Working in Place: Cultural Perspectives and Responses to the Complexity of Gentrification

Description:

Working in Place: Cultural Perspectives and Responses to the Complexity of Gentrification was a talk presented as part of the digital symposium The Region: Dialogues on the Power and Precarity of Artist Self-Organisation in the Asia-Pacific.

Chaired by director of West Space Andy Butler, the ideas that underpinned this discussion centred on the place of cultural production and artist-organized activity within broader narratives of gentrification. While artistic practice is most often aligned with notions of positive societal transformation, small-to-medium arts initiatives commonly find themselves in uncomfortable proximity to processes of extraction and gentrification within their neighbourhoods. Engaged in cultural, DIY, and practices across architecture, art-making, organizing, and gardening, the speakers—Keg de Souza, Elisapeta Heta, T'uy't'tanat-Cease Wyss, and Seelan Palay—each gave ten minute presentations on their practices before participating in a discussion that reflected on the colonial roots of gentrification and their personal experiences of change in the places they live and work. The roundtable closed with a question and answer period. 

The Region: Dialogues on the Power and Precarity of Artist Self-Organisation in the Asia-Pacific was a digital symposium, co-created by West Space, Naarm (Melbourne, Australia); Para Site, Hong Kong; Enjoy Contemporary Art Space, Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington, New Zealand); and Western Front, Vancouver, and co-facilitated by CAST Contemporary Art and Social Transformation research group based in the School of Art at RMIT University, Naarm.

Presented with support from the City of Melbourne and RMIT University, Australia.