Friction in the Creative City: The Case of Bandung, Indonesia

Studio 5 Environmental and Geographical Science, Upper Campus, UCT,, Cape Town, South Africa

Join the African Centre for Cities for a Brownbag session on 29 January 2018 from 12:45 to 14:00 by Christiaan De Beukelaer on "Friction in the Creative City: The Case of Bandung, Indonesia" hosted in Studio 5, Environmental and Geographical Science Building, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town. Since the foundation of the Bandung Creative City Forum (BCCF) in 2008, the city of Bandung, capital of West Java has started referring to itself as an ‘emerging creative city’. Because of the significant role BCCF, a civil society organisation, played in developing this strategy, Bandung relied far less on top-down, consultant-driven strategies than most ‘creative cities’. While their largely bottom-up engagement with the ‘creative city script’ was well-received, the practical execution of their ideas poses challenges in terms of negotiating priorities and strategies. The implementation became more complex and complicated when Ridwan Kamil, BCCF’s first director, was elected Mayor in 2013. The ensuing tensions concealed two important questions: What is the creative city? How to execute creative city strategies? Rather than engaging with these unspoken questions, Bandung has become a creative city of many definitions and strategies, while maintaining its singular brand. I explain the ensuing ‘friction’ (Tsing 2005) in two overlapping ways. First, I contrast two notions of the creative city by building on the work of geographer Oli Mould. His book Urban Subversion and the Creative City distinguishes the uppercase ‘Creative City’ (the mainstream understanding of the term) – and the lowercase ‘creative city’ (the more grounded, subversive understanding of the term). Second, I build on the work of geographer Jamie Peck, who critiques the global flow of ‘policy-fixes’ as being prone to becoming ‘fast policy’ (often captured in buzzwords), which inevitably collides with ‘slow policy’ of existing bureaucracies and power structures.   More on the speaker and respondent: Christiaan De Beukelaer is a Lecturer in Cultural Policy at the University of Melbourne. He obtained a PhD from the University of Leeds and holds degrees in development studies (MSc, Leuven), cultural studies (MA, Leuven), and musicology (BA, Amsterdam). He won the 2012 Cultural Policy Research Award, which resulted in the book Developing Cultural Industries: Learning From the Palimpsest of Practice (European Cultural Foundation, 2015). He co-edited the book Globalization, Culture, and development: The UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, with Miikka Pyykkönen and JP Singh), and a special issue on Cultural Policy for Sustainable Development for the International Journal of Cultural Policy (2017, 23(2), with Anita Kangas and Nancy Duxbury). He is now working on the book Global Cultural Economy (co-authored with Kim-Marie Spence, forthcoming with Routledge). Laura Nkula-Wenz is an urban geographer with a keen interest in postcolonial urban theory, African urbanism and culture. Her research focuses on the transformation of urban governance and the construction of local political agency, as well as the diverse relationships between cultural production and urban change. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Münster/Germany, where she also completed a degree in Human Geography, Communication Studies and Political Science. Laura recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Pôle de recherche pour l'organisation et la diffusion de l'information géographique (Prodig) in Paris and currently works on the Critical Urbanism Masters at the African Centre for Cities (UCT, in cooperation with the University of Basel).

Urban Humanities Seminar Series: Inclusive Cultural Governance: Integrating artistic and cultural practices into national urban frameworks by Avril Joffe

Studio 3 Environmental and Geographical Sciences Building, Upper Campus, UCT, Cape Town, South Africa

Join African Centre for Cities for the second seminar the second seminar in our Urban Humanities series, Zayd Minty will be responding to Avril Joffe talking about Inclusive Cultural Governance: Integrating artistic and cultural practices into national urban frameworks  WHEN: 16 August 2018 TIME: 15:00 to 16:30 VENUE: Studio 3, Environmental and Geographical Science Building, Upper Campus, University of Cape Town. SPEAKER Avril Joffe is an economic sociologist with experience in the field of cultural policy, culture and development and the cultural economy. She is the head of the Cultural Policy and Management Department at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.  Avril is an active member of UNESCO’s Panel of Experts for Cultural Policy and Governance undertaking missions to support African governments in developing cultural policies, cultural industry strategies, reporting on their implementation of the UNESCO Convention, writing and editing training manuals and recently contributed to the Global Monitoring Report 2018 on the ‘Integration of Culture in Sustainable Development’. Avril is a member of the South African Ministerial Review Panel to draft a revised cultural policy for South Africa.  She is on the board of the National Arts Council and chairs the Audit and Risk Committee for the NAC. RESPONDENT Zayd Minty is a professional cultural development manager and curator.  He has previously, since 1993, worked in and with the cultural sector, civil society, academia and government, in various leadership roles.  In addition to cultural policy and strategy work, he has curated various arts projects and festivals. He is currently registered at the African Centre for Cities doing a doctorate looking at Cultural Clusters and Urban Development in the Johannesburg Inner City.

The Integrated City: Local Cultural Policy and Sustainable Integrated Urban Development

John Martin Room, New Engineering Building Upper Campus, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

This seminar at UCT's African Centre for Cities looks to continue a set of dialogues around cultural governance and sustainable urban development in South Africa. It brings two processes together:  The Local Cultural Policy Agenda: South African cities are potential spaces for dynamic change as a result of being the nexus for flows of people and ideas. Culture is increasingly seen as significant in urban transformation.  A long-term approach to exploring innovative urban governance frameworks that forward the use of culture has been proposed as a research agenda. These speak to new national frameworks around integrated urban development as well as revisions to the Arts and Culture White paper. Integrating the Dual City:  The African Centre for Cities recent Integration and Ideas Festival continue a interest in the role of culture for sustainable development, putting forward a number of innovative provocations to address the dual city.  These included a strong focus on issues related to culture (memory, storytelling and identity), placemaking (densified, dynamic neighborhoods) and relationality (including through mobility, solidarity networks, "hubs", and the digital space). The seminar objectives Further a dialogue between researchers working in civil society and government concerned with the culture and its role in  urban transformation. To test the viability of a specific provocation - the UCLG Agenda 21 for Culture - Culture Actions: a framework for  governance that furthers the use of culture for sustainable development in cities -  against provocations at the recent  festival, and including engaging with practitioners. To identify possible future paths of inquiry and collaboration amongst researchers based in Cape Town with those elsewhere in South Africa. WHEN: 17 August 2018 TIME: 8.30 for 9:00-15:00 VENUE: John Martin Room, New Engineering Building, UCT RSVP: Places are limited. Please send an RSVP email with any dietary requirements to africancentreforcities.rsvp@gmail.com   PROGROGRAMME 8:30-9:00 Registration and coffee 9:00-9:30   Welcome, Introduction and Viewing of Exhibition Introduction.  Providing the input on Local Cultural Policy Agenda, responding to Integration ideas Festival and introducing the UCLG Agenda 21 for Culture Actions. Speaker: Zayd Minty 9:30-10:30 Cultural Narratives - Heritage, Creativity, Urban Change Working with memory and notions of heritage, building on local creativity, provide a powerful way to build meaning for citizens and so build sense of purpose. Why is this important for cities and what can we do about it? Presenters: Naomi Roux (UCT) and Valmont Layne (UWC) Respondent: Deirdre Prins-Solani (Education, Culture and Heritage Specialist) 10:30-11:00 Tea 11:00-12:00  Place Making and the potential of Socially Engaged Public Practise There is a growing need for thinking about denser, more livable spaces that are also more resonant and meaningful through socially engaged public art/practices.  How can local government make this happen? Presenters:  Rike Sitas (UCT) and Anna Selmeczi (UCT) Respondent: Brenda Skelenge (Lukhanyo Hub) 12:00-13:00  Cultural Mapping and Planning The CoCT's Cultural Mapping and Planning initiative provides an opportunity for communities to revalue their tangible and intangible assets and begin dialogues for community change.  How is this relevant for cities? Presenters: Vaughn Sadie (UCT/DUT) and Laura Nkula-Wenz (UCT) Respondent: TBC 13:00-14:00 Lunch 14:00-15:00  Closing discussion  Way forward for research, policy and practice agendas and support network.  Led by Avril Joffe (Wits)  

Urban Humanities: Conversations on cultural mapping and planning

Studio 3 Environmental and Geographical Sciences Building, Upper Campus, UCT, Cape Town, South Africa

“Cultural planning sits at the intersection of people, places and policies— It provides a framework for addressing the needs and objectives of a city’s cultural sector and cultural life including arts, culture and heritage groups and practitioners that shape a city’s cultural ecosystem.”   Dr Rike Sitas will facilitate a discussion between three panelists that will look at how cultural mapping and planning responds to different research contexts depending on the questions asked and the way in which every day cultural practises unfold in different communities, namely, Hanover Park and Mannenberg, Cosmo City and Mitchells Plain. The overall aims of this research is to unearth some of the cultural practises and narratives in deprived communities in South African cities and how people navigate and express themselves despite the lack of material resources and services. These types of research projects also help to inform policy around arts and cultural services for local government.   BIOS Shamila Rahim is a cultural worker and activist who has worked extensively in the Arts, Cultural and Heritage sector in Cape Town for the last 25 years. Currently she works at City of Cape Town as a Professional Officer in the Arts and Culture Branch. Her interests are in understanding and using arts, culture and heritage as agents to facilitate mind set change which empower the individual to voice and become active in creating positive narratives of themselves and society as a whole.   Vaughn Sadie is a conceptual artist, educator and researcher, living and working in Cape Town (South Africa). He is currently registered in the PhD Programme at the Urban Futures Centre at the Durban University of Technology and work at African Centre for Cities as a researcher. He is interested in interdisciplinary and participatory practices, and the place of art in various social contexts.   Alicia Fortuin is a Masters Graduate from the School of Architecture and Planning where she completed her Masters degree in City and Regional Planning. Her Dissertation looked at the Spaces of and for Participation in the Restitution of land in District Six. It is through this research process where her interests in urban governance, rights, community participation and healing and memory evolved. She has most recently received the Pan African College Phd Scholarship at the African Centre for Cities, where she will be embarking on a PHD journey which will look at the impacts and of land use dynamics and urban sprawl on young professionals in Cape Town.

Whose Heritage Matters? Mapping, Making and Mobilising Heritage Values for Sustainable Livelihoods in Cape Town and Kisumu

Studio 1 Environmental and Geographical Sciences Building, Upper Campus, UCT, Cape Town, South Africa

Cape Town and Kisumu are two secondary African cities with high levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality. There is much interest in developing sustainable approaches to harnessing tangible and intangible heritage to address these challenges. However, cultural heritage is a value-laden concept, particularly in the context of colonial histories and urban futures. Whose heritage matters? How can we negotiate competing and plural values? How can cultural heritage be mobilised to support sustainable livelihoods? Funded by the British Academy, this co-produced action research project will bring different stakeholders and communities together to map heritage values and develop creative interventions to harness tangible and intangible heritage for sustainable development’. This Brown Bag Seminar will introduce the project, and open up a conversation about the role and value of heritage in sustainable and just urban development. When: 10 April 2019 Time: 12:00 – 13:o0 Venue: Studio 1, Environmental and Geographical Science Building, Upper Campus, UCT

Power Talks Public Discussion

Join ACC and the Goethe Institut for a reflection session on Power Talks, a programme which explored the nuanced forms, dynamics and functions of power in creative and cultural sectors in South Africa.