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Paper short abstract

Drawing on fieldwork in Kyōjima, a former light-industrial neighbourhood in eastern Tokyo, this paper examines art projects as relational arenas in which polarised and competing imaginaries come into contact, enabling the negotiation of change as well as the reimagining and reshaping of the city.

Paper long abstract

Starting in the 1990s, art projects have become a prominent feature of urban (re)development and community-building initiatives in Japan. Framed as participatory, socially engaged, and co-creative artistic practices, these projects are often site-specific and provide a platform for polarised discourses surrounding local issues – such as economic restructuring, demographic change, rising vacancy rates, eroding social ties, and disaster preparedness – as well as questions of local identity to come into contact.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Kyōjima, a former light-industrial neighbourhood in eastern Tokyo, this paper examines art projects as relational arenas in which divergent interpretations of urban identities, pasts and futures are negotiated among heterogeneous groups, including local residents, creative practitioners, municipal actors, and corporate stakeholders. I conceptualise art projects as relational “spaces of possibility” where polarised opinions and lived realities can meet and, in turn, initiate alternative reimaginations of the neighbourhood, its spaces, and meanings. Dependent on external financial and spatial resources, as well as (supra)local cultural and social capital, art projects are compelled to cooperate across the above-mentioned groups, making visible competing expectations and urban imaginaries – from wishes to preserve the neighbourhood’s historic architectural heritage and shitamachi identity to attempts to increase local real estate value through market-driven urban renewal. By focusing on how art projects shape and are shaped by Kyōjima’s social and spatial fabric, this paper explores how sharing creativity can be a first step toward reimagining and reshaping the city.