Art and public space. Reflections on a global north/south dichotomy

Abstract

Much of the studies related to cultural and artistic manifestations in public spaces, as well as contemporary criteria that give importance to the development of the human dimension in city planning, are based on the epistemology of the global north, from a primarily European and north american academic tradition. Some conditions of public scenarios for art are studied, some common and others disparate, as different as the geographies and territories that host them, which are a reflection of socio-economic realities. The aim is to vindicate Lefebvre and others contemporary authors´ discourses in the critical sense of the role of the urban in the face of neoliberal hegemonies and in favor of a utopian sentence that involves and emphasizes the social construct, as well as the capacities of art in the daily processes of transformation and development of public space conceived, practiced and imagined, in experiential-artistic terms of social transformation. Some frameworks are addressed, such as the New Urban Agenda promulgated by the United Nations (2020), those derived from the Habitat International Coalition (HIC) and the contribution towards Sustainable Development Goal 11 “Sustainable cities and communities”. Also basic to this study are the thoughts of authors such as Harvey, Soja, Delgado, Wallerstein and Dussel among others, for the analysis of the most evident dichotomies between the global north and south and its relationship with the city and public space.