Author ORCID Identifier
0000-0002-0807-846
Document Type
Book Chapter
Disciplines
Cultural and economic geography, Urban studies (Planning and development)
Abstract
Arts festivals are important forms of cultural production and consumption (Négrier 2015). Irrespective of genre (e.g., visual arts, music or film) and whether single or multidisciplinary, their primary endeavour is to engage people in the making, showcasing and performance of art. Yet arts festivals do not necessarily receive recognition or attention based on their cultural attributes alone. Festivals and events have become “central to entrepreneurial cities’ efforts to generate commerce, regenerate place and stand out on the highly competitive global stage” (Quinn et al. 2020, 1875). Along with arts and cultural activities more generally, recent decades have seen cities use them to “lure… consumption, property development, and knowledge industries” (Grodach 2017, 89) as a means of addressing social and economic urban problems. Inspired by neoliberal, creative-city style thinking, arts festivals now commonly feature on urban policy agendas the world over, with several researchers highlighting the prevalence of festivalisation processes as “entire cities have transformed themselves into major stages for a continual stream of events” (Richards & Palmer 2010, 2).
In light of the above, this chapter asks how arts festivals can be understood in terms of cultural infrastructure? Posing this question is timely because the idea of social gatherings for cultural purposes, especially in conventional, indoor venues like theatres and concert halls has become inordinately problematic because of pandemic-related public health and safety concerns. There is a sense that we must find new ways of socialising without fear, and of reconfiguring social spaces to alleviate health risks and anxieties about being in proximity with others. The temporal and spatial flexibility and agility of arts festivals make them well placed to experiment with different ways of bringing people together to encounter art and culture. For this reason alone, the infrastructure of urban arts festivals needs to be better understood.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.4688122.18
Recommended Citation
Quinn, Bernadette, "Embodying Arts Festivals as Infrastructural Transformation of Places" (2023). Books/Book chapters. 10.
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/diraabk/10
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Publication Details
https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.4688122
doi:10.2307/jj.4688122.18