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For two years the art association has been running the long-term
project Annenviertel! The Art of Urban Intervention, which takes places
in a neighbourhood around the Annenstraße, the central street axis between
the train station and the city centre, and close to downtown. Moreover,
the Annenstraße is a significant shopping street and marks the border
of the Graz city districts of Gries and Lend. The area is characterized
by a diversity of social and cultural neighbourhoods and has attracted
new attention as an attractive business location and living and working
space for about ten years. , too, settled here in 2000 and has
since then inscribed itself into the city district by means of continued
artistic and communicative activities. Alongside participatory projects
in the frame of the EU project “The Art of Urban Intervention“, the term
Annenviertel was proposed as a new name for the district to encourage
identity-establishing thinking about this area beyond the borders of the
district.
Now it is time to gather local and international players in the frame
of a conference in order to discuss opportunities and risks, expectations
and perspectives of artistic action in the public and social space of
a city district. The conference “City District Cultures. Diversity, Participation,
Spaces of Negotiation” will deal with up-to-date artistic forms of collaboration
in a city district and ask for means, possibilities and limits of the
participation of people living and/or working there and using it. Which
role can /shall art play in an urban environment such as the Annenviertel?
Or, which role does it want to play? Based on three site-specific themes
(the Annenviertel as a whole, Volksgarten and Annenstraße) we will illustrate
and negotiate international comparative examples in three conference units
on a thematically connective level.
1. The Annenviertel: Art and City District Work between Top-down
and Bottom-up
Every city has its own “Annenviertel“, where global phenomena (such as
the transformation of the working environment, migration, the top-down
call for ‘upgrading’ a region expressed by political and business representatives,
…) become particularly apparent in the local everyday life. Which possibilities
of communication and networking do we have? To which extent have the people
a determining bottom-up influence on the developments within a city district,
or even possibly can take them into their own hands? Can self-governance
be an issue? How can we approach and activate people from the district
so that they participate in artistic projects?
2. The Volksgarten: Art in Free Space: Limitation, Exclusion,
In-between Spaces
The Volksgarten is the largest park in the district and as such an important
space for leisure activities and relaxation. Various different groups
make use of this offer; accordingly, the space is segmented. Hence, who
takes up which free space in the park? Which forms of action take place
there – lawfully or unlawfully? How do inclusion into and exclusion from
public spaces work? How (creatively) do people deal with the restrictions
in the treatment of public areas? Which (cultural) techniques are available
to “simply take the space”? How can art take effect in the course of these
displacement processes?
3. The Annenstraße: Transnational Economies between Art and Kebab
The Annenstraße is the most import transport and business axis in the
district. Once it was a glamorous shopping mile but today it is characterized
by a mix of disappearing old-established businesses and new short-lived
ones, whose owners quickly change and which are often operated by migrants.
How does collaboration between these heterogeneous business sectors work?
Can the specialization, which is already visible – i.e. the concentration
of smaller more specialized trade professionals – make sense for the area?
What is the position of art and the creative economy within these transforming
economies?
***
These modules of the long-term project ANNENVIERTEL! are produced in cooperation
with:
City of Graz - Building Authority – City District Management Annenviertel,
www.stadtentwicklung.graz.at,
Institute for City- and Building History of the Technical University Graz
and with support by the programme Culture of the Europeaen Union
and are moreover supported by: City of Graz - Cultural Department, Province
of Styria - Cultural Department, Ministry for Education, Art, and Culture,
BAN, Mit Loidl oder Co.Graz, mur.at
ANNENVIERTEL! is a part of:
THE ART OF URBAN INTERVENTION a project by < rotor > association for contemporary
art/ Graz, University of J. E. Purkyne/ Usti nad Labem, [BLOK] – Local
Base for cultural refreshment/ Zagreb (in collaboration with DeLVe | Institute
for Duration, Location and Variables, Zagreb), The Blue House Foundation/
Amsterdam, Institute of Contemporary Art Sofia and NABA – New Academy
of Fine Arts/ Milano
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