| Synopsis: |
Interventions is a contribution to current considerations of how cultural initiatives and interventions affect the development of cities. It draws together policies and projects for cultural urban interventions, from the UK, Lithuania, India, and North America. The authors include artists, arts managers, academics in cultural and geographical fields, and policy makers. The book has three sections: the first on policies and strategies for cultural intervention; the second on specific projects (a set of case studies); and the third includes two important research reports evaluating public art and cultural interventions in London, Exeter, the north-east of England, and Barcelona. The book presents a series of positions from different perspectives, to draw attention to these viewpoints, and to encourage debate in an area of rapid change - the cultural life of cities in the 21st century. It takes a generally critical position, and is in some ways an antidote to the advocacy of public art or the blandness of official pronouncements on public culture. It does not assume that 'art is good for us', but asks exactly what interventions in the form of visual culture might do.The answers are as varied as the places described and strategies employed in them. |