These slides feature in my book tour for The Creative Underclass (Duke University Press, 2019). For more information, visit www.tylerdenmead.org.

1. Tyler Denmead, PhD
Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge
Book Talk
@tdt87 | www.tylerdenmead.org | td287@cam.ac.uk
Cover art by Sylvie Larmena

2. “One youth participant noted that challenging
gentri
fi
cation in Providence was an important yet
complicated task for her. She said that she bene
fi
ted as a
young person from nonpro
fi
t organisations in the city,
but at the same time she felt that these organisations
were also ‘gentrifying forces.’”
[The Creative Underclass (CU), p. 119]
“Did you experience this contradiction?
Can we talk?”

3. New Urban Arts is founded by undergraduates from Brown
University + the Rhode Island School of Design w/
Providence public high school students.
Mayor Cianci brands Providence “The Renaissance City”.
I left New Urban Arts as its founding director to go to
graduate school.
Mayor Cicilline brands Providence “The Creative Capital.”
I return to study New Urban Arts ethnographically as a
post-doctoral fellow through the Center for Public
Humanities at Brown University.
The Creative Underclass: Youth, Race, and the Gentrifying
City published.
1997
2007
2012
2019
1998
2009

4. In Providence, like in many other cities in our country,
young people—particularly low-income youth and those in
communities of color—are systematically denied access to
high-quality, creative, learning opportunities. This
climate, alongside current economic trends, means that
organisations like New Urban Arts are under increased
pressure to meet students’ learning needs in the arts. Our
free, year-round out-of-school youth programs are an
innovative response to that need… our long-term goal is
that young people and artist mentors work together—as
collaborators and peers—to develop creative practices
which allow them to become more imaginative, and
active, community members.

6. Monty Oum
Jamila Woods

7. “… where young people come together to make a lot,
make together, and celebrate what they make until
what they make ends upon the
fl
oor.”
Bright, E., A. Oesch, and N. Puello. We Make a Lot. We Make Together. We
Celebrate What We Make. Providence, RI: New Urban Arts, 2011.

8. “Young men and women are “homesteading"—
fi
nding
unsuspected places within their geographic locations, their
public institutions, and their spiritual lives to sculpt real
and imaginary corners for peace, solace, communion,
personal and collective identity work. These are spaces of
deep, sustained community-based educative work, outside
the borders of formal schooling.” (p. 132)
Fine, M., Weis, L., Centrie, C., & Roberts, R. (2000). Educating Beyond the Borders of
Schooling. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 31(2), 131–151
.
Education “beyond the borders of schooling”

9. Strongin, F. (2017). “You don’t have a problem, until
you do”: Revitalization and Gentri
fi
cation in
Providence, Rhode Island (Master’s thesis,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. p. 45.
The Gentrifying City

10. Luis began to notice cues for when he might get priced out
of his home on the South Side. For example, he saw what he
described as “the
fi
rst white guy at a chimi truck.”… He
noticed that the bodegas in his neighborhood, which used to
be cash or food stamp only, were now accepting credit cards.
He understood that there needed to be enough of an af
fl
uent
clientele base with credit cards to justify the commercial
cost of credit transactions. When I asked him what these
changes meant for the South Side, he said, “I don’t want to
pay more than
fi
ve bucks for a chimi. . . . I don’t want to pay
more than two dollars per pound for platanos. That
shouldn’t be a thing, you know. That’s what that means.
When I start seeing kale and cumin at fucking bodegas, I
know something is up.” (CU, p. 136)
“The
fi
rst white guy at a chimi truck…”

11. “Another participant … told me that her American Dream
did not entail a suburban house behind a white picket
fence but rather a spacious red brick loft with good city
views.” (CU, p. 128)
The New Urban American Dream

12. Ideology is always contradictory
“There is no single, integrated ‘ruling ideology’… Ideology
works best by suturing together contradictory lines of
argument and emotional investments—
fi
nding what
Laclau called ‘systems of equivalence’ between them.
Contradiction is its métier. … But, though not logical, few
strategies are so successful at winning consent as those
which root themselves in the contradictory elements of
common sense, popular life and consciousness.”
Hall, S. (2011). The neoliberal revolution. Soundings, 48(48), 9–28, p. 18.

13. “Tyler Denmead is an unusual sort
of inner-city hero… We hope that he
returns to Providence—and runs for
mayor?”
“Denmead's urban uplift”
“10 People You Don’t Know about but
Soon Will” because Denmead
discovered “more intuitive calling” to
“empower” youth in “
fi
nding their
creative voice.”
Rhode Island’s “Best Role Model”
because, they wrote, “Tyler
Denmead is still in his twenties
and has already found his passion..
Editorial Board. (2007, March 10). Denmead’s Urban
Uplift. The Providence Journal-Bulletin.
Conti, A.-M. (2004, November). Tyler
Denmeade>>Arts. Providence Monthly, (96), 19
.
Moan, A., Bodah, P., Francis, S., Harrison, L., &
Fulweiler, M. (2003, August). Role Model. The
Rhode Island Monthly, 16(4), 122
.

14. “In 1992, it was scary to stand on Westminster Street
at 10 p.m.,” Lupo said, as he described the dominant
way of thinking about Providence in the early 1990s.
“Cars would go by with four or
fi
ve scary youths.”
(CU, pp. 120-121)
“Cars would go by with… scary youths.”

15. “Our economic well-being is only one part of developing
a healthy, strong, and creative Providence. The local
creative sector also nurtures society’s young leaders,
transforms some of our most troubled youth, and is a
critical component of fostering creative problem-solvers
in our schools.”
“Transform troubled youth”
Dreeszen and Associates, New Commons, & City of Providence Department of Art,
Culture and Tourism. (2009). Creative Providence: A Cultural Plan for the Creative
Sector. Providence, RI: Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism
.

16. “Some of the artist-mentors talked about how they were
struggling so hard and wouldn’t be able to eat tomorrow
and would have to go to Price Right.
But they were living in broken down houses and going
to Whole Foods.
When I started to get to know them better, I asked them
how could they do it… How could they live like this?
How could they work on commission, give away their
posters for free, and eat at Whole Foods?” (CU, p. 104)
Would we have idolised you…?
1 of 2

17. “… I learned that their parents were there to support
them if they fucked up or if shit got too hard. They had
degrees at places like Harvard and RISD to fall back
upon.
We didn’t have conversations about how they were able
to live like this. If we did, the questions become “What
does that look like for us? Would we have idolised you in
the same way? Would we have even built that
relationship with you?”
Looking back at it, I’m thinking I can never live that
life ... I mean ... that is my life ... that is my reality … but
without the Whole Foods.” (CU, p. 104)
Would we have idolised you…?
2 of 2

18. “When articles on East Village art as a new collective
entity began to appear in the major art publications in
September 1982, there were only the original
fi
ve
galleries. Four months later these “pioneer” enterprises
were lauded in the Village Voice as the “heroes” of the
art world for their dealings on the “Neo-Frontier.”
(p. 92).
The Fine Art of Gentri
fi
cation
Deutsche, R., & Ryan, C. G. (1984). The
fi
ne art of gentri
fi
cation. October, 31, 91–
111
.

19. creative class
creative underclass

20. Structure of the Book

21. “This is the Zen Zone. The Zen Zone is the place for
you to do things when you don’t feel like doing art.
You can go in here and you can chillax, text your
homies, your bromies, your chicas, or whatever it is
that you kids do these days. Check your Facebooks.
You can just, you know, mellow out. Sit on a bean bag.
Talk. Conversate. Read books. [Lewis paused and then
began speaking more slowly, drawing out his vowels.]
The Zen Zone is more of that quiet time in the
studiooo. It’s cooool. You’re wearin’ berets and
drinkin’ cappuccinos.” (CU, p. 82)
“Wearin’ berets + drinkin’ cappuccinos”

22. “For us, (the question of productivity) was about
dealing with the traumas of confronting, for example,
the racist attitude of a guidance counselor during the
school day. We were being told, “You don’t belong in
that AP class.” We would come over to the studio after
school and we were shell-shocked. For me, it was like,
“Nobody is going to ask me to do anything here now. I
am just going to sit here and regroup.” This is a means
of survival, this being unproductive. I think it is good
not to make sometimes. It’s good to talk, and I think,
talking sometimes at New Urban Arts, that was
enough for me. Talking is just loving, and loving is
beautiful. (CU, p. 85)
“Talking is loving + loving is beautiful”

23. •Invest in education beyond the borders of schooling
where young people can sculpt real and imaginary
corners for peace, solace, communion, personal and
collective identity work.
•Address the epistemic violence and silencing that
invalidates forms of youth participation in non-
pro
fi
t education programmes.
•Counter discursive violence against racialized youth
in Development without Displacement initiatives.
•More broadly, construct social and spatial
imaginaries that divest whiteness of its presumed
and actual value.
After The Creative Underclass

24. Tyler Denmead, PhD
Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge
@tdt87 | www.tylerdenmead.org | td287@cam.ac.uk
Get a 30% discount on the paperback with coupon
E19DENMD at the Duke University Press website
(North America) and Combined Academic
Publishers website (Europe, the Middle East, Africa,
and Asia Paci
fi
c). Details are on my website.
Thank you!