Public art and community building are now a prominent discipline. The shaping and presentation of community landscapes and public art reflect the realistic demands of the quality of life of citizens, and they are increasingly concerned by society. British sociologist Anthony Giddens argues that community not only means rediscovering lost forms of local solidarity, but it is also a viable way to promote social and material recovery in streets, towns and larger local areas. The intervention of art in the community goes beyond the significance of the general beautification of the visual environment, but also emphasizes and strengthens the participation of community residents in public affairs and public culture, which is beneficial to enhancing the height of urban spiritual civilization and building urban soft power.
However, the intervention of art in the community should not only be a pop-up show in which the artists are not grounded under the slogan of art, but also a real aesthetic practice that digs deep into resources and mobilizes residents. How to look at such aesthetic practices in a simple and in-depth way?
Illustration: Urban Micro-renewal Infographic (the same below)
Resident participation
The common participation of residents is an important indicator of the publicity of art intervention in the community, which is also a value that can be revealed in the public meaning of public art. As an urban life form and social cell of geographical concern, the construction of the living environment and cultural atmosphere identified by the community members is the basis for artistic intervention, so it is necessary to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of local residents to participate together, thus reflecting the centripetal force and communion of the connection between the community and art.
At present, a variety of community-based public art activities are booming, and new types of public art such as various community art galleries, community gardens, and artists' local creations are emerging in an endless stream. Such as "Walking Shanghai - Community Micro-renewal Plan", Chuangzhi Farm, etc. In fact, as early as 2009, Caoyang Village in Shanghai opened a series of public art activities with the theme of community life and cultural life. During this period, under the premise of visiting and understanding the community in advance, the artist not only designed and created facilities such as drying racks, railings and guides in the lives of community residents to improve the community environment, but also stimulated the public participation of residents in the way of close to the lives and psychological demands of community residents, such as showing the residents' desire for a better life at the "Quilt Exhibition", and writing on the sheets "civilized parking cars", "cherishing green spaces", "rebuilding old houses" and other different demands.
Similarly, there are similar cases abroad. The case of public art in the Haitamanis neighborhood of Havana, Cuba, has attracted considerable attention. Jose Foster is a local ceramic artist who brought art into his community in 1996. Foster covers his cabin with ceramic mosaics. Every wall, every door and window, and even the roof was decorated with sparkle, and some were converted into sculptures. Foster's neighbors were infected by his actions and asked him one after another to decorate his home in a unique way and to work together on the creation. With his efforts, the living environment of residents has been improved, and the aesthetic tastes of residents have been enhanced.
Life is for the masses, and art is for the masses. Urban micro-renewal is no longer a single and top-down passive closed-loop behavior of artists, architects and government departments, but a more open, pluralistic, bottom-up public behavior in which local residents actively participate.
Fits the context
Conforming to the historical context of the community and the urban texture is an important connotation of art's intervention in the local interpretation of community creation. Cities are living systems made up of different and numerous communities. Different communities present different and diverse value orientations because of different ethnic groups, different economic conditions and even different lifestyles.
In recent years, with the concern of people in the process of urban renewal about urban memory and urban fabric, some cities in China have gained a lot of experience in the conservation development of historical districts and traditional communities. Such as Beijing's Dashilar and Chengdu's wide and narrow alley renovation projects. Such cases are booming around the world and have become an important trend and orientation in public art practice. The same example of public art in the ghettomanis neighborhood of Havana was mentioned earlier. Foster's aesthetic of life and his creative impulses derive from the nourishment of the maritime culture of the Caribbean islands and the more distant Spain of the Iberian Peninsula. In this community project, the ideas and opinions of the neighbors become an important source of Foster's works, and the entire creative process may be seen as a public welfare activity in the form of aesthetic education, full of secular pleasures and the aesthetics of life.
The essence of public welfare
Public welfare is the trend of art to intervene in the community to create a spiritual driving force. Public art itself is an ideology that presents the public welfare by artistic means. The counterpoint between the two allows artistic expression to find the moral fulcrum of public interest and public participation; the coupling between the two is the coupling of moral education and aesthetic education, which becomes the value of more aesthetic expression tension and social radiation. Art's intervention in the community is essentially a modern public welfare, social welfare and cultural livelihood. People can participate in the public activities of the community through art, public projects and joint participation to obtain and share this social welfare and social benefits. In recent years, the distribution of cultural products and the "sinking" of art communities have also been favored and welcomed by residents. The streets, parks, green spaces, walls and even corridors of apartments in the community have become public spaces for artistic expression. Some large-scale activities such as the Civic Culture Festival and the Shanghai Urban Space Art Season also have projects with the community as the platform carrier, and this year's Urban Space Art Festival will place one of the main exhibition areas in Caoyang Xincun Street, which can be said to be a specific interpretation of the concept of "15-minute community life circle".
As an important phenomenon in the development of public art in recent years, community art has shifted from the block to the community in the expression space of art works and artistic acts, and the main body of creation has changed from artists to community residents. Obviously, as the most basic "aggregate state" of urban culture, the community is also the catalyst and carrier for the occurrence and development of public art, and its role is becoming more prominent in the process of the new round of urban renewal and urban aesthetic construction. (Xu Mingsong)