Unlimited

Authorized users

Can lend chapters, not whole ebooks

Artistic utopias of revolt : Claremont Road, reclaim the streets, and the City of Sol / Julia Ramírez Blanco.

9783319714226
3319714228
331971421X
9783319714219

Cham, Switzerland : Palgrave Macmillan, [2018]

English

1 online resource (XVI, 187 pages) : 49 illustrations, 43 illustrations in color

10.1007/978-3-319-71422-6 doi

HM883 .R36 2018

322.4094

This book analyses the aesthetic and utopian dimensions of various activist social movements in Western Europe since 1989. Through a series of case studies, it demonstrates how dreams of a better society have manifested themselves in contexts of political confrontation, and how artistic forms have provided a language to express the collective desire for social change. The study begins with the 1993 occupation of Claremont Road in east London, an attempt to prevent the demolition of homes to make room for a new motorway. In a squatted row of houses, all available space was transformed and filled with elements that were both aesthetic and defensive - so when the authorities arrived to evict the protestors, sculptures were turned into barricades. At the end of the decade, this kind of performative celebration merged with the practices of the antiglobalisation movement, where activists staged spectacular parallel events alongside the global elite's international meetings. As this book shows, social movements try to erase the distance that separates reality and political desire, turning ordinary people into creators of utopias. Squatted houses, carnivalesque street parties, counter-summits, and camps in central squares, all create a physical place of these utopian visions.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Access limited to authorized users.

text file PDF

Palgrave studies in utopianism.

Printed edition: 9783319714219

Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources