Hos in the garden: staging and resisting neoliberal creativity

McLean, H. (2017) Hos in the garden: staging and resisting neoliberal creativity. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 35(1), pp. 38-56. (doi: 10.1177/0263775816654915)

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Abstract

This article takes up the challenge of extending and enhancing the literature on arts interventions and creative city policies by considering the role of feminist and queer artistic praxis in contemporary urban politics. Here I reflect on the complicities and potentialities of two Toronto-based arts interventions: Dig In and the Dirty Plotz cabaret. I analyse an example of community based arts strategy that strived to ‘revitalise’ one disinvested Toronto neighbourhood. I also reflect on my experience performing drag king urban planner, Toby Sharp. Reflecting on these examples, I show how market-oriented arts policies entangle women artists in the cultivation of spaces of depoliticised feminism, homonormativity and white privilege. However, I also demonstrate how women artists are playfully and performatively pushing back at hegemonic regimes with the radical aesthetic praxis of cabaret. I maintain that bringing critical feminist arts spaces and cabaret practice into discussions about neoliberal urban policies uncovers sites of feminist resistance and solidarity, interventions that challenge violent processes of colonisation and privatisation on multiple fronts.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:McLean, Dr Heather
Authors: McLean, H.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Geographical and Earth Sciences
Journal Name:Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
Publisher:SAGE
ISSN:0263-7758
ISSN (Online):1472-3433
Published Online:06 July 2016
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2016 The Author
First Published:First published in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35(1): 38-56
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy

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