Interrupting the public realm: performative excursions

Abstract

In the context of debates on place, space, and identity in a period of globalisation, this article asks whether collaborative arts projects are a means to identity formation for participants. This is of interest, not least, because such projects are outside consumption, the latter more often discussed in work on identity in sociology. Situated perhaps between the arts and the development work of NGOs, such projects also imply a viable, democratic public sphere distinct from a public realm constituted conventionally by urban public spaces or marked by public art. From two contrasting projects within the programme Capital do Nada in Marvila, a social housing district of Lisbon, in 2001, the article argues that as well as contributing to identity formation they have a capacity to evoke the imagination of new social formations. It contextualises the projects, describes them, and argues that they challenge received notions of identity formation based in consumption. Then, referencing Habermas and Fraser's critique of Habermas, and the performative in Arendt and Sennett, the article ends with broader speculation on the relevance of such art work for social theory.