Supervisor HfK: Prof. Dr. Martin Schulz
Supervisor University of Groningen: Prof. Dr. Bettina van Hoven
This research has the potential to generate insights that are valuable across multiple academic disciplines while also offering practical relevance. It provides a comprehensive analysis of community-garden-like participatory art projects, through which residents and local communities may develop the social capacity to self-organize community-driven initiatives as a form of art activism that addresses their needs and rights. These empowerment processes enable local communities to exert influence on their built environment and improve it, thereby seeking social change and challenging the status quo, which resonates with the agenda of convivialism.
Firstly, this research aims to investigate the position and agency of contemporary artists within public art practices, analyzing how these practices can be carried out within community empowerment frameworks without compromising artistic freedom. It will also address their attitude towards the reproduction of art work.
Secondly, this research will introduce a new arts-based participatory approach – the community-garden-like art form based on the theory of transdisciplinary co-production. The research will question its practicability and limitations during its implementation in informal public space settings, which include undervalued, often-unseen, indirect places.
Finally, this research should showcase examples of alternative aesthetics and cultures in urban spaces and their distinct differences from popular cultures, particularly as a result of a preplanning tool in German construction culture for participatory local planning.