The Urban Creativity Pufendorf IAS Theme

IAS theme project at The Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies.

Urban creativity is an umbrella term referring to activities within, or in direct relation to, the city. Examples of urban creativity include, but are not limited to, street art, graffiti, urban foraging (dumpster diving), parkour, skateboarding and guerrilla gardening. An important characteristic of situated urban creative practices is that they push legal, moral and cultural boundaries by intervening and exploring alternative ways of using and understanding the city.

The theme project will explore a number of topics, including the publicness of urban public space, urban creativity as a vehicle for urban regeneration and gentrification, and the internet and social media as distribution channels for expressions of urban creativity.

The project will run for eight months, from 1 October 2018 to 31 May 2019, and bring together eight main researchers, six of which are based at four different faculties at Lund University. The project was initiated by Peter Bengtsen (Division of Art History and Visual Studies, LU) and Erik Hannerz (Department of Sociology, LU), who will also act as coordinators.