Performative Citzenship

Public art, urban design, and political participation

The essays collected in this book adopt different disciplinary approaches to point out the forms of citizens’ participation developed in the field of contemporary public art and urban design. From Sardinia to Queensland, New York to Bologna, Hasselt and Genk to L’Aquila, Rio de Janeiro to Utrecht, these essays analyze a variety of projects that deal with political confl icts of the societal life in the urban spaces, such as environmental risks and immigrant populations; propose diverse forms of citizens’ participation in the representations of marginalized interests, values, problems, and needs; offer to citizens and policy-makers new ways of thinking about territory renewal; and aim to reorient the decisions taken in the fi eld of institutionalized politics, either denouncing territory governance or supporting its improvement.