[ecrea] CFP - (Re)Visioning the Urban Imagination conference

(Re)Visioning the Urban Imagination: The Art and Politics of Redevelopment

Richmond, The American International University in London is pleased to 
invite submissions for a One-Day Conference to be held at its Kensington 
Campus (London, UK) on 14th November 2014

Over the last ten to fifteen years, London like most other global cities 
has experienced unprecedented levels of urban redevelopment. Urban 
transformations have found powerful representational form in 
contradictory images of gritty television and film thrillers centred on 
crumbling tower blocks and run-down shopping precincts, on the one hand, 
and those of air-brushed brochures and advertisements of regeneration 
projects put out by private developers, on the other. Underlying these 
images of the city is the politics of revisioning urban development, 
where the everyday life of inhabitants intersects the aspirations of 
politicians, planners, artists and activists.

(Re)Visioning the Urban Imagination seeks to address the representations 
of urban redevelopment by investigating the interplay of aesthetics and 
politics as it concerns competing imaginations of the transforming city. 
It is organised around a few key questions:

·      How do visions of redevelopment affect the socio-spatial 
restructuring of the urban landscape?

·      How do the ways we represent and imagine the city affect the 
politics of inclusion and exclusion in urban neighbourhoods?

·      Can the spaces of the urban, including walls, pavements, gardens, 
and trees, inspire a sense of territoriality, active citizenship or a 
“right to the city”?

·      What is visual legacy of mega events, like the Olympics and the 
World Cup, and what form/s does it take?

·      What is the nature of and ethical dimension/s of urban visual 
research?

In seeking to create an interdisciplinary conversation on these 
questions, we welcome papers from emerging and established scholars, 
urban planners, community representatives, artists and activists on the 
following themes and topics:

·      The representation of developing and developed urban space in 
film, television and the creative arts

·      The role of the visual in the privatization of public space and 
gentrification

·      The politics of public art and role of artists in regeneration

·      Issues of cultural authenticity and the 
reproduction/representation of urban space in visual culture

·      Strategic spatial interventions – graffiti, public art, 
performance art, Flashmobs, walking tours, demonstrations

·      Case studies concerning visual legacy in the management of 
sustainable and inclusive urban futures

·      Case studies of representations of urban based protests

·      Case studies of the visual material of urban social movements

·      Surveillance, CCTV, and policing sites in the city

·      Critical urban cartographies

·      Visualization of data, such as gentrification, displacement, 
regeneration

·      New Media heritage sites (such as Historypin) and their role in 
cultural sustainability of urban space

·      The use of digital “space” by small-scale community-driven 
initiatives (blogs)

·      Visual research methods in urban contexts and experimental visual 
research methods such as moving image, photo elicitation, and 
participative blogs in urban redevelopment processes

Please send abstracts of up to 300 words for a 20-minute talk to Nicola 
Mann and Susan Pell at (revisiontheurban /at/ richmond.ac.uk) by 22nd August 
2014. The organizers will announce all decisions about papers by 5th 
September 2014.

For further information please contact the organizers at the above email 
addresses. The conference is free and open to the public.

Supported by the International Visual Arts and Culture (IVAC) and State, 
Power, and Globalization (SPG) research clusters at Richmond University.
http://www.richmond.ac.uk/



Dr. Susan Pell
Assistant Professor
School of Communication, Arts, and Social Sciences
Richmond, The American International University in London
Queens Road Richmond, Surrey TW10 6JP


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