Abstract:

URBAN THINKERS CAMPUS
The City We Need: Open for Art
18th-20th of February 2016, Alghero, Sardinia, Italy

In the wide framework of the Habitat III campaign “Toward a New Urban Agenda”, we are pleased to announce the thematic Urban Thinkers Campus ”The City We Need: Open for Art”, which will be held in Alghero, Italy, from the 18th to the 20th of February 2016.

The Urban Thinkers Campus is an initiative of UN-Habitat’s World Urban Campaign, conceived as an open space for critical exchange among urban actors who believe that urbanization is an opportunity which can lead to positive transformations.

The 28 Urban Thinkers Campuses taking place worldwide between June 2015 and February 2016, aim to solicit inputs into the New Urban Agenda – the main outcome document of the Habitat III conference to be held in Quito, Ecuador in October 2016.

The Urban Thinkers Campus “The City We Need: Open for Art” will focus on the relationship between art, city life and urban environment.

The structure of the meeting follows the Urban Thinkers Campus model as defined by UN-Habitat, including constituent groups sessions, creative labs, and thematic debates.

The Urban Thinkers Campus “The City We Need: Open for Art” will also host an academic session dedicated to scholars and academics investigating the complex relation between art and the city.

Academics are invited to submit original papers to be presented at the academic session.

***CALL FOR PAPERS***

We invite your submission of abstracts of no more than 300 words for initial consideration. Abstracts will be reviewed by a qualified panel of referees. If your abstract is selected, you will be asked to submit a full paper of between 3,000 and 6,000 words for the conference proceedings, accompanied by an oral presentation (with slides if desired) of 15 minutes.
We encourage the authors to relate their papers on the main desired result of The Urban Thinkers Campus: a mutual, comprehensive document with argumentation and recommendations for the “Habitat III New Urban Agenda” related to the new role of art, particularly public art in the future of the City we Need.

Accordingly, it is recommended (but not required) that papers position their contents in the following areas:
SCIENCE: Advancing New Theoretical Insights and Opportunities for Growing the Impacts of (Public) Art in Public Realm;
POLICY: Removing Barriers and Inserting Reforms to Promote a Stronger Impacts of (Public) Art in Public Life;
PRACTICE: Advancing New Tools and Models for Public Art and Placemaking;
CIVIL SOCIETY: Organizing Groups and Strategies to Achieve the Needed Changes.

The sessions of the conference will focus on the following topics:
– Art and urban planning;
– Art, architecture and urban design;
– Art and urban sociology;
– Art and economy;
– Art and city representation;
– Art critic and history of art;
a special session will be dedicated to Urban regeneration starting from inhabitants: instruments, methods and processes.

The participants, the “urban thinkers”, are welcome from the fields of study of will be encouraged to discuss on the following sub-topics:
– Art for all
– Right to the art
– Art-City policies
– Art and place (art as the placemaking practice)
– Capacity, capability and limits of public art
– Art-driving City (art as a driver of urban prosperity)
– Art as a trigger of urban change
– Art and community (social needs, social dynamics and social values)
– City as “oeuvre”
– Urban Artvironment
– Public Art and Public Space (Public Realm)
– Living-Art-City
– Artworks networks
– Value of (Public) Art
– (Public) Art and local economy
– Art and City Identity
– City Artvertizing
– The image of the city
– Art and the City of success
– Performing (in the) public space
– (Public) art practices

Authors are invited to submit their abstracts (no more than 300 words, on one page, including author(s)’ name and contact information at the top of the page) to call@openforart.eu before 21th December 2015.

PUBLICATIONS (academic session)
Abstracts will be reviewed by a qualified panel of referees. The accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings (book with ISBN).
Selected papers will be invited to participate in a second round of peer review for a special issue of an international journal.