Annual-Report-2019

ART AND THE CITY: URBAN SPACE, ART AND SOCIAL
MOVEMENTS
Human & Social Sciences 2019
104
Dr Tijen Tunali
LE STUDIUM Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Research Fellow
Smart Loire Valley General Programme
From: University of New Mexico - US
In residence at: CItés, TERritoires,
Environnement et Sociétés (CITERES) - Tours
Nationality: Turkish
Dates: September 2018 to August 2019
I received my PhD in art history and criticism from
the University of New Mexico in 2015. I have a
MA degree in art history and visual studies from
the University at Buffalo, a BA degree in fine
arts (painting) from the Binghamton University
and a BS degree in Economics from the Istanbul
University. My work is published in peer-reviewed
journals of various, and in volumes by Routledge,
Palgrave Macmillan, and the Liverpool University
Press. I have also published extensively in highimpact
peer-reviewed journals in English, Spanish
and Turkish (French on the way). I have presented
my work at over 20 international conferences
around the world. I have received competitive
fellowship and scholarships such as AIAS/ Marie
Curie COFUND Postdoctoral Research Fellowship,
Phyllis Muth Scholarship for Fine Arts, and Terra
Foundation’s Curatorial Grant, Dissertation
Fellowship of Latin American and Iberian Institute
of the University of New Mexico.
Dr Gülçin Erdi Lelandais
Host scientist
I received my PhD in Sociology in 2006 from the
Institute of Advanced Studies on Social Sciences in
Paris. I have served as lecturer and researcher at
different universities in France and spent time as
a Marie Curie Research Fellow in the Framework
FP7 of European Commission at the Department of
Politics and International Studies at the University
of Warwick. I’m currently a permanent CNRS
Researcher at the Center for Research on Cities,
Territories, Environment and Societies ‘CITERES)
at the University of Tours and scientific secretary
of CNRS’s research cluster «Spaces, Territories
and Society». My research focuses on the analysis
of contentious politics, spatial configurations,
everyday resistance practices inside the city and
urban transformation. I’ve published several
articles in journals, such as International Journal
of Urban and Regional Research and Citizenship
Studies.
The research project pursued the following scientific goals:
1. To examine how the spatial and aesthetic urgencies of the Western
capitalist city produced exclusionary planning processes, through
the fragmentation of urban space and how that have influenced
contemporary art’s production.
2. To test the hypothesis that the shared and active interactions
between the urban dwellers and art can subvert the authoritative and
conservative logic and pattern - a possible aid for democratic politics.
For this, it analyzes how the artistic interventions shape our perceptual
and sensual encounters with the city.
3. To capture the aesthetic struggles in the urban social movements from
the point of antagonistic aesthetics that creates the basis for envisaging
participatory democracy. With researcher’s conceptualization of
“carnival aesthetics,” the aim is to construct a compelling ground
for the intersection of aesthetics and politics through and beyond the
existing approaches to “protest art,” and “political art.”
4. To introduce humanities perspective of the aesthetic contestations
in the research of urban space, which addresses art as a specified
and privileged aesthetic practice that sits in the intersections between
cultural practices and social terrain of conflict. This research combines
humanities and social science methods to close the gap and as such
uses empirical data to extend the aesthetic enquiry rather than
superseding or supplanting it.
5. To untangle the methodological problem: How can the inherent value
of aesthetic practice be acknowledged in social science research that
attempts to wrench an effective response into a reflective space where
it can be ‘made sense of’?
After one year of active research and activities in Tours, achievements to
date are:
1. Critiqued conventional approaches on art’s relationship to urban
space.
2. Reconsidered the interrelationships between theories of art’s political
function and politics of aesthetics, on equal terms.
3. Provided a useful resource to provoke discussion on art, city and the
urban environment.
4. Encouraged an interdisciplinary approach to the discussion of
hegemonic and counter-hegemonic urban aesthetics in the changing
neoliberal urban landscape.
5. Theorized on the emancipatory potential of art.
6. Answered the main research question: What kind of political and
aesthetic possibilities could emerge in the intersection of the spatial,
aesthetical and dialogical premises of art and the ideological and
economic premise of neoliberal urbanism?
7. Published and presented extensively on aesthetic struggles in the
urban social movements.