This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ The Role of Art and Artists in Contesting Gentrification in London and New York City Vona, Viktoria Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 09. Oct. 2021 The Role of Art and Artists in Contesting Gentrification in London and New York City Viktoria Vona King’s College London Department of Geography A thesis submitted to the University of London in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy April 2015 Abstract Gentrification, the contentious terrain where neo-liberalism meets housing, has been widely explored in urban geography, with few under researched areas remaining. This thesis fills one such gap by focusing on artists - a group who have been historically noted to contribute at all stages of gentrification, from triggering it to ultimately being displaced themselves. With increased consciousness of the process opening up their role in a new direction, artists are also more recently engaging in fervent activism and resistance in trying to control the aggressive spread of gentrification. This study concentrates on artists in situ in two cities with widespread gentrification, the international art hubs: London and New York City. The artists interviewed for this study have been resisting gentrification in non-violent ways, using their art to protest. Complementing in-depth interviews and a critique of art works, analysis is carried out to seek how and why artists are motivated to resist and how they reconcile themselves with the contradictions over their roles in gentrification. This thesis demonstrates the existence of new trajectories for the roles of artists in gentrification, particularly in terms of efforts of stalling, or finding an alternative for the process. Overall, artists are aware of what they represent in the gentrification process and are motivated to mitigate any adverse effects of this. On a broader scale, the study uncovers an incubating social movement: grassroots activism which finds itself colliding head-on with the top-down paradigm of economic value creation over social equality. Although the various individual actors in this struggle are not always connected or even aware of each other; some are organising themselves to fight the tide of gentrification, learning and sharing valuable lessons along the way, which have the potential to be useful to those positioning themselves against gentrification. 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors Loretta Lees at the University of Leicester and Tim Butler at King’s College London. I am also very grateful to all the artists and curators in both London and New York City who gave their time to speak to me about their experiences of resisting gentrification. Anthony Barton, Charles Barton, Juliet Kahne, Gary Balaton, Tine Waag Fjeldstad, Emily Woodhouse, Roanne Marner and Joanne Ahern all proof read parts of the manuscript. The ESRC funded this research through a 1+3 award. 3 Table of contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................... 3 Table of contents ......................................................................................................................... 4 List of figures and tables............................................................................................................... 9 Chapter One: Introduction ......................................................................................................... 14 1.1 Gentrification and artists ......................................................................................................... 14 1.2 Rationale ................................................................................................................................... 15 1.3 Origins of the research ........................................................................................................... 18 1.4 Framing of the research ......................................................................................................... 18 1.5 Implications of the research ................................................................................................... 19 1.6 Thesis outline ........................................................................................................................... 20 Chapter Two: Literature review .................................................................................................. 23 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 23 2.2 Artists and gentrification ......................................................................................................... 23 2.2.1 A definition of art and artists ........................................................................................... 23 2.2.1.1 Definition of artists .................................................................................................... 23 2.2.1.2 Definition of art .......................................................................................................... 26 2.2.2 A definition of gentrification ............................................................................................. 28 2.2.2.1 Gentrification and class ............................................................................................ 29 2.2.2.2 Gentrification stage models ..................................................................................... 31 2.2.2.3 Updating the stage models ...................................................................................... 34 2.3 The role of artists in gentrification ......................................................................................... 35 2.3.1 Artists as instigators of gentrification ............................................................................. 35 2.3.1.1 Artists as total causal agents .................................................................................. 36 2.3.1.2 Artists as supporting causal agents or tools ......................................................... 38 2.3.1.3 Gentrification without artists .................................................................................... 41 2.3.1.4 Summary .................................................................................................................... 42 2.3.2 Artists as victims of gentrification ................................................................................... 43 2.3.2.1 Evidence of artists’ displacement ........................................................................... 43 2.3.2.2 Measuring displacement .......................................................................................... 44 2.3.3 Artists romanticised and politicised ............................................................................... 44 2.3.3.1 Economic .................................................................................................................... 45 2.3.3.2 Class ........................................................................................................................... 45 2.3.3.3 Political ....................................................................................................................... 47 2.3.4 Artists resisting gentrification .......................................................................................... 48 2.4 The role of art in gentrification ............................................................................................... 49 2.4.1 Types of art ....................................................................................................................... 50 2.4.2 The art market ................................................................................................................... 50 2.4.3 Art as an object fuelling gentrification ........................................................................... 52 2.4.4 Political art ........................................................................................................................