scholarly journals Treegazing. How Art and Meditation Connect Peripatetic Practices as a Form of Subtle Activism

2020 ◽  
pp. 231-244
Author(s):  
Heather Hesterman ◽  
Amanda Hawkey
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Environmental Awareness ◽  
The Body ◽  
Green Spaces ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Aesthetic Design ◽  
The Public ◽  
Collective Experience

Treegazing was a public walking event held in the Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne as part of Melbourne Design Week 2020 inviting the public to lift their gaze, be mindful whilst acknowledging the garden’s aesthetic design and history. This walk created a temporary community of strangers who co-experienced the majestic arboreal canopies of trees and plants, reducing ‘plant blindness’ (Schussler & Wandersee, 1998). Acknowledging the importance of ‘what stories are told’ and ‘making-kin’ (Haraway, 2016), this article explores collaborative visions between yoga and meditation practitioner Amanda Hawkey and artist Heather Hesterman. Investigating the dualities of silence/sound, open/enclosed, empty/busy and built/green spaces as a series of experiences. The act of mindful walking aims to connect the body to green spaces; to provide an embodied experience of nature. How might fundamental practices, as humans walking individually and together in public space be potential acts of transformation, of mindfulness, and environmental awareness - even subtle activism? We argue that encouraging an engagement with nature via haptic and ocular modes of art practice and meditation may facilitate a deeper engagement with and/or increased appreciation for flora. Treegazing implicates the walkers to become part of a connective- fluidity that enacts the space not within as participants, witness nor viewers but offers a shared collective experience of both mobility and stillness with the landscape, a subtle activism that looks up and treads lightly to ‘conspire – with nature.’

scholarly journals The effect of public space indicators on the rural district’s life quality in Kuhdasht county, Iran

2021 ◽  
pp. 205-219
Author(s):  
Ahmad Roumiani ◽  
Taghi Ebrahimi Salari ◽  
Hamideh Mahmoodi ◽  
Mofid Shateri
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Significant Relationship ◽  
Life Quality ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
The Body ◽  
Quality Enhancement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Quality Life ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Life Enhancement

This article evaluates nine rural districts in Kuhdasht county, Iran, with a population of 3535 between 2013–2016. We address the following two questions: First, what are the most important criteria and effective indicators in the rural population’s quality life enhancement? Second, is there any significant relationship between the public space indicators and quality life enhancement in the case study area? Six factors, including perceptual vision, buildings skeletons, culture and communities, activities, social interaction, and the environment from local peoples’ perspectives, explained 52.6 percent of the total variable variances. The Friedman test showed a significant difference among criteria of esthetics, semantic-perceptual, and activity-based functional at the alpha level of 0.01. The fitting growth regression model showed that the positive effect of the public space indicators on the rural population’s vitality and dynamism quality enhancement was about 0.723, indicating a significant relationship between them. It also stated a vital role of public space indicators in the rural population’s vitality and dynamism quality enhancement in the study area. The most important indicators were those of economic, social, and cultural dynamism and the body and space indicators.

scholarly journals Política de la supervivencia / Politics of Survival

2017 ◽  
pp. 249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Giorgi
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Heterogeneous Materials ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Public ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Politics Of The Body ◽  
Act Up ◽  
The One

Resumen: Distintas intervenciones desde prácticas activistas y culturales en torno al VIH escenifican poéticas y políticas del resto corporal en las que se juegan, por un lado, una reorganización de los modos en que se dramatiza en umbral entre lo vivo y lo muerto en lo público –redefiniendo así el tejido mismo de lo que llamamos “comunidad”—; y por otro, indican los modos en que estos activismos impulsan una disputa sobre los “marcos de temporalización” desde los cuales lo viviente se vuelve reconocible políticamente y donde la noción de supervivencia adquiere una centralidad decisiva. Combinando materiales heterogéneos el artículo busca iluminar los modos en que los activismos y las culturas en torno al VIH configuran un terreno decisivo para pensar políticas de la supervivencia del presente. Palabras clave: VIH, ACT-UP, Supervivencia, Temporalidades, Biopolítica. Abstract: Different interventions from activist and cultural practices around HIV staged poetics and politics of the body remmant. They implie, on the one hand, a reorganitzation of the dramatization of the threshold between the living and the dead in the public space; and on the other, they indicate the ways in which these activisms mobilize a dispute over the “frames of temporalization” from which the living becomes politically recognizable and where the notion of survival acquires a decisive centrality. Combining heterogeneous materials, the article seeks to illuminate the ways in which activism and cultures on HIV constitute a decisive ground for thinking about the present policies of survival. Keywords: IHV, ACT-UP, Survival, Biopolitics.

Working manifesto/a for rovers

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jodi A. Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Art Education ◽  
Research Field ◽  
The Body ◽  
Educational Tool ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Arts Based Research

This arts-based exploration offers potentiality and theory to the wider arts-based research field by expanding and naming embodied experience as it relates to mechanical means of transport. The author dubs such a practice of physically moving the body between vast and varied spaces to be a roving art practice. She offers modes of potential, a preliminary list of protocols to contextualize a rover’s manifesto/a and ways to use roving as an educational tool applicable to the field of art education.

POPULARISATION PRACTICE OF DOCUMENTARY HERITAGE AT THE STATE AGENCY “АРХИВИ” GABROVO DEPARTMENT

2016 ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Rita Burceva ◽  
Tsvetomira Koycheva ◽  
Katia Gecheva
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
The Body ◽  
State Agency ◽  
Visual Aids ◽  
The Public ◽  
Personal Initiative ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Personal Connections ◽  
Wide Circle

The objective of the research is to describe the popularisation experience of documentary heritage at the department of the particular archive in Bulgaria, emphasizing the specific aspects of this practice in order to formulate recommendations for similar activities in Latvia. The methods used in the research: analysis of some individual aspects of popularisation of the documentary heritage based on the normative enactments governing the activity of archives in Bulgaria, case analysis. Popularisation of documents is the body of communication events, which are used to cover a wide circle of persons and institutions. It is directly connected to the social, political, cultural life in the country and region and it is aimed at the reflection of upbringing, educating, cultural, and science matters. Each department of the archive plans and implements the popularisation events of the documentary heritage separately from one another or in cooperation with museums, creative associations, scientific institutions and education establishments, other governmental and public institutions, the mass media, etc. They are initiated in order to introduce or remind the public of any significant events, processes, persons. There are varied forms of exhibition offerings: mobile and stationary, permanent and temporary, taking place in the premises of the archive and in the specifically adopted environment outside of it (in other institutions or outdoors), including in the electronic form. The archive of Gabrovo has substantial experience of work with the student group excursions from the city and the nearby neighbourhood, which require special preparation and ability to communicate with the youth, using understandable and acceptable to them materials and visual aids. Main conclusions: Despite being dully planned, in most cases under the situation of limited resources the popularisation events of the documentary heritage are based on the personal initiative, experience in building contacts and the ability to find some possibilities for improvement of this work through purposeful customer-oriented communication of the employees of the Archive of Gabrovo. It is important to use the personal connections and unforeseen events creatively in the work with the current and potential creators. In the public space the Archive Department of Gabrovo positions itself as an open institution that is ready to cooperate with all organisations and individuals interested for comprehensive and quality satisfaction of all public needs at all levels. 

Mental Health, Public Space, and the City: Questions of Individual and Collective Access

1997 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hester Parr
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Body ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
Critical Geography ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

In recent revisionings of disablement and geography, conceptions of the body, of devinney, and of the social construction of difference have been interrogated. The author argues that it is important not to neglect a critical geography of mental health in this broader rewriting of disability and ableism. Empirical examples are drawn from research in Nottingham, UK. These examples show how people with mental health problems access the public realm through individual (and often disruptive) use of urban spaces, possibly as strategies of resistance to imposed medical identities. In the second half of the paper the author documents a more collective political process occurring through ‘user movements’ which have facilitated patient power and patient influence in the places of therapy spread across the city.

scholarly journals The Borderline, or the Impossibility of Producing a Negotiable Form in the Social Bond for the Return of the Censored

Konturen ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucie Cantin
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
The Body ◽  
Social Bond ◽  
Acting Out ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject

How do we think the problem of the “Borderline” within psychoanalysis and the structural conception of psychic organization it proposes? As for the notion of a border between neurosis and psychosis that the case of the Borderline would simultaneously raise and call into question, we must rather recognize the failed experience of an internal limit in the subject with regard to the management of the censored that works and disorganizes the body in a jouissance that finds no path for its expression. The Borderline grapples with the work of the unbound drive, which is free and mobilized by unconscious and censored mental representations which fail to find both their mode of expression outside of the body and their meaning for the subject, as well as their negotiable form in the social space. In the absence of this space carved out in the social bond for the expression of the drive and of desire, the symptom and acting out inscribe and stage the censored within the public space, where its dramatization inevitably leads to a breakdown.

Liberation or emancipation? Counter-hegemony, performance and public space in Lebanon

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-281
Author(s):  
Hanan Toukan
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Performance Art ◽  
Radical Democracy ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
The Public ◽  
Popular Protest ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Set Up

This article is about the ways in which counter-hegemony is expressed in performance art dealing with notions of public space and the publics. The article examines two works of art from Lebanon: Rabih Mroué and Lina Saneh’s Photo-Romance (2009), produced and performed before the initial heady days of the Arab uprisings of 2011 unravelled, and the Dictaphone Group’s This Sea is Mine (2012), produced immediately after the onset of the uprisings. Each of the pieces interrogates public space and citizenship in Beirut in very different ways to express dissent and perform resistance. The former does so through a conceptual interrogation of public space in Beirut within an institutional set-up, and the insistence on the inability to ever represent the country’s contentious sectarian politics. The latter works through an embodied experience focusing on interaction with the public physically located outside of an art institutional set-up and literally along the city’s shoreline. By drawing on theories of aesthetics and their relationship to radical democracy in public space, the article highlights the different iterations of counter-hegemony that circulate in the work of these contemporary Arab artists to argue that, like the momentous Arab uprisings of 2011–12, resistant works of art may only be understood within a longer history of strife and popular protest in the region that have produced differing forms of dissent at various points in time.

scholarly journals Street art and mural art as visual activism in Durban : 2014 – 2017

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Daniel Chapman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Public Space ◽  
South African ◽  
Living Environment ◽  
Street Art ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
African Cities ◽  
Mural Art

This research presents the theories pertaining to the real and imagined role of street art and mural art in current society, focusing on South Africa and Durban. This research also aims to improve my art practice by attempting to apply these theories. By investigating selected activist street and mural artists and movements, I have also aimed at learning from the work of those I admire. By extending my research beyond public two-dimensional art practice into the theories of African cities, cultural studies and white privilege, I have attempted to understand the socio-political factors involved in critical art making in the highly contested post-apartheid public space of Durban. I have discovered that my own belief in the value of street art and mural art in the public space, which this research aims to validate, does not appear to be encouraged or supported within the city of Durban, at large, which is reflected in a stunted street art and mural art culture. Within the context of post-apartheid Durban, a South African city in rapid transition environmentally, socially, economically and culturally, I would like to present street art and mural art as a pragmatic and effective means of cultural response. In this research a practice-based qualitative methodology was used. This is accompanied by theoretical research to contextualize and inform the art practice. The action research comprised of artwork produced in public spaces. Typically, this process involved identifying an ecological/social/political issue which is the artwork’s subject. The combination of practice- based and action research is the most suitable methodological approach for this study which essentially attempts to uncover knowledge pertaining to the function of mural art and street art in the world, more specifically in Durban. My findings show that the foremost function of street art and mural art appears to be the transformation of the public space into a more convivial living environment. The major strategies identified in the theoretical framework in attempting to initiate conviviality through street and mural art include site specificity and participation. Despite a history of attempting to democratize art in South Africa, post-apartheid contemporary society still suffers as a result of restricting the functionality of art by continuing to focus predominantly on the gallery and museum systems. I have found that mural and street art potentially align with the informal functioning of much of South Africa’s public space, encouraging an alternative to the western construction of public space. In conclusion, I argue that street art and mural art can be used as an effective transformative strategy to break down the invisible social barriers present in post-apartheid South African cities, by repurposing the physical barriers of walls.

scholarly journals MENENTANG SEKULARISME: Upaya Membentuk Kesalehan Subjek Muslim di Banten

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 305
Author(s):  
Mohamad Hudaeri
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
The Body ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Public Place ◽  
Public Places ◽  
Islamic Movements ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moral Cultivation ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Islamic Identity

<p class="Iabstrak"><em>Contemporary Islamic movements have undergone many changes of outlook, social and political orientations. The movement is not directed to establish an Islamic state or to support the use of military forces to achieve individual and<br /> communal programs in preparing "good Muslims". But the project is directed to self-transformation through moral cultivation and ethics as the foundation to be performed in public spaces. The movement is more directed to the process of reislamization related to social and discipline practices to prepare a good Muslim. This article explores the Islamization of public space in the Banten province. That is related to the construction of Islamic identity of the body and the public place. Construction of Islamic identity of the body is stressed by obliging veils (ḥijāb) for Muslim women. While Islamization of public places is through mounting names of Allah (Asmaul Husna) and other Islamic messages in several major highways.</em></p><p class="Iabstrak">Gerakan Islam kontemporer banyak mengalami perubahan visi dan orientasi sosial dan politik. Gerakan tersebut bukan diarahkan untuk mendirikan negara Islam atau mendukung penggunaan militer dan kekerasan untuk me­wujudkan program menciptakan individu dan masyarakat “Muslim yang baik”. Tetapi proyek tersebut diarahkan untuk transformasi-diri melalui penanaman moral dan etika sebagai landasan untuk bisa tampil di ruang publik. Gerakan tersebut lebih diarahkan kepada proses re-Islamisasi yang berkaitan dengan praktek sosial dan praktek disiplin untuk membentuk subjek Muslim yang baik. Tulisan ini mengeksplorasi tentang Islamisasi ruang publik yang ada di Provinsi Banten. Yakni terkait dengan konstruksi identitas Keislaman terhadap tubuh dan tempat publik. Konstruksi identitas Islam terhadap tubuh ditekankan melalui keharusan untuk berjilbab bagi wanita Muslimah. Sedangkan Islamisasi tempat publik adalah pemasangan nama-nama Allah (<em>Asmā’ al-Ḥusnā</em>) dan pesan-pesan Islam lainnya di beberapa jalan raya utama.<strong></strong></p>

scholarly journals Influence of urban waterfront appearance on public space functions

2012 ◽  
Vol 60 (8) ◽  
pp. 261-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iva Hradilová
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
The Body ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Urban Structure ◽  
The Public ◽  
Urban Waterfront ◽  
Current Utilization ◽  
The City ◽  
Natural Component

Although the issue of urban waterfront is not entirely new, it still represents a very vivid topic. Urban waterfronts have for long been standing in the forefront of many architects and organizations, who are aware of their value and the potential a watercourse carries within the urban interior. A watercourse is an interconnecting element between the urban development and the surrounding countryside and urban waterfronts are the intermediaries of communication. It is exactly in their area where the city - a purely human product with an inner structure and order defined by humans - meets the element of water, which is a purely natural component.What influences the urban structure most is, however, the presence of water in its very basic form i.e. in the form of a river. Its significance and effect on the public space and the inner relations within the body of the settlement vary with the size and the width of the flow, character of the waterfront, architectural layout of the riverbanks and its current utilization. Urban river works as a communication element which meets with the natural features. It seems to be unnatural to define a waterfront space like mono-functional site. This space denies the very essence of the waterfront and the city’s inhabitants appear as unattractive. In this case the very attractive element of water is unable to urban residents to attract together. In general, the quality of the public space is determined by the degree of its utilization by a wider group of inhabitants. It is the inhabitants themselves who imprints the concept of a public space to empty urban spaces.The present form of urban waterfronts is a result of the historical development, attitude and mental state of the society. The architectural appearance of not only the waterfront but also all public spaces is a reflection of the current social values. It gives evidence about the character of the society, the present economic system, the state and thinking of the contemporary era.

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