<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Participatory arts can invite stormy and violent forms of participation when they are commissioned for sites where frustration, territorial control and pre-emptive self-defense involve practices of accepted street codes by those living within racialized, febrile territories. Through the case study of Aroma Home, a participatory art gardening project, in Paris’s northern peripheries, I analyze instances of affective, symbolic, performative and territorial violence as non-normative political acts of participation. Examining the underlying contexts and logics that led to these incidents, I argue that the most insidious act of violence in the project was the creation of our invasive, extractive garden on a hitherto unclaimed and unidentified patch of ‘free’ public ground. In creating a new identity for this wasteland and defining its use, we effectively limited, and implicitly prescribed, modes of participation that were culturally alien to those we most wanted to involve.</p>
</abstract>

Participatory arts can invite stormy and violent forms of participation when they are commissioned for sites where frustration, territorial control and pre-emptive self-defense involve practices of accepted street codes by those living within racialized, febrile territories. Through the case study of Aroma Home, a participatory art gardening project, in Paris’s northern peripheries, I analyze instances of affective, symbolic, performative and territorial violence as non-normative political acts of participation. Examining the underlying contexts and logics that led to these incidents, I argue that the most insidious act of violence in the project was the creation of our invasive, extractive garden on a hitherto unclaimed and unidentified patch of ‘free’ public ground. In creating a new identity for this wasteland and defining its use, we effectively limited, and implicitly prescribed, modes of participation that were culturally alien to those we most wanted to involve.

The violent beauty of a banlieue wasteland garden

Independent scholar, Artistic director, Friches Théâtre Urbain

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This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Public License.

{"article-title":"The violent beauty of a banlieue wasteland garden"}

Participatory arts can invite stormy and violent forms of participation when they are commissioned for sites where frustration, territorial control and...

The violent beauty of a banlieue wasteland garden

Published Online: Jun 27, 2024

Page range: 1 - 18

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/tjcp-2024-0010

Keywords
Violence, suburbs, participatory arts, riot, urbanism, street codes

© 2024 Sarah Harper., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Public License.

The violent beauty of a banlieue wasteland garden

Published Online: Jun 27, 2024

Page range: 1 - 18

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/tjcp-2024-0010

KeywordsViolence, suburbs, participatory arts, riot, urbanism, street codes

© 2024 Sarah Harper., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Public License.

Keywords
Violence, suburbs, participatory arts, riot, urbanism, street codes