City of creative privatisation: Fly posting and the public realm in Bremen

Abstract

Creative and cultural production, especially on the part of independent no‐ or low‐budget projects, rely on self‐made flyers, stickers and posters to publicise their events and existence. The city of Bremen, just like many other cities, however, increasingly regulates and privatises billboards and even walls, rubbish bins and electric wiring boxes. Subscribing to a decisively Floridian discourse of creativity, talent and success, urban administrations aim to attract creative potential to their urban cores whilst simultaneously prohibiting creative uses of public spaces and surfaces. At first sight perhaps a minor matter, especially when considering the extensive debates around the privatisation of public spaces, such containment measures result in a dispossession in a double sense: firstly, surfaces in the public realm that are not (yet) economically exploited are commodified and thereby withdrawn from their free usage and secondly, these surfaces are managed and controlled by agencies that are not subject to direct democratic influence.

Key words:

• public space
• privatisation
• Bremen
• independent cultural production
• fly posting

Notes