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“Our community is not commodity” : A visual storytelling of subtle resistance in creative cities

Habibi, Zaki LU orcid (2019) Lund Urban Creativity Conference 2019
Abstract
This paper examines cultural practices by contemporary creative collectives in two creative cities in Southeast Asia: George Town in Malaysia and Bandung in Indonesia. The aim is to address the tensions within the narrative branding of these post-colonial cities and the disruption of this narrative through everyday tactics of creative collectives who are rendered silent and unnoticed. The analysis explores the everyday lived experiences of individuals within the urban creative collectives as a kind of community who works collaboratively as crafter, visual artist, independent library or art space manager, and graphic designer. Informed by a series of field research in 2016-2017 through a combination of ethnographic observation and... (More)
This paper examines cultural practices by contemporary creative collectives in two creative cities in Southeast Asia: George Town in Malaysia and Bandung in Indonesia. The aim is to address the tensions within the narrative branding of these post-colonial cities and the disruption of this narrative through everyday tactics of creative collectives who are rendered silent and unnoticed. The analysis explores the everyday lived experiences of individuals within the urban creative collectives as a kind of community who works collaboratively as crafter, visual artist, independent library or art space manager, and graphic designer. Informed by a series of field research in 2016-2017 through a combination of ethnographic observation and interview, and visual methodology in the form of photo-documentation, it argues that the creative collectives in the cities use disruptive tactics that form subtle resistance to the official narratives. These tactics include their inventiveness and resourcefulness through everyday creative practices, and their articulation of identities from grass-root level. The subtle resistance is evidenced in three inter-related analytical themes presented here in the form of a photo-essay as visual storytelling. These themes are disruption of memories, politics of recognition, and formation of organic space. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
unpublished
subject
keywords
urban studies, urban creativity, creative collective, visual method, visual storytelling, creative city
conference name
Lund Urban Creativity Conference 2019
conference location
Lund, Sweden
conference dates
2019-05-15 - 2019-05-18
project
Mediated Urban Creativity in Southeast Asian Cities
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
97f0a24b-79dc-4826-bcf7-4edb8a809c9c
date added to LUP
2019-05-24 12:06:24
date last changed
2019-06-12 15:31:48
@misc{97f0a24b-79dc-4826-bcf7-4edb8a809c9c,
  abstract     = {{This paper examines cultural practices by contemporary creative collectives in two creative cities in Southeast Asia: George Town in Malaysia and Bandung in Indonesia. The aim is to address the tensions within the narrative branding of these post-colonial cities and the disruption of this narrative through everyday tactics of creative collectives who are rendered silent and unnoticed. The analysis explores the everyday lived experiences of individuals within the urban creative collectives as a kind of community who works collaboratively as crafter, visual artist, independent library or art space manager, and graphic designer. Informed by a series of field research in 2016-2017 through a combination of ethnographic observation and interview, and visual methodology in the form of photo-documentation, it argues that the creative collectives in the cities use disruptive tactics that form subtle resistance to the official narratives. These tactics include their inventiveness and resourcefulness through everyday creative practices, and their articulation of identities from grass-root level. The subtle resistance is evidenced in three inter-related analytical themes presented here in the form of a photo-essay as visual storytelling. These themes are disruption of memories, politics of recognition, and formation of organic space.}},
  author       = {{Habibi, Zaki}},
  keywords     = {{urban studies; urban creativity; creative collective; visual method; visual storytelling; creative city}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{05}},
  title        = {{“Our community is not commodity” : A visual storytelling of subtle resistance in creative cities}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}