Discussion and presentation of the reader: From Creative Work to Creative City

  • kuda.org
  • kuda.org
  • kuda.org
  • kuda.org

We invite you to the public discussion:
From Creative Work to Creative City 
Urban regeneration, art, gentrification, taking over the city

On Thursday, June 7, 2012, from 4 to 7 p.m.
Youth Center CK13, Vojvode Bojovića 13, Novi Sad

The participants of the conversation are:
Anthony Iles
, co-editor of Mute magazine, London
Vida Knezevic, member of the Context Collective, Belgrade
Marko Miletić, member of Kontekst kolektiva, Belgrade
Lidija Radojević, Master of Anthropology, Senator of the Workers' Punk University, a junior clerk in the public sector, Ljubljana
Marina Wishmidt, theorist, London
Ana Vilenica, uz) bu)) na))), Belgrade - Pancevo
members of Centra_kuda.org, Novi Sad
and audience

The topic of the discussion is a modern city as a paradigmatic place of action of neoliberal capitalist strategies, but also the place of various practices of resistance attempts to take over the city and the creation of social alternatives. In the situation of current struggles and cultural events related to the issue of "public space", the conversation will present the connection of general trends of urban development with a set of local examples, outside the given academic and activist frameworks that limit the struggle to sustainability parameters and "real" social processes. , thus actually enabling their reproduction.

When it comes to the modern city, the processes of urban regeneration represent the main model for the implementation of aggressive processes of neoliberalism as the current stage of capitalist development. Urban regeneration is presented as a vision of the city's reinvention for the future, which promises well-being for all, while constantly confirming its failure. The optimism of urban visions that develops in close connection with the symbolic capital produced by art and culture materialized in the machinery of creative industries, is directly related to violence and revenge against all those city residents who do not meet the criteria of a new perfect world project. The fiction of the creative city wants to cover up its own ruins, ruins that it constantly produces in its creative destruction.

The question is whether "creativity" is acceptable only as a commodity, so as not to become a channel of resistance, claiming the city and "taking over the city"? What can be seen as a potential path is insisting on a class critique of urbanism, less through presenting alternative plans, demands, and sustainability agendas, and more through emphasizing the connection between theoretical production and political militancy in future dealing with the city.

The conversation was organized on the occasion of publishing a collection of texts entitled "From Creative Work to Creative City ", editors: Ana Vilenica and kuda.org, design: Demian Bern, publisher: New Media Center_kuda.org, Novi Sad, June 2012, ISBN 978- 86-88567-03-9

More information about the collection and authors of texts, as well as the pdf file of the book for free download can be found at: http://www.kuda.org/na-ru-evinama-kreativnog-grada-zbornik-0

The reader contains essays by the following authors: Neil Smith, Alberto Toscano, David Harvey, Matteo Pasquinelly, Stevphen Shukaitis, Josephine Berry Slater & Anthony Iles, Lidija Radojević, Vida Knežević & Marko Miletić, Marina Vishmidt, with an introductory text by Ana Vilenica and kuda .org.

The conversation will be conducted in Serbo-Croatian, with translation from and into English provided.

Additional links:
Information about the collection and its download in .pdf format can be found on the page:

Mute Magazine, London: http://www.metamute.org/
Kontekst kolektiv, Belgrade: http://kontekstprostor.wordpress.com/
uz) bu)) na))), Belgrade - Pancevo: http://www.uzbuna.org/yu
Lidija Radojević: http://www.uzbuna.org/yu/bio/lidija-radojevi%C4%87 and Delavsko-punkerska univerza: http://dpu.mirovni-institut.si/
Marina Wishmidt: http://www.enoughroomforspace.org/partner_pages/view/51 etc.