Curating the City

Since the 1970s, exhibitions, museums and artistic events have gained a central role in shaping the transformation of the city. Art, culture and knowledge have become the instruments through which cities have faced the crisis of industrial economy and the rise of new paradigms and values of urban development, often hand-in-hand with processes of financial speculation and the intensification of social inequalities. Today, artistic practices, with their immediacy of means, their capacity to mobilize images and affects and their organisational structure, seem to have transformed the way in which cities are planned and built. What is the relation between art, artists and the city? How are artistic events transforming cities? Are curators the new architects and urban planners? Beyond the unmet promises of the “creative city,” can curatorial practices become forms of care for our cities?