Thesis - Introduction

 

Examining Opportunities for Artists to Effect Change

in Today’s Urban Environment

In February 2013, I studied at The Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam as part of the Erasmus exchange program. On arrival, my first sightings were of the famous Cube Houses, designed by Dutch architect Piet Blom in 1984, and a large neon sign, the college motto, positioned above the college entrance stating, “I have to change to stay the same”.

 The city was alien to me. The Modernist buildings, the different culture and (given the high density of population in the Netherlands) the absence of people on the street surprised me. I felt disorientated and isolated by the scale of the buildings in relation to myself. Taking on the role of an artist, I found the map a useless method of negotiation and looked to urban wandering as a way of connecting with the city. Walking did not become my practice, but a way of informing it. For this short period of time I removed myself from the life I had lived and walked into the unknown with no preconceived ideas.

 For the duration of my studies the college motto stayed with me and fuelled ideas for this thesis.  It explores the opportunities that exist for artists to engage and initiate urban change by reflecting on the effects of alienation associated with living in today’s urban environment. The aim is to discuss how and why the artist’s involvement in the urban process, originally the realm of urban planners and architects, can be beneficial to all concerned. The question posed is whether the artistic process, with its different ways of seeing, can lead to new ways of thinking with regard to the urban experience. It examines how a consultative and dialogical approach to art-making can generate urban change through collective participation of all who live and work in the city. Referencing the work of three artists Fergal McCarthy, Francis Alys, and Marjetica Potrc, (based in Dublin, Mexico City and Berlin respectively) I aim to show how their practices activate open-ended processes in a bid to initiate new ways of thinking that stimulate urban change.

 Running parallel to this is the Willem de Kooning statement “I have to change to stay the same”. This involves an inquiry into the role of artists with regard to identity in terms of what they stand for, what makes them different from the rest of society, and why they should consider themselves agents for change.

 The main body of inquiry takes a philosophical approach combined with qualitative research into combating urban alienation.

Thesis available from (October 2014) at the National College of Art and Design Library, Dublin