This document summarizes research on participatory public art and urban governance. The research involved interviewing 10 artists and analyzing 85 art projects in Italy. Key findings include: 1) Most projects occurred in the last 4 years and focused on environmental and "subpolitical" issues. Artists worked in collectives to foster social and political change through individual participation. 2) Projects primarily used consultation, deliberation, and mobilization models of citizen engagement. Case studies in Rome and Sassari effectively transformed cities and engaged performative audiences. 3) Most projects received public funding, with differing views among artists on the benefits and risks of this. The research aims to further explore relationships between participatory art and urban governance through

1. 1
Department of Political Science,
Communication Science and
Information Engineering
University of Sassari (Italy)
Lisbon Street Art and Urban Creativity
International Conference
3-5 July 2014
To Govern Artfully
Linking public art to political participation
towards new forms of urban governance
Laura Iannelli
Lorenza Parisi

2. “relational public art”, “dialogic
aesthetics”, “community art”,
“contextual art”, “processual art”,
“littorial art”…
Jacob et al. (1995), Lacy (1995), Miles (1997),
Know (2004), Detheridge (2010).
Suzanne Lacy
Full Circle, Chicago, 1993
A study on ‘projectual citizenship’ in
participatory public art

3. • citizens’ involvement in collective actions
• transformation of physical urban spaces
• new relations with and within the places where citizens live
• a shared and alternative representation of these places and their conflicts
Theatre en vol
Habitat Immaginari - Dentro e Fuori, Sassari, 2013
Art-in-the-public-interest

4. “social movement studies” that
adopt a cultural approach
(Roth 1983; Eyerman, Jamison
1998; Roy 2010)
cultural statistics produced by
national and international
research institutes
(Laaksonen 2010; UNESCO 2012)
institutional perspectives
(DiMaggio 1986; Crane 1992)
Artistic Communication
Culture and Political Participation
beyond the traditional approaches

5. (RQ3)
which relationships between these models of participatory politics
proposed by relational public artists and the forms of participatory
urban governance and spatial planning?
(Arnstein 1969; Healey 2003; Lane 2005).
Research questions
(RQ1)
which characteristics of contemporary collective actions can be
identified in contemporary practices of participatory public arts?
(Beck 1986; Giddens 1991; Micheletti 2003; Castells 2012; Bennett 2012)
(RQ2)
which models of citizen engagement described by literature on
communication and political participation (information, consultation,
deliberation and mobilization) are proposed by artists to the active,
performative and empowered audicences?
(Hall, Jefferson 1976; Abercrombrie, Longhurst 1998; Bolter, Grusin 1999: Jenkins 2006;
Castells 2009; Dahlgren 2009);

6. a profound crisis in
traditional forms of
political participation
(Istat 2014)
a “participatory turn” in
the models of territory
governance and spatial
planning
(Ciaffi, Mela 2006).
Contexts: Italy and Sardinia

7. mixed-method approach (Craswell, Plano Clark 2010).
sources: “key informants” (in particular curators), national and
international databases and the literature review produced by art
critics and historians.
Italian artistic practices established since 2000 that dealt with political
issues concerning the development of the territory
semi-structured questionnaire (information that artists left on their
websites, online newspapers, Facebook pages)
variables related to:
_the artists (organizational structures of artists, relations they carry out where
the artistic actions take places, relations with public institutions)
_the artworks (commission and funding of projects, characteristics of the
engaged citizens, spatial and social characteristics of the contexts where the
projects took place, etc.)
In-depth interviews with Sardinian artists
Interviews to administrators and focus groups with citizens
different riflexivities and symbolic contexts (Couldry 2004, 2010, 2012)
Methology

8. Findings
10 in depth interviews
85 mapped artistic practices

9. Findings (RQ1)
• the majority of the cases took place in the last 4 years (2010-2014)
• a broad range of “subpolitical” and “lifestyle” issues (in particular
environmental issues)
• only few artworks rely on web 2.0 participatory technologies
• actions carried out by (open and flexible) collectives/networks of
groups
• shared believes about the importance of the individual
participation in a “we” that acts in order to foster a social and
political transformation
• an “affective” sense of belonging, driven by “personal”,
“individualized” ideas, but oriented to a collective cause/project
art as political collective action

10. Findings (RQ2) models of citizen engagement
information (N=9)
consultation (N=38)
deliberation (N=26)
mobilization (N=52)
informal learning (N=20)
Walls/Orizzontale
Sanba, Roma, 2014
Street art 2012
aliment(e)azione, Sassari, 2011
Pac Corporation
aliment(e)azione, Sassari, 2014

11. Findings (RQ2) models of citizen engagement
mobilization (N=52)
Walls/Orizzontale
Sanba, Roma, 2014

12. Findings (RQ2) models of citizen engagement
Pac Corporation
aliment(e)azione, Sassari, 2014
(tactical) information
Hall, Jefferson (1976); De Certau (1980)

13. Findings (RQ2) Effectiveness and active audiences
• Sardinian artists perceive their works as effective in transforming the
city by looking at the progressive scale of citizen involvement they
activate
• “Reactions” from performative audiences
• “Re-mediation” processes (Bolter, Grusin 1999) and long term effects
on interpretative audiences of their post-production mediated public
artworks
Electoral Poster
Administrative Campaign, Sassari 2014
Facebook Post
Az-Namusn.Art , Porto Torres

14. Findings (RQ3)
Participatory art and urban governance
Most of the Italian projects has been funded by public
administrations or private companies (N= 50)
Beyond "counter-cultures", deep connections with the
processes of policy formation and decision making
I believe that applying for public fundings limit my artistic vein, using a
romantic expression; moreover I think it could even be risky for us, in
some ways it can even turn against us and affect the public opinion
toward our work
(M/35, aliment(e)azione)
I like to work with public funding to create culture, citizens have to
‘dig’ public administrations in order to obtain some satisfactory result
(M/29, aliment(e)azione)
From the artists’ perspectives: different beliefs and competing
ideas regarding the relationship with public administrations
“ “

15. To Govern Artfully
Next steps
interviews with public administrators that supported these artistic
actions and focus groups with citizens
“Participatory Research Laboratories”: platforms of debate
involving different actors (artists, administrators, citizens,
sociologists, architects, etc.)
An online platform (texts, video, images, georeferenced maps)
about the observed experiences we analysed (and the future
updates)

16. To Govern Artfully
Team members
Laura Iannelli (scientific coordinator)
liannelli@uniss.it
Lorenza Parisi
lparisi@uniss.it
University of Sassari:
Carolina Marelli, Luca Massidda, Antonello Monsù
Scolaro, Maurizio Minchilli, Sabina Selli, Silvia Covarino
Sapienza University of Rome:
Marco Bruno, Stefania Parisi
University of Bologna:
Pierluigi Musarò
Project funded by the Regional Law 7/2007
“Promotion of the scientific research and technological innovation in Sardinia”