Konferenca Ulična umetnost in trajnost bo raziskovala vlogo ulične umetnosti pri obravnavanju enega najbolj perečih vprašanj sodobnega časa – podnebnih sprememb. V antropoceni dobi, v kateri se soočamo s pospešenimi okoljskimi spremembami in pregrevanjem (Eriksen 2016), se postavlja vprašanje, kako, če sploh, lahko ulična umetnost v (ne)urbanih okoljih prispeva k raznoterim oblikam trajnosti? Kako se lahko ulična umetnost spopada s kapitalističnim »počasnim nasiljem« (Nixon 2011), ki se kaže kot vse večja posledica podnebnih sprememb, planetarnega onesnaževanja in uničevanja ekosistemov?
Zgodovinsko gledano so grafiti in ulična umetnost že dolgo predstavljali konstitutivni element heterogenih aktivističnih izrazov v javnem prostoru, vključno v gibanjih za ohranitev narave. Pojav street arta v zadnjih dvajsetih letih ni spremenil zgolj urbane krajine, temveč tudi ustvaril prostor za nova srečevanja umetniškega in družbeno angažiranega udejstvovanja na polju družbenih, političnih, ekonomskih in nenazadnje ekoloških kriz.
Konferenca si bo prizadevala osvetliti koncept trajnosti onkraj naravoslovnih naracij in se osredotočila na to, kako družbena, kulturna, ekonomska in okoljska trajnost vzpodbujajo stičišča med raziskovalci, konzumenti, oblikovalci in podporniki ulične umetnosti, hkrati pa bo raziskala prakse, sredstva in oblike, s katerimi ulični umetniki obravnavajo, preizprašujejo in formulirajo trajnost ter njene odnose z skupnostmi ter učinke nanje. Družbeno trajnost obravnavamo kot ukrepe za zmanjševanje družbenih neenakosti in širjenje dostopa do temeljnih pravic in storitev, kulturno trajnost kot umetniške in ustvarjalne prakse in procese za ohranjanje kulturnih prepričanj in dediščine, okoljsko trajnost pa kot ukrepe za ohranjanje naravnih virov in varovanje ekosistemov.
Simpozij je odprt za splošno javnost in v celoti brezplačen. Potekal bo izključno v angleškem jeziku.
Program se bo odvijal v četrtek, 29. 6. 2023, od 10. ure naprej.
Simpozij bo potekal v živo v Kinu Šiška (Ljubljana, Slovenija) in preko spletnega prenosa na platformi YouTube. Udeleženke_ci bodo imeli možnost postavljati vprašanja prek klepeta na platformi YouTube. Spletni moderator bo sproti beležil vprašanja in jih na koncu posredoval naprej.
On the basis of the 2018 book Street Art and the Environment, this keynote explores the meaning and potential impact of a number of street artworks that in different ways address and problematise how we relate to environmental issues.
It will be argued that while, for example, information campaigns and documentaries based on research conducted within the natural sciences are useful for transmitting facts about environmental challenges, art can involve an audience more subtly on an emotional level and address attitudes and lifestyles, as well as societal, existential and ethical values. It will further be argued that this is especially true if an artwork is encountered in an unexpected setting like urban public space, where surprising shifts in perspective and meaning may open up a space for reflection.
Peter Bengtsen is an art historian and sociologist. He has been writing about street art and graffiti since 2006. His previous publications include The Street Art World (2014) and Street Art and the Environment (2018). His forthcoming book, Tracks and Traces. Exploring the World of Graffiti Writing through Visual Methods, will be published in the summer of 2023. https://streetartworld.bigcartel.com/ https://www.kultur.lu.se/en/person/PeterBengtsen/
INWARD – National Observatory on Urban Creativity, which deals with research and development of Urban Creativity, started the “Parco dei Murales” project in 2015, a program of artistic redevelopment and social regeneration in the Ponticelli district on the eastern outskirts of Naples. Ponticelli is less than ten kilometers from the center of the Neapolitan city, hosts ab out seventy thousand inhabitants, and together with the districts of Barra and San Giovanni a Teduccio, it forms the sixth municipality of Naples. Ponticelli has been identified as one of the areas of immediate intervention in the Neapolitan territory destined to stem the most urgent housing problems and moreover, it is the demographically youngest area with a high rate of non-completion of the lower secondary school cycle.
The “Parco dei Murales” program, one of the examples of operation and application of the no-profit quadrant of the INWARD urban creativity enhancement national model, is developed within Merola Park, a residential complex built after the 1980 earthquake. The program ended in 2018 and provided for the material implementation of 8 pictorial interventions on the large blind facades of the Park buildings and the immaterial implementation of playful-creative workshops aimed at the young inhabitants of the area. The program was implemented following a model divided into three sectors: art field; social field; empowerment field. Each of them is in turn divided into two elements, sometimes corresponding to actions. The art field includes artists and artworks; the social field, workshops and activities; the empowerment field, media and tour.
The intent of this intervention is to analyze the action-model of the “Parco dei Murales”, to provide a current consideration of the project 5 years after its end, identifying the effects generated and possible future developments.
Monica Mongelli graduated with honors in Management of Cultural Heritage at the University of Federico II of Naples. She collaborates with some cultural associations like AIGU – UNESCO Youth Italian Association. After one year of Civil Service for Arteteca/INWARD as Civil Service Volunteer, she did a post-lauream traineeship in Portugal with AP2/Urban Creativity. Since September 2022 she has worked for INWARD. http://www.inward.it/ ; http://www.parcodeimurales.it
In our research we have looked into street art and sustainability as it has been applied in Ermoupolis, the capital of the Cyclades. Syros, a place that embodies the different eras of cultural development in Greece, but also as an island that is increasingly recognized as a node int the network Greek graffiti, street art, and mural creation practitioners.
Our investigation of an iconic wall across four distinct time periods – from 1970 to 2021 – revealed four distinct expressions, each with its unique content and meaning. From a rallying cry for political change (PASOK SAVE US – slogan) to a rebellious denunciation of the government (ReAct Festival – graffiti & street art), from a vibrant and unrestrained outburst of artistic expression (Ermoupolis street art and mural creation) to a commissioned mural that conforms to a specific brand narrative (Onex-Neorio Competition – murals).
Our analysis of these stages offers a deep insight into the socio-political landscape of each era and how this urban wall, once an immutable structure, evolved to play multiple roles. We argue that such walls have acted as a medium for a diverse range of social and cultural frameworks, each with varying degrees of collective authorship and openness. Furthermore, we question whether such walls can act as a prophetic tool, shaping collective consciousness to either ignite or dampen the flames of change.
In conclusion, our research provides a powerful glimpse into the relationship between street art and sustainability in Ermoupolis, as epitomised by a wall that bears witness to and shapes the cultural and political evolution of the island over the years. Our findings offer an even stronger and more radical understanding of the interplay between art and sustainability, revealing the power of artistic expression to provoke, inspire, and transform society.
Paris Xintarianos Tsiropinas, University of the Aegean, graduated from the department of Products and Systems Design and Engineering of the Aegean University, in Syros. He holds a postgraduate degree in Illustration & Comics from ELISAVA – School of Design and Engineering. Currently, he is a PhD candidate at the DPSD – Aegean University.
Spyros Bofylatos is a Tutor (Research) in the Design Products MA and an executive director of the European Academy of Design. He has worked in various research projects dealing with design as an agent of change. His research sprawls around design for sustainability, craft, material driven design and social innovation. He has more than a decade of experience in design education and creative facilitation having taught in Greece, India, Germany, Portugal and the UK. https://www.rca.ac.uk/more/staff/spyros-bofylatos/
Forming and maintaining graffiti and street art archives has most of the time been the endeavor of enthusiasts, whether they be academic researchers or members of graffiti culture. Since the legendary internet site ArtCrimes until present days, a wide range of support was needed in order for the archive like this to survive and offer more than just a photo storage. What does this mean to a small academic archive, strongly rooted in the local scene, that has no external support. In the case of Street Art Belgrade and our project Urban Heritage Hub, the attempt of digital and financial sustainability significantly changed during and after the pandemics. Project based financing is never a good option on its own and it usually needs to be supplemented with self-sustainable income. Therefore Street Art Belgrade opted to move from project based to income based financing pre-Corona and found that professionally guided street art tours could become the majority of its income. This however unexpectedly changed during several years of global suspense due to this unexpected factor and instead of doing more tours we ended up doing virtual reality exhibitions. VR exhibitions seem to be the product most of the local foundations and ministries want to support without really supporting the archive. However, without the continuous research and without the proper archive it is much harder to produce proper VR exhibitions. So, in this presentation we will be dealing with the possibilities of self-sustainability and the obstacles on that way.
Ljiljana Radošević is an art historian who has been researching graffiti and street art since 2000. She is the curator of the first VR exhibition of Belgrade’s graffiti and street art and part of the Street Art Belgrade team that made the project “Art in Passage” dedicated to the blind and visually impaired.
“Art can change the world … We have to learn from the artists who were here before us.”
The 18-minute film explores Paint the Change Europe project which brought together young people and street art to explore environmental and social sustainability. During the height of the global Covid pandemic, young people in Athens, Belgrade and London teamed up with street artists, social activists, educators and filmmakers to create huge public street artworks highlighting their hopes and fears about climate change, social inequality and the challenges of migration and diversity. The power of street art to promote social and environmental sustainability, and to create a platform for young people to take action, is a central theme of this film.We hear from the young people in each country as they produce the murals – possibly the oldest form of art, and one of the most democratic – and participate in youth workshops that develop their capacities to discuss challenging social issues.
The film follows the production of these giant public artworks as they are produced while each city goes in and out of covid lockdowns. The creative journey of producing street art gives young people an artistic and therapeutic outlet during anxious times – while also connecting them to their local environments and communities. https://www.paintthechange.me
Presentation of the Paint the Change project, which was produced in Greece, Serbia and the United Kingdom, and now comes to France and Slovenia.
Maziar Bahari is a journalist and founder of Paint the Change. Maziar also created Education Is Not A Crime, Journalism Is Not A Crime and IranWire, has made films about human rights around the world, and was the subject of Jon Stewart’s film Rosewater. www.paintthechange.me
Anita Hrast is founder of IRDO, a Slovenian social responsibility organisation using research, training, consulting, connecting and promotion, collaborating with experts, foundations, organisations, governments and companies. www.paintthechange.me
There are numerous examples of street and graffiti artists using NFTs to monetize their physical art in the digital sphere. One reason for this might be the potential for a sustainable income and another that this is a a means of preserving the art in a different format. Yet another reason for the attraction between these artforms and NFTs might be that the digital medium combined with the cultural aspects surrounding the NFT scene, such as the sense of community connected to the art and tokens, also allows for street culture to be transferred with the street and graffiti art. One may think that in addition to this, Web3 and NFTs allow for a more democratic and direct link between artists who place their pieces in the street and their audiences. In this talk we will examine these background issues, and analyse the ideas and opinions of a number of street artists, graffiti writers and curators about the tokenisation of street art murals and exploitation via copyright. We will also combine legal analysis with artists’ real-life experiences to discover fresh insights into the complexity of a rapidly evolving market for street art and graffiti. The talk is based on a chapter that is currently being written and will be published as part of a book examining NFTs and copyright from different perspectives.
Enrico Bonadio, Reader at City, University of London. He teaches, lectures and advises in the field of intellectual property (IP) law. His current research focuses on copyright protection of non-conventional forms of creativity, amongst other areas. He has attracted funds from a variety of institutions, and has recently written a monograph, “Copyright in the Street. An Oral History of Creative Processes in Street Art and Graffiti Subcultures” (Cambridge University Press 2023) and edited books such as the “Cambridge Handbook of Copyright in Street Art and Graffiti” (Cambridge University Press 2019). https://www.city.ac.uk/about/people/academics/enrico-bonadio
Siri-Helen Egeland, PhD-candidate and assistant professor at The University of Agder, Norway. She teaches business- and IP-law and is working on a PhD with the title: “Issues on Copyright and Moral Rights in the intersections between visual art, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality. A comparison between the current legal regulations in the EU, the UK, and the USA”. This project is partly funded by Kunstsilo and Sørlandet Knowledge Foundation (SKF). https://www.uia.no/kk/profil/sirihelene
