We Tact! Urban Imagineering and the Construction of Cool Cities workshop in Budapest!

CEU Workshop, September 30 - October 1, 2015

Image is everything. The way people, companies, causes and places are presented is increasingly deemed to be a key to success. City and neighborhood branding has become an urban policy tool; culture, history, aesthetics are consciously and creatively deployed in urban redevelopment projects. Many activities and places which had been considered uninteresting and better to hide have become ‘cool’ and sell well (street food, street art, slum tourism, red-light and entertainment districts, ruin pubs, lofts).

Image is everything. Or, perhaps not?

The Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology* in cooperation with the TACT network (International Research on Art and the City) is running a one-day workshop to critically engage with the discussion of urban imagineering—the process through which professional and non-professional urban actors actively generate specific images, narratives and symbols of the city and strategically use them in redevelopment,—the role of urban imagination in the construction of ‘cool’ cities, and its relationship with politics and economy.

If interested, pls. contact: Juli Székely (szekely_julia@phd.ceu.edu)

* supported by the CEU Event Fund