urban matters

www.urban-matters.org presents

Artistic-urbanistic strategies, (public) art projects, urban interventions, programs and organizations of diverse cultural and geopolitical backgrounds worldwide for locating and connecting urgent urban issues, discussing critical and innovative approaches, and analyzing urban tools and methods at the intersection of art, urban planning, critical political involvement and theory for employing new artistic-urbanistic methods in a process orientated urban planning.

In particular, urban-matters.org investigates the potential of “unplanning” as a possible new strategy for dealing with today’s urban challenges. “Planning” seems no more to be an adequate response to today’s challenges of a multilayered society permanently on the move. Especially during the last decade many projects and initiatives have been developed by urban practitioners (architects, urbanists, artists, and experts from diverse backgrounds) for engaging in producing projects for a more just society by counteracting neoliberal economy, which is still the driving force for urban development. Yet, these projects continue to be a parallel production to conventional planning methods which are still predominantly investor-orientated.
How can we develop new visions for urban and regional matters – counteracting the dominant pragmatics of neoliberal economy?

www.urban-matters.org aims at
a new positioning of artistic practices, exploring the diverse and often conflictual interests involved in urban matters as potential for a new transdisciplinary role: the urban practitioner. www.urban-matters.org also serves as information platform for current urbanistic issues between research, theory and practice, transferring the experience of specific local, urban and regional contexts and their issues of public space and society, to other specific contexts worldwide. Therefore the projects also point out the specific urban, political-societal context and issues they address.

www.urban-matters.org invites
practitioners and theorists to contribute to this platform:

www.urban-matters.org collects information and data of public art organizations, institutions, biennials, as well as projects or initiatives by individuals, dealing with urban issues, in order to create a complex and comprehensive overview from the perspective of various and transdisciplinary backgrounds like artists, architects, urban designers, sociologists, theoreticians. We are especially looking for projects/ initiatives exploring critical artistic and spatial strategies (see Jane Rendell) reconsidering and counteracting the principles of decision-making currently dictated by neoliberal economic interests, for establishing innovative methods of urban planning as major element for producing a more just society.

If you would like to contribute please contact Barbara Holub:
holub@transparadiso.com