavry, Mathieu 170 Diehl, Travis 77–8, 79 DieLinke 110 disruption 39, 40, 53 distribution of the sensible 8–9 Dogtown 42 domains of commonality 46 Doré, Gustave 95 dot com boom 39 Douglas, Emory 51

178 Index Downtown Eastside (DTES) 140, 143–6, 157; poverty tourism in 144–5 Dray Walk 26, 27–8 Drum Circle 154 Duncombe, Stephen 94, 103 Dust to Glitter 12 Dyce, Matt 145 East Bay 45 East Berlin 110 East Hastings 13 East Los Angeles Interchange 78 East Village 41 Eastern Market neighborhood 162 Eddy, Dave 147, 152 “El Nuevo Urbanismo” 81 Eleftheria Square 165–6 Elephant & Castle 85–7 empowerment 95–7 ethical consumption 33 ethnographic interview 137 Euroméditerranée project 59, 62, 65 European Capital of Culture 58, 59, 60, 62, 63 Exarcheia 162 fantasies: of gentrified space 32; of places 27–9; valorization of labor 29–31 farmers’ markets 101 Fenwick, Sarah 164, 170 “The Fine Art of Gentrification” (Deutsche/ Ryan) 7 First Friday Street Festival 40, 48–52 Florida, Richard 5–6, 44–5, 46, 51, 86, 109, 115 Foster, Norman 64, 110 Foucault, Michel 112, 113 Fox Theatre, restoration of 44 Frankfurt School 10 Fred, Clifton 153 free societies 4 freedom 4 Freire, Paulo 81 Friedman, Milton 3 Friedrichstraße 110 frontier 40–2 Future Hackney 92–3, 94–102 Galiniki, Styliana 104 Gastown 144 “Gateway to Los Angeles” 80 Gaudin, Jean-Claude 65, 69 Gemeinnützige Siedlungs-und Wohnungsbaugesellschaft 110 gentrification 2, 6–8, 13, 24; and artists 7–8, 40; and consumption 22–4; and culturalization 114–17; definition of 41;

green 45; history 7; as new-age colonization 13; and urban dreamworld 21–35 Gentrification and Resistance (Helbrecht) 93 gentrification of memory 94, 104 gentrification of narrative 94, 104 gentrified space 25–7; fantasy of 32; and other 32 Georgiou, Stella; see Astraki Strikes geotechnics 156 Ghery, Frank 57 Ghost Ship artist warehouse 42 Ghost Town 42 Glass, Ruth 7 global cities 41 Golden Estate Freeway 78 Goldsmiths College 83 Gonzalez, Sarah 91 “Graffiti for Peace” 165 Grandeau, Alexandre 10 Great Beginnings Program 147, 152 green gentrification 45 Green Line 163, 167 Greene, Lori 130, 133–4 Griffith Park 80 Grondeau, Alexandre 57–71 ground rent 115–16 Guardipee, Terrance 148 Guggenheim Museum 48, 57 “The Guillotine” (music video) 46, 47 Hackney Council 96 Hadid. Zahja 63 Hadjigabriel, Andreas 168 Hamline-Midway Coalition 131 Hammet, Chris 22 Hardt, Michael 109, 116, 117, 120–1 Hartman, Chester 105 Harvey, David 4, 4–5, 9–10, 109, 111–12, 115–16, 117, 162 Haudenosaunee Confederacy 148 Hayek, Friedrich 3 Hazous, Bob 148 Hekkers, Melissa 164 Helbrecht, Ilse 93 Henderson, Tasha 145, 146 Herriges, Daniel 129 heterotopia 10 Heygate Estate 86 hipsters 42 Hoggart, Richard 101 “Homeland Security Show” (art and music event) 46 homeless 64 homo economicus 112 hotel murals 140–57; powwows 152–7 Hotel Skwachàys Lodge 13

Index Houle, Terrence 156 House of Illustration gallery 92, 94, 101, 103 House of Illustration gallery (King’s Cross) 12 Hoxton Stories 94 Hubbard, Phil 91, 104 Humboldt University 83 Hunt, Corrine 153 ideoscapes 154 immaterial labor 116, 117 “In Search of Sheba: Black Women Artists” (exhibit) 49 Indian status 142 Indigenous Drum Circles 153 Indigenous peoples: band councils 143; clans and kinship groups 143; Confederacies 143; cross-border territories 152–7; Indian status 142; intertribal mediations 152–7; murals by 140; powwows 152–7; Treaty Agreements 143 Indignados movement 2 individual sovereignty 148 individualism 156 Industrial Area 144 Inside Design Studio 153 Instragram 98 The Invention of Creativity. Modern Society and the Culture of the New (Reckwtiz) 114 Jackson, Liza Kim 13 Jacobson-Konefall, Jessica 156 Jemison, G. Peter 148 Jerrold, Blanchard 95 Juneteenth 51 Just Space 103 K10 Project 44 Kant, Immanuel 23 Karathanasis, Pafsanias 163 Kartographie der Privatisierung (Schüschke) 111 Katz, Cindi 96, 100 Kerameikos 162 Kim’s Asian Market 134 King's Cross 101 Koreatown 50 Koreatown Northgate Project (KONO) 51 Kratke, Stefan 45 La Cité de la Méditerranée 61, 62 La Défense 59 La Joliette 10, 59–61, 62–3 La Plaine 60, 66, 68–70 La Plane neighborhood 10 L.A. Tenants Union 77, 82, 83 labor: aestheticization of 31; devalorization

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of 29; fantasy valorization of 29–30; immaterial 116, 117; place of 29–31; places of 29–31; subjectification of 116 Landry, Charles 115 Larsen, Marco 80 l’Assemblée de La Plaine 69 late modernity 114 Latorre, Guisela 151 Lawrence, David Todd 13, 127–39 Le Cours Julien 66 Le Panier 60, 65–8 Le Vieux-Port 10, 59–61, 63–4 Lederer, Klaus 118 Lees, Loretta 6 Lefebvre, Henri 9–10, 109, 120, 162 Lehman Brothers 3 Les Docks Village 62 Les Terrasses du Port 62 Les Voûtes de la Major 62 Leventis, Panos 13, 163 liberalism: economic activity, definition of 112; ordoliberalism 112–13 libidinal map 21–2, 22, 25–7 Lie, Amund 4 Lincoln Heights Elders Resisting Eviction 82 Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change (Zukin) 7, 41 Loison-Leruste, Marie 64 London: a pilgrimage 95 London Borough 92 London College of Communication 86 Lorah, Paul 13, 127–39 Los Angeles 136–7 Los Angeles Library for Anti-Gentrification (exhibit) 77, 80, 84 Lowe, Lisa 5 Lower East Side (New York) 79–80 low-income artists 47 Luis, Nancy A. 153 Lu’ma Native Housing Society 146 Lympourouthkia 164–5 manipulators of symbols 57 “Mapping the Old City” 13, 162–73; analysis and interpretation 163–5; central cluster (7 works) 169–70; context of 165–7; eight-minute film on 166; 15 works of 166; locations of works 164, 167; north cluster (5 works) 167–8; overview 163; south cluster (3 works) 170–1 Marcuse, Herbert 98 Marsden, Sharifah 140, 149, 150 Marseile, France 10, 57–71; artistic resistance movements in 64–70; CCTV cameras in 63; Euroméditerranée project 59; La Joliette 59–61, 62–3; La Plaine 60, 68–70; Le Panier 60, 65–8; Le Vieux-Port

180 Index 59–61, 63–4; open-air street gallery in 65–8; street art protest IN 68–70; urban neoliberalism in 61–2 Marseille Cathedral 63 Martin, Lee-Ann 155 Martinez, David 151–2 Marx, Karl 29, 115 Marxist human geography 109 mass productions 26–7 Massalia 65 mass-produced objects 26 Mattheis, Eric (Blaster) 136 Matunga, Hirini 146 Maywood 83 McDonald’s 30 McDonald’s 30 McKenzie, Lisa 104 McLain, Greta 131–2, 135–6 MCM Interiors 153 McMurtry, John 4 mediascape 154 mémoire involontaire 25 “Mentirosos” 81 Metro Vancouver Aboriginal Executive Council (MVAEC) 146 Metropolitan Transit Authority Goldline 82 Michelson, Alan 148 Midway Neighborhood 127–39; community collaboration 137; description of 127–30; ethnographic interview 137; location of 128; murals 130–1, 132–7; neighborhood survey 137; spatial analysis 137; superblock in 129; urban art in 130–2 Miles, Douglas 151–2 Mille Plateaux 80 Minneapolis Institute of Arts 128 Minnesota Housing Partnership 129 Minnesota State Demographic Center 132 Minnesota United Football Club 129 Mission Yuppie Eradication Project 41 Morgan, George 152 Morghulis, Valerie 39 Morris, Kate 148 Morris, William 27 Morris and Co. 27 Mouffe, Chantal 9 MTV 111 Mudge, Kate 131 multiculturalism 95 Mural Arts 136 Mural Mile 136 murals: hotel 140–57; by Indigenous peoples 140; in Los Angeles 136–7; in Midway Neighborhood 130–1, 132–7; in Nicosia 165–7; in Philadelphia 136; in Vancouver 141; see also street art Musée Regards de Provence 61, 62

Musqueam nation 144 Naegler, Laura 102 Neel, Lou-Ann 153 Negishi, Yuya 134–5 Negri, Antonio 109, 116, 117, 120–1 neoliberal urbanism 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 110, 142, 147 neoliberalism 1, 9, 39, 111–12; biopolitical interpretation of 112, 113; Chicago School 112–13; heyday of 3; roll-back/roll-out 111–12; and subjectification of labor 113; urban 11, 58, 59, 61, 63, 64; and urbanism 10 Network of Neighborhood Committees 83 New Berlin 110, 111 The New Urban Frontier, Gentrification and the Revanchist City (Smith) 80 New York City 41 Nicosia (Cyprus) 13, 162–73; Green Line 163; murals in 165–7; street art 162–3 Non- Profit Housing Association 110 nonproperty 121 North East London 24 Northeast Los Angeles Alliance (NELA) 82 NOWninety8 80 “Nunca (Spatial Deconstruction)” 81 Oakland, California 39–53, 42; Black neighborhoods in 42, 43; Black population 42; foreclosure crisis in 42, 44; K-10 project 44; Occupy movement in 44; real estate inflation in late 1990s 43–4; robbery rates in 44; social relationships in West Oakland 44–8; vacancy rate 42; West Oakland sections 42; working-class communities in 42–3 object-oriented ontology 23 objet petit a 26 Observatoire du Développement Local 69 Occupy Oakland 40, 44 “Ode to Aphrodite and Umm-Haram” 165 Ombrière 64 On Gentrification 12, 92–3, 95, 96, 101 O’Neill, Farhad Nargoll 165 Operation Pressure Point 41 Oppenheimer, Jonathan 131, 132–3 Oppenheimer District 144 ordoliberalism 112–13 Orozco, José Clemente 151 Orwell Hotel 140–2, 145, 146–7, 149, 150 O’Sullivan, Eoin 64 other 32 Otis College of Art and Design 84 Otto, Susan 80–2 Paerangi, Ngati 146

Index Papagiannis, Kyriakos 170 Pappan, Chris 148 Parnell, Eric 140, 149, 150, 153 Partner für Berlin, Gesellschaft für Hauptstadtmarketing GmbH 110 “Patience Cafe” 169 Peace Stage 50 Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire) 81 Pepsi 25 Perea, John Carlos 153 Peyton, Jonathan 145 Phocaeans 65 Pico Aliso 12, 80 Pico Also 79 pioneer gentrifiers 39, 40, 41 Place Jean Jaurès 68, 69 places: fantasies of 27–9; of labor 29–31 Porada Design 153 Porter, Libby 145 Portico Design Group 140, 152–3 potential ground rent 22 Potsdamer Platz 110 poverty tourism 144–5 powwows 152–7 Preston, Mark 153 Primark Clothes 26 private property 120–1 privatization 110 production 22–3; artisanal 27; of bullshit objects 27; capitalist 20; creative 12, 109; cultural 12, 108, 111, 114, 115, 116, 117; disruption 53, 99; and gentrification 22; industrial, decline in profit rates of 115; of material goods 116; of spaces 120; subcultural 108–9, 117; valorization of 29–30 Provincial Homelessness Initiative (PHI) 141 PSSST gallery 84 Psyrri 162 public property 120–1 public spaces 8 Rancière, Jacques 8–9 Raven Dancer 148–50 Raven’s Eye Artist Collective and Studio 141 Real Estate Inc. 100 Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (Harvey) 10 Reckwitz, Andreas 109, 114, 115, 116 Red Power movement 152 “Red yellow and green landscape at Gregory’s stall” (drawing) 97 redlining 78 Reed, Thomas Vernon 98 regeneration 6, 87–8 Reichstag 110 rent gap theory 7, 22, 28

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rents: and capital accumulation 116; ground 115–16; index 119; inflated 44 resistance: catalysts for 97–102; commodification of 102; definition of 100 restorations 10 revitalization 6 Rhine, Dont 78, 80 Ricciotti, Rudy 63 Rick and Morty (TV series) 69 Rickard, Jolene 148 Ridley Road 92 Ridley Road market 12, 92, 93, 94, 99, 100, 101, 103 Ridley Road Shopping Village 92, 98–9 “right to buy” scheme 110 right to the city 2, 3 Riley, Boots 51 The Rise of the Creative Class (Florida) 5–6, 115 Rivas-Alonso, Clara 93 Rivera, Diego 151 The Road to Serfdom (Hayek) 3 Rock the Dog (artist) 165 Rogers, Lucinda 12, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 103 roll-back/roll-out neoliberalism 111–12 Rural Racism Project 83 Ruskin, John 29 Ryan, Cara Gendel 7, 41, 79–80 Sabina Hill 153 Said, Edward 103, 105 San Carlos Reservation 151 San Francisco, California 45 “Sarah’s Jazz Club” 170 “Satellite Receiver” 169 Save Ridley Road 103 Savvidis, Christakis 170 Savvidou, Panagiota 170 Schaeffer, Pierre 81 School of Echoes Los Angeles 77, 82–5 Schultz, Theodore 113 Schüschke, Florine 111 Scientific and Technical Chamber of Cyprus 165 Sears Tower 150 Second Nature 80 selective appropriation 153 Senate Administration for Urban Development and Housing (Germany) 119 Senior, Francis Horne 153 Service to the People programs 43 settler colonialism 41 Shaked, Nizad 78 Shirey, Heather 13, 127–39 shopfloors 28–9 Shoreditch (North East London) 24, 27 Shorty, Richard 140, 149, 150, 153

182 Index Siqueiros, David Alfaro 151 Sium, Freweini 135–6 skateboard graffiti 152 Skawa 152–3 Skwachàys Lodge Hotel 13, 140–2, 145, 146–7, 153, 154 Slater, Tom 22 Smith 23 Smith, Neil 7, 22, 41, 80 Smith, See 148 “Snack Cafe” 169, 170 Snelling Avenue 132–3 social practice art 39 Soja, Edward 10 SOLEAM 68–9 SoundCulture 99 80 Soundtrax 80 Southwark Notes 87 spatial justice 10, 10–11 Squamish nation 144 St. Marylebone Church of England School 87 St. Paul, Minnesota 127–39; community collaboration 137; ethnographic interview 137; Midway Neighborhood 127–30; murals 132–7; neighborhood renewal 132–3; neighborhood survey 137; spatial analysis 137; urban art 130–2 strategic essentialism 148 Strathcona 144 street art 1–2, 59, 61; evolution of 152; La Plaine 68–70; Le Panier 65–8; Midway Neighborhood 130–2; in Nicosia, Cyprus 162–6; strengths of 131; see also murals Structural Adjustment (2000) 80–2 studentification 86 superblock 129 supergentrification 6 superstructures 31 Supportive Housing Strategy 140 Sustainable Developments (2002) 81 syncretisation 153 talent 6 Talking to Action: Art, Pedagogy, and Activism in the Americas (exhibit) 77–8, 84 Tate Modern 108, 118 technology 6 TELEMMe laboratory 69 10 Preliminary Theses on Militant Sound Investigation 82 terra nullius 144 Terry inside his vegetable mountai (Rogers) 95 Tetrault, Richard 140, 148, 149, 150 Thatcher, Margaret 110 Theodore, Nik 5, 111–12

Thisseos Street Festival 164–5 Thomas, Samuel 148 Thornton Park 144 Thorsen, Dag Einar 4 356 Mission Gallery 78 Through the Eye of the Raven (mural) 140, 149, 150 tolerance 6 Tolfo, Gieuseppe 104 Tompkins Square Park 41 top-down culturalization 109, 115, 116; see also bottom-up culturalization traditionalism 156 Travis, Donna 12, 94, 98, 101, 105 Tsilimpounidi, Myrto 130 Tsleil-Wauthuth nation 144 Tuan, Yi-Fu 104 Ultra-Red 12, 77–88; creation of 80; and Elephant & Castle 85–7; regeneration 87–8; and School of Echoes Los Angeles 82–5 Ultra-red London 87 Unequal Freedoms (McMurtry) 4 Union de Vecinos 12, 80, 82 United Nations Buffer Zone 163 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 58 United States of Generica 129 Universal Music 111 University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) 127 Uptown District 10, 40; First Friday Street Festival 48–52; hipster trend in 44 urban art 1; in Midway Neighborhood 130–2; see also street art Urban Art Mapping Research Project 127–39 urban development 5, 6, 57, 80, 110, 128, 146 urban entrepreneurialism 109, 111–12, 114 urban governance 5, 40, 110, 111–12, 115, 116 urban neoliberalism 11, 58, 59, 61, 63, 64 urban planning 1–2, 8; “be Berlin” campaign 113; creative city paradigm 114–15; creativity in 11; Indigenous 142, 152; neoliberal 2, 3, 5, 5–6, 8; post-industrial culturalization 114; and real estate capital 117; street art protest 68–70; and topdown culturalization 109, 116 urban regeneration 6; creativity-led 114, 115; culture-led 115 urban renaissance 6, 7, 48, 51 urban renewal 6, 63, 68 The Urban Revolution (Lefebvre) 120 urban spaces 1–3, 6, 9; art’s role in 8–9, 131, 136–7; capitalist fetishization of 11; changes in 5; citadins 10; collective appropriation of

Index 120; and communing 12; creativity in 58; culturalization 114, 116; DTES 144; gentrification 40–1; neoliberal restructuring of 6; and spatial justice 10; and street art 131; transformation of 58; Walled City 163 urbanism: biopolitical 114, 121; neoliberal 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 110, 142, 147 vacancy rates 42, 108 “Valitsa Cafe” 169, 170 value system 4 Van Gogh, Vincent 95 Vancouver Coastal Health 141 Vancouver Native Housing Society (VNHS) 141, 146, 147 Veitch, Michelle 13, 140–57 Verhaeghe, Paul 5 Victory Square 144 Vignau, Mathilde 10, 57–71 Villa Méditerranée 61, 62 Vincent, Marie Pierre 12, 91–106 Virgin Island 100 visual sovereignty 148 “Vivienda Contra Autoridad” 81 Vogue’ology 83 Volksbühne 12, 108, 118–21 Vona, Viktoria 92, 103

183

Voûtes de la Major 63 “VPS Studio” 170 Wabash Arts Corridor 137 Wai, Joe 147 Waley, Paul 91 Walker Arts Center 128 Walled City of Cyprus 13, 163, 165, 171–2 War, Brian 92 Watt, Marie 148 West Oakland: social relationships in 44–8; Specific Plan 45 What3Words app 136 Whitehall 110 Whitehead, Jerry 140, 148, 149, 150, 152–7 Wiebe, Justin 145, 146 Wild West 42 XTRA 78, 79 “Yo Vivo Aquí” 81 “You Are Here” (mural) 167 youth hot zone 50 Zone to Defend France 68 Zukin, Sharon 7, 41–2, 46