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Free keywords:
Lefebvre; Mostar; contested city; heterotopia; site-specific art intervention; worlding
Abstract:
This article examines how artistic interventions in public space become worlding practices that challenge established, global representations of cities. Focusing on Mostar, an ethnically divided city in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the essay contrasts the global representation of the city as intolerant and uncooperative to the worlding practices of Abart, a collective whose art interventions make visible moments of solidarity among supposedly antagonistic actors. Through the mobilization of Lefebvre’s core concepts of the production of space and heterotopia, this article explores how Abart navigates global funding streams through the re-appropriation of donors’ vocabulary as a means of countering their dominant narratives that limit the very potentials of urban activism. Thus, Mostar’s network of activists constitutes a significant example of grassroots actors critically intervening into the ‘art of being global’.
