This book offers an empirically-grounded account of the emergence and political activities of a new collective actor in Berlin’s art field. Investigating the organizational and representative practices of Koalition der Freien Szene (Coalition of the Independent Scene) – a trans-disciplinary action platform assembling a wide variety of cultural producers in Berlin – the author unpacks the political organization of one of the most compelling contemporary art scenes, or ‘creative’ cities, worldwide, analysing both its concrete policy ‘success’ and the means by which it seeks to challenge and rearticulate the meaning of Berlin as a ‘creative’ city from the producers’ point of view. The book thus opens new opportunities for long-term transformations of the cultural political field. Theoretically sophisticated and based on empirical material including interviews with spokespeople and cultural administrators, Agonistic Articulations in the ‘Creative’ City presents a unique conceptualization of new modes of political collectivization, representation and legitimacy that imagine new avenues of political engagement at a time when political institutions, parties and regimes of representation are in crisis. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology, political science and urban studies with interests in social movements and cultural activism.

An alternative history of art in Berlin, detaching artistic innovation from art world narratives and connecting it instead to collective creativity and social solidarity. In pre- and post-reunification Berlin, socially engaged artists championed collective art making and creativity over individual advancement, transforming urban space and civic life in the process. During the Cold War, the city’s state of exception invited artists on both sides of the Wall to detour from artistic tradition; post-Wall, art became a tool of resistance against the orthodoxy of economic growth. In Free Berlin, Briana Smith explores the everyday peculiarities, collective joys, and grassroots provocations of experimental artists in late Cold War Berlin and their legacy in today’s city. These artists worked intentionally outside the art market, believing that art should be everywhere, freed from its confinement in museums and galleries. They used art as a way to imagine new forms of social and creative life. Smith introduces little-known artists including West Berlin feminist collective Black Chocolate, the artist duo paint the town red (p.t.t.r), and the Office for Unusual Events, creators of satirical urban political theater, as well as East Berlin action art and urban interventionists Erhard Monden, Kurt Buchwald, and others. Artists and artist-led urban coalitions in 1990s Berlin carried on the participatory spirit of the late Cold War, with more overt forms of protest and collaboration at the neighborhood level. The temperament lives on in twenty-first century Berlin, animating artists’ resolve to work outside the market and citizens’ spirited defenses of green spaces, affordable housing, and collectivist projects. With Free Berlin, Smith offers an alternative history of art in Berlin, detaching artistic innovation from art world narratives and connecting it instead to Berliners’ historic embrace of care, solidarity, and cooperation.

This book asks how thinking, governing, performing, and producing the urban differently can assist in enabling the creation of alternative urban futures. It is a timely response to the ongoing crises and pressing challenges that inhabitants of cities, towns, and villages worldwide are faced with in the midst of what has been widely dubbed as ‘an urban age’. Starting from the premise that current urban development patterns are unsustainable in every sense of the word, the book explores how alternative patterns can be pursued by the wide variety of actors – from governments and international institutions to slum-dwellers and social movements – involved in the on-going production of our shared urban condition. The challenges addressed include exclusion and segregation; persisting poverty and increasing inequality; urban sprawl and changing land use patterns; and the spatial frames of urban policy. As such the book appeals to urban scholars, policy makers, activists, and others concerned with shaping the future of our cities and of urban life in general. Additionally, it is of interest to students in urban planning, architecture and design, human geography, urban sociology, and related fields.

To date, research into urban economics, regional science and economic geography has predominantly focused on the firm and industry as the key units of analysis in order to understand economic development; however, the past few decades have seen a growing interest in the role played by talent in the knowledge economy. This book provides an essential overview of the skills revolution. It presents key milestones of the changes in economic development in the past few decades and explains the motivation behind the rise of talent, as well as its importance for cities and economies. It also offers advice on how to attract and manage talent – a major determinant of competitiveness for countries and regions around the world. In closing, the book explains the underlying theories and provides practical examples for students, researchers and practitioners alike.

Julie Ren investigates the motivations and practices of making art spaces in Beijing and Berlin to engage with comparative urbanism as a framework for doing research, beyond its significance as a critical intervention. Across vastly different contexts, where universal theories of modernity or development seem increasingly misplaced, she innovatively explores the ways that art spaces employ creative capital to sustain themselves in a competitive urban landscape. She shows how these art spaces are embedded within a politics of aspiration and demonstrates that aspiration is an important lens through which to understand the nature of, and possibilities for, urban change.

This book investigates the role of arts practitioners in cultural policy-making, challenging the perception that arts practitioners have little or no involvement in policy and seeking to discover the extent and form of their engagement. Examining the subject through a case-study of playwriting policy in England since 1945, and paying particular attention to playwrights’ organisations and their history of self-directed activity, the book explores practitioners’ participation in cultural policy-making, encompassing both “invited” and “uninvited” interventions that also weave together policy activity and creative practice. It discusses why their involvement matters, and argues that arts practitioners and their organisations can be understood as participants in civil society whose policy activity contributes to the maintenance and enlargement of democratic practices and values.

An Open Access edition will be available on publication. The murder of George Floyd in 2020, the renewed international take up of the cry Black Lives Matter and the subsequent toppling of a statue commemorating slave-merchant-turned-philanthropist Edward Colston in Bristol provoked urgent questions on memorialisation, white privilege, social justice and repair. Debates on how legacies of colonialism and empire in Britain should be addressed spilled out of the scholarly world into the public discourse. In the immediate wake of the statue toppling this book offers a unique, distinctive and timely contribution to those debates: a series of voices and experiences are offered as critical commentaries and accounts of recent interventions on an official heritage narrative. It sets out to break the ‘dead silence’, by bringing together diverse perspectives from academics, artists, activists, heritage professionals and tourist guides. The book offers fresh insights, referencing work attending to the impacts and legacies of colonisation primarily in Bath and Bristol, augmented with comparative contributions from Lancaster and Mexico offering significant and pertinent resonances. A range of strategies are explored towards enabling silenced voices to be heard and engage in conversations about how the past is represented, including Co-Creation, new agonistic museum practices, innovative creative and somatic approaches.