An urban politics of subversive creativity: Architecture, objects and the urban terrain Seminar

Event details

The role of creativity within geographical inquiry to date has enriched scholarly analysis. The ‘creative turn’ has articulated how geographers can adopt creative practices to further explore and articulate the subjectivities of the geographical imagination. Yet, creativity as a characteristic, if utilized more radically and ontologically, can offer far more theoretical and political utility, particularly within the urbanization discourses. Moreover, creativity can be theorized less as an act which creates innovations to existing (often hegemonic) structures of the neoliberal city, but more as an emancipating politics of rupture, subversion and reappropriation. This paper intertwines theoretical threads from critical social theory and the metaphysics of objects to argue that creativity is a fundamental political characteristic in that it creates new subjectivities and urban spatial politics that are as yet unrealized. Using examples from some of London's activist and architectural groups, I explore the politics of using the fabric of the city more subversively.