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BLINK Margate: urban renewal, place and performance

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 14:12 authored by Jason PriceJason Price
Over the last thirty years arts activities have increasingly become a key component of urban regeneration and tourist redevelopment schemes. The ubiquity of arts programmes in this context suggests that they can play a meaningful role in the redevelopment of an area, and yet a methodology for studying the impacts these events have on the individual and their community remains undeveloped. This paper seeks to add to the discussion of the value of public arts practices by examining BLINK Margate, a site-specific public performance produced by Brighton-based production company McMcArts and Canterbury Festival, in partnership with close to a dozen arts, education and government agencies. The performance was a collaboration between Wayne McGregor and Random Dance, German spectacle ensemble Pan.Optikum, digital sound artist Scanner, and approximately 60 local people from the seaside town of Margate in Kent. BLINK was designed to complement an ongoing regeneration scheme by providing creative and professional development opportunities for local people that might catalyse future arts projects, thereby establishing a creative legacy. In this paper, the author considers the process for making BLINK and theorises the impact that site-specific public art projects like it can have on communities undergoing urban regeneration. Informed by Michele de Certeau’s and Marc Augé’s concepts of space, place and non-place, it is argued that, by inviting spectators to practice spaces differently, public artworks, including performances, may result is ‘perceptual shifts’ that can contribute to a redefinition of the underlying meanings given to a place. In this way, arts practices are shown to be a useful companion to urban regeneration and place re-making.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Contemporary Theatre Review

ISSN

1048-6801

Publisher

Routledge

Issue

3

Volume

23

Page range

411-420

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2013-03-18

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    University of Sussex (Publications)

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